STORY: British expat explores ginseng culture in northeast China
SHOOTING TIME: Nov. 20, 2024
DATELINE: Nov. 29, 2024
LENGTH: 00:02:24
LOCATION: CHANGCHUN, China 
CATEGORY: HEALTH 

SHOTLIST:
1. SOUNDBITE 1 (English): MARK WINTON, British expat in China
2. SOUNDBITE 2 (Chinese): Guide at the ginseng museum of Changchun University of Chinese Medicine
3. SOUNDBITE 3 (English): MARK WINTON, British expat in China
4. SOUNDBITE 4 (English): MARK WINTON, British expat in China    
   
STORYLINE:

SOUNDBITE 1 (English): MARK WINTON, British expat in China
"Today, I'm here at the CCUCM (Changchun University of Chinese Medicine) museum of ginseng, and today, I'm gonna take you on a journey, so let's go and have a look. 

SOUNDBITE 2 (Chinese): Guide at the ginseng museum of Changchun University of Chinese Medicine
"Ginseng holds a special place in Jilin Province. It's one of the 'Three Treasures of Northeast China' and Jilin's best-known traditional medicinal herb. The record of its medicinal use dates back to the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica), where it was classified as a top-grade herb."

SOUNDBITE 3 (English): MARK WINTON, British expat in China
"They have to prepare for ginseng and once they're ready, they're then going to go and have a little prayer to the gods, hopefully, to find something and then they go off looking for it. Once they find it, they have to mark the area and they use this very special red string to tie it to the ground, so it doesn't run away or get up a walk and they know where to find it. And then later on after many years, it has grown 5, 10, 15 leaves. The people will come back and they'll dig it up very carefully and they'll wrap it in wood bark and then it's ready, good to go. All right guys, here, we have the ginseng with some red string and two little coins. This is to show people where the ginseng is. Right, guys, to preserve ginseng you can do it two ways. One, you can dry it. Or two, you can put it in a pot with alcohol. And if you come down here and look at this, you can see the color has been very dark. Now this would mean roughly that this ginseng has been preserved for 40 years."

SOUNDBITE 4 (English): MARK WINTON, British expat in China
"As the top ginseng producing area in China, Jilin with its natural resources and infrastructure is moving towards a better future."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Changchun, China.
(XHTV)