Zixuan Yang
I was born and raised in the beautiful and salubrious city of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in southwestern China, near the border with Myanmar and Vietnam. With its spring-like weather all year round, delicious food, and picturesque sceneries, Kunming provided a perfect backdrop for a relaxing childhood. After senior high, I began my undergrad in Shanghai. I fully embraced the prosperity and convenience of this unique metropolis in China, especially enjoying the cozy city walks that the city offers. Last year, I embarked on a new journey by moving to the US to start my college life at WashU. Surprisingly, this place provides me the best campus lifetime ever, fully attracted by the unpolluted nature, breathtaking sunset, unique four-season sceneries, slow-past but peaceful town life, and always-friendly people.
One of the most unique dishes at my hometown would definitely be wild mushrooms. Yunnan breeds diverse resources of wild edible fungi thanks to its complex topography, various forests, soil types and unique three-dimensional climatic conditions. The edible fungi in Yunnan accounts for more than half of the world’s edible fungi and two-thirds of that available in China. Except the delicious taste, some edible mushrooms are even more famous for high nutrition and medicinal value.
However, certain mushrooms like boletus mushroom contain slight poison before being fully cooked. So, it’s interesting that mushroom poisoning happens every year without careful cooking and people will experience extremely real illusions just like using the Vision Pro.
Mushrooms are mostly cooked with green or dry red peppers, others may be braised together with chicken, providing special fragrance and fresh and sweet taste. Every year from July to September, large quantities of mushrooms grow and mature after heavy rain, and Yunnan people start to welcome their best season.
During winter break, I visited Hawaii with my cousin. Despite the cozy weather and chill lifestyle, we had adventurous experiences in paragliding and volcano parks. The paragliding tour at Honolulu was so great that we were lifted to 800 ft height and enjoyed the extreme silence above the ocean surface. Though it’s not as thrilling as parachuting, we still saw the magnificent view of Oahu Island. As for the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on a big island, we happened to experience the coldest and craziest time in Hawaii since the whole area was shrouded in heavy rain, strong wind, and low visibility. A fun fact is that NASA has certain Mars survival testing projects at Mauna Ulu (a volcano within the park) due to its Mars-like environment. Though we didn’t see the flowing lava for the bad weather, we surprisingly felt like filming “The Martian.”
