Day 8- FAFU Student Meet & Greet, Pandas, and Tea Ceremony

Dr. Shan, dean of Horticulture greeted us and gave a brief introduction about the college. Fujian Agriculture & Forestry University’s College of Horticulture was established in 1940. Majors include disciplines in Horticulture, Tea Science and Facility Agriculture Science & Engineering which offers undergraduate and graduate programs. About 15 Chinese students attended the seminar. We each got to introduce ourselves and say what we were interested in. These students seemed a bit younger than the first group we met at NAU.

Most were freshman or sophomores who had no idea what they wanted to do when they grew up. We talked mostly about school and how they had no time free time. I still found it very interesting how students from China viewed college and what was required of them.

After lunch we took the public bus to Strait (FuZhou) Panda World. It was really sad. The oldest panda was the first we saw. She was 34 years old and completely blind. She recently had cataract surgery. There are only 5 pandas in the world that are over 30 years old in captivity and this was one of them. Her living quarters were very small and run down. She looked very uncomfortable and hot. The other pandas were the same. I felt so bad. They also had a bunch of red pandas that were all in one area. All looked so hot and were panting. Their area was made completely of concrete and was quite dirty. It wasn’t the greatest experience but at least I got to see pandas in China.

During our visit with the Pandas thunder began to roll in. In was very loud and threatening. When we were about to leave it began to rain heavily. Thank goodness I bought an umbrella! We walked for a bit before taking shelter in an adjacent park. It was so beautiful. Everything was green and the landscape was very well kept. There was a large body of water that bordered the park. It was very beautiful seeing the lightning and rain drops falling on the water. About 20min later it finally stopped. We made it to the bus stop and headed back to FAFU for a traditional tea ceremony.

We gathered around a large rectangle table in the tea building when we arrived on campus. This place is run 100% by students. They started by showing us a few of the dry teas such as Jasmine and Oolong. They explained that there are six different kinds of teas: green tea, white tea, black tea, dark tea, yellow tea and jasmine tea. Each type of tea has a different remedy for the body. Yellow tea is the rarest. The colors of the leaves are yellow then turn the hot water yellow when mixed together. He then poured hot water on the top of the leaves a few times before serving us in little cups. I enjoyed the jasmine tea the best. Our ceremony started as traditional then became chaotic once the buying frenzy began. Once informed that we had a 50% discount everyone wanted to buy all the flavors available. Unfortunately they didn’t have yellow so I couldn’t bring it home to try. I was happy our group bought so much since 100% of the proceeds go to the students and the tea facility. It was a long fun filled day!