From Ginseng to Gears (Chapters 0-1)

February 10, 2025:

Mr. Hu (Brother Hu), driving me through the streets of Shenzhen in the evening.

The scent of earth can cling to a person. Even years after he left the black loam of the Northeast, I still smelled its nurturing sod on his stories—the musky pride of forests, the crisp certainty of winters that crackle, white and uncaring, like old bones. The man driving the cab that day had it all over him. Not literally, but in his voice—buoyant, seasoned, swelling with that nostalgic rhythm peculiar to Northeast China, where sentences sway like folk songs and laughter is as hearty as moonshine. He had the manner of a man who’d once sold something sacred, and now sold only his time.

“We were marketing, marketing our hometown's ginseng,” he said, steering the wheel with one hand and gesturing with the other, like he was back in a boardroom. “You know ginseng, right? One of the ‘three treasures of the Northeast’—ginseng, mink fur, and wula grass. But now? Now it’s ginseng, mink fur, and deer antlers. Ginseng is in both bands. The old treasure still reigns.”

His cab hummed down the Shenzhen freeway like a low thought, slipping between newly completed towers and overpasses crisscrossing the sky above the older roads from the last decade. We’d been talking for close to two hours, and it felt less like a ride and more like sitting in someone’s living room while they told the story of how they’d been uprooted.

“I didn’t have anything to do at home,” he began, referring to 2018. “My godson, he was already managing the Southern China part of a ginseng company. So I figured, hell, why not go with him? I was idle, he had work, and he pulled me down with him to Shenzhen.”

He spoke of it as a whim, but what followed was a story of reinvention that’s not chosen, but necessary.

Ginseng Man

“We started a sales team down here,” he said. “Provincial-level office, set up right in Songgang, Bao’an. That was our outward-facing branch.”

He described the process like a general recalling troop movements: setting up the province’s regional network, deciding territories—“My godson listed all these cities in Guangdong for me to pick from, you know, like Zhanjiang, Guangzhou, Huizhou, Yangchun, Shaoguan, Meizhou, Chaozhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan. Shenzhen was the only one I’ve really heard of. I had never been here before and had no clue what it was like. But I said ‘let’s go to Shenzhen.’ And my godson said ‘why not? Shenzhen it is, then.’”

And so he became Shenzhen’s regional manager for a traditional medicine company specializing in Northeastern ginseng. But this wasn’t folklore and incense. This was business.

“We worked with OTCs, over-the-counter pharmaceutical chains,” he explained. “Big names—Haiwang Xingcheng, Boda—you know, these are the national players. I handled Shenzhen. Spoke directly to their headquarters. Procurement directors, finance, purchasing officers...we negotiated bulk orders, delivery cycles, rebate structures. Monthly settlements. Real numbers. Real hustle.”

Ginseng, he emphasized, wasn’t some mystical root passed from monk to disciple. It was supply chain, marketing collateral, and training protocols.

“Every week, I’d run sessions. Weekends, weekdays, didn’t matter. Go to a pharmacy, do shelf training. Teach the staff how to sell the stuff. Most of them didn’t know ginseng from ginger, hahaha! Nah, that was a bad joke. Pretty much everyone knows ginseng. But just how much?”

He laughed hard, half cough, half bark. “You gotta tell ‘em—what’s the difference between qi deficiency and yang deficiency, or on the flip side, yin deficiency? Yin-yang, which began as Taoist concepts, are quite important in how TCM understands diseases. You want to establish a balance between yin and yang, or in the modern sense, people call it homeostasis. When do you use dried roots? When do you use ginseng extract? What’s for post-illness recovery, what’s for boosting vitality day to day? It’s way beyond what folk knowledge covers—it’s pharmacology. We have specialized, professional trainers. Our trainer had slides. The chain stores have regular meetings where the managers gather up to hear announcements from the headquarters, and usually toward the end of those meetings, one of our trainers goes up, introduces themself, and starts lecturing about ginseng. So you can imagine one Monday morning, thirty store managers in one room, all yawning, and here they go saying something along the lines of: ‘This root takes six years in the soil, cultivated on a piece of land without forest cover, fully compliant with the 2015 national medicinal regulations. It’s got heat, it’s got kick, and it’ll knock the cold right outta your bones.’”

He paused and looked over, gauging if I followed.

“It’s a performance. You’ve gotta believe in what you sell.”

And he did. He believed in that root like it was a piece of his childhood.

“I can talk about ginseng for hours,” he said, grinning. “Want to hear the full pitch?”

He didn’t wait for an answer.

“First of all, not all ginseng is created equal. The best kind? Fei-lin-di zhongzhi de—non-forest cultivation. That’s what we did. It applied the newest technology at that time, and the state approved and promoted it. Six-year roots, just like the national guidelines set in 2015. That’s the real stuff. Deep roots, thick fibers. Not the fake ones soaked in bitter, dirt water sprayed with fertilizers.”

He leaned his arm over the steering wheel, slowing at a red light.

“You cut a good ginseng root? It smells like earth after rain. Slightly bitter, slightly sweet, if it’s fresh ginseng. You slice it and soak it in hot water, then drink it slowly, and the qi-xue starts to warm your chest. Great for the elderly, for folks recovering from illness. For young people working long hours, better than energy drinks, I tell you.”

He paused to laugh. “Course, young people don’t listen. They want Red Bull. They don’t want to soak herbs for forty minutes and drink bitter, hot stuff.”

Then, more seriously, he added, “But ginseng teaches patience. You plant it and wait six years. Six. No shortcuts. That’s almost a life lesson.”

From Root to Road

When I asked him how he transitioned into being a taxi driver, he shrugged, as if it were both obvious and absurd. For a few seconds, that was all that happened as silence temporarily took hold.

“What else was I gonna do? My family’s here now. I can’t go back to Dongbei (the Northeast). Not alone. And you gotta eat, right?”

He laughed. “走着吃比坐着吃强 (zouzhe chi zongbi zuozhe chi qiang, It’s better to work on your feet than starve sitting). That’s what we say.”

The taxi business was steady. In China, taxi driving, food delivery, and express delivery are collectively called a “triathlon” for their labor-, time-, and mobility-intensive nature. These jobs require little skills or training, and so became the default option for white collar and middle class individuals who lost their jobs over the past few years amid rising unemployment rates. He leased the vehicle himself, paid his own insurance, covered fuel, and operated under a ride-hailing app’s umbrella. “But it was still, technically, self-employment.”

“I  work when I want, in a sense. I still have to drive, though, drive until I’m tired, I should say. Nobody’s breathing down my neck, but I’ve got nothing else to do, and my family’s got to eat. There’s got to be a breadwinner.”

He leaned forward, eyes on the road. “It’s not sales, but there’s still a pitch. Every conversation is a kind of transaction. And people love to talk. Especially to someone who listens. Some people cry. Some tell you their entire business plan. I once had a passenger make me detour thirty minutes just to keep talking. He said I reminded him of his uncle in Harbin.”

Nostalgia for the North

“I miss the snow,” he said softly. “Not the cold. Just the snow.”

He described Chinese New Year celebrations, frozen lakes, streets where ginseng roots and other gifts were sold by grams and kilos, then marinated in wine or boiled in soups that steamed through restaurant windows.

“I used to know the vendors. I can tell which ones were honest and which ones sold stuff of bad quality, or used ghost scales, the Chinese slang term for manipulated electronic scales that display weight higher than something’s actual weight, often used by retail sellers to boost revenue. Which ones watered down their stock. I’d touch a root and know its grade. One glance, I’d know the soil it grew in. You can’t fake that.”

He smiled, then sighed. “No one here asks me about ginseng anymore. No one cares.”

But he obviously did. He lectured me endlessly about it.

Passengers and Passer-by

One night, he told me, a teenage boy got into his car at midnight. The boy had missed the last metro and had no money. He was driving his cab to its driving station and was about to end his day. But instead of kicking him out, he drove him home.

“I remember being that age,” he said.

The boy promised to repay him the next day. He never did. The driver didn’t mind.

“What’s twenty bucks, eh? I got a story out of it. Not all of them end that way.”

He recounted another fare—an older woman with shopping bags who opened up about her husband’s dementia. “She just wanted someone to say it to,” he said. “You know, to say it out loud.”

Some nights, he said, the conversations were better than money. “Drivers on this platform don’t do shift work, we rent or buy our own cars and drive half a day or so—12 hours—and then our car goes to rest, lying idle, like we do. I drive in the daytime because there are more passengers, and the night shift bonus is nothing big. Sometimes I wake up late and drive till late at night. Some people are very talkative at night. Others entirely silent.”

“Some of the passengers, you know, think we’re invisible. Just a hand on the wheel, which might be true one day with self-driving cars. But I hear everything. I see how the city’s changing—how prices are rising, how jobs come and go, how dialects mix. I can tell you grew up in Shenzhen, someone else moved here from the Midwest, etc. My dashboard’s like a stethoscope.”

“I’ll probably keep driving until my knees give out.”

“Unless something better comes along. But what could that be? I’m 53. No Shenzhen company’s looking to hire an old salesperson from the Northeast, you know.”

He waved to an electric bike driver cutting into his lane.

As we approached our destination, he gave me a few food recs. Mostly of Northeastern cuisine.

He dropped me off with a firm handshake and a warm “慢走啊 (Take care now).”

Q&A: A Conversation with the ginseng man

Interviewer: When did you first come to Shenzhen?

Driver: 2018. That year I didn’t have much going on back home. I was staying in my home, without a job, essentially. My godson was already running a ginseng distributor company—he called me and said, “Uncle, come down here and help out.” I thought, why not? We were close. So I packed a bag, left the snow behind, and stepped into this furnace of a city. At first, I thought I’d just help out for a few months, trying this new lifestyle out. But you know how that goes—one season becomes a year, and now it’s been what, six?

Interviewer: What did you do when you first came here?

Driver: I ran the Guangdong region for our ginseng sales. We sold to OTC pharmacies—Haiwang Xingcheng, Boda, and smaller local ones too, like Minxin and Hehua. See, there’s a Minxin right over there; it’s a chain store, but local—once you’re outside of Shenzhen, you don’t see Minxin. It was less about selling boxes than it was 搞关系 (Gao Guanxi, building and managing social relations). Procurement departments, finance officers, store managers—I had to sit across the table and make deals, month by month, batch by batch. Sometimes we sit across from each other at a table in their office, other times we sit at the dinner table and drink Maotai. Have you ever seen those shelves in the corner of a pharmacy with the transparent boxes? Glass or plastic? Ginseng is a premium stock. We put it in a square or rectangular box, place a red and yellow piece of cloth underneath, and a root or two on top so everyone can see it lying there, right at the middle. It’s not like aspirin. It needs to be placed the right way and explained the right way. We made sure they knew what they were selling.

Interviewer: Did you enjoy it?

Driver: I loved it. Not the stress—God knows about that part, though it’s quite standard and simple, except to those unfamiliar with the process—but the product. Ginseng is rooted in Chinese medicine; its medicinal qualities are potent and important. You can’t fake a good root. When I trained staff, I talked a lot about the things deep beyond the surface. “This one grew for six years, non-forest cultivated, so it survived the sunburn and enjoyed all the nutrients in the land. The height of soil it grew on should be 30-40 cm above ground level, the topsoil at this layer is relatively loose and has high permeability for air and water, which ginseng likes very much. If the soil’s in a valley or not elevated properly, it gets easily flooded during the more rainy seasons. The roots are then stuck on the surface—it can’t breathe if it goes down. So what you get then is small, badlooking, and red-dotted ginseng. We sell the good ones only. You can taste the land in it.” And when someone believed me—when they lit up like, oh, so that’s what this does—that’s when it felt worth it.

Interviewer: What happened when COVID hit?

Driver: Well, Covid, you know…Everything went silent. Like a switch flipped. In 2019, we were preparing for a national expansion. By spring 2020, I was sitting on my couch in the same pajamas for three days straight. Customers stopped buying at pharmacies. Pharmacies stopped ordering from us. No one came in. Everyone was scared. Whole neighborhoods were locked. People weren’t thinking about boosting their qi xue—they were thinking about staying alive. And so…our team dissolved. No meetings. No calls. Just gone. I tried calling my old contacts, but no one was even picking up. That’s when I knew I had to figure something else out.

Interviewer: And that was driving?

Driver: Well…yeah. Yeah, I’ve been lying in my home doing nothing for two years. At first, it was just a thought. Like, what can a guy my age do? I'm not going to sit in a warehouse. My knees won’t let me, haha. So, I tried out the driving platform. Got all the licenses, rented a car, started small. What else is there to do? I’ve got a family, and we all need to eat.

Interviewer: What’s your daily routine like now?

Driver: Wake up 7 or 8, or later. Stretch. Eat something simple—leftover congee from last night, maybe a steamed bun. Then I check the app, see where the peak hours are. I drive in the afternoons and evenings mostly. The morning rush is somewhat early for me, haha. I stopped taking naps after lunch because, obviously, I’ve got nowhere else to lie down except in my car, which is small and not the most comfortable. So I sleep more in the morning instead. Evenings, people talk more too. They open up; they’re more awake and relaxed, both at the same time. I keep my cab clean, I play old love songs. It makes people relax.

Interviewer: You mentioned your daughter. How has she adjusted?

Driver: Oh, she’s thriving, absolutely. She got her bachelor’s degree in 2021, majoring in computer science. She came straight to Shenzhen. Got a job in Nanshan, a full-time tech firm. Moved her hukou here. That’s a big deal, you know. Shenzhen gives talent subsidies—fifteen thousand, maybe sixteen. But only for very specific degree holders. Only for the ‘desirable’ ones. I’ve been here for six, seven years, I worked more years, but I don’t have an urban hukou.

Interviewer: What does hukou mean to you?

Driver: Well…It’s certainly not just registration. It’s a sense of belonging, legitimacy, if you will. Access—to healthcare, to pension systems, to social security plans. I don’t pay into social security; I have the choice because I’m self-employed, in a sense. But not paying is one thing, and not having the option to pay is another. Without hukou, you don’t get that option. Respect. With hukou, you can send your kids to good schools, get healthcare, apply for loans more easily. Without it, you’re always temporary. Like a guest overstaying your welcome. Talking of welcome, you know the slogan “来了就是深圳人” (Laile Jiushi Shenzhen-ren, “if you come to Shenzhen, we'll welcome you as a Shenzhen-ese.”) right? It’s everywhere here. But it’s for some people only. My daughter got in the front door. I’m still out back, looking through the window.

Interviewer: How do you stay hopeful amid this?

Driver: I mean, what’s the alternative? There’s not much I can do. I remind myself what I’ve already survived. I’ve seen famines. Blackouts. I’ve seen whole towns vanish, when Dongbei went from a prosperous industrial hub in the past century to what it is today. This? This is just another turn.

Interviewer: Do you miss your old job?

Driver: Well, sort of. You don’t feel it when you’re still at that position—you’re following the convention and the schedule, you introduce yourself as a regional manager, you draft and present and edit contracts, you give toasts and hand out gifts on the drinking table. But now, it’s okay. At least no one can fire me now, haha. I own my hours.

Interviewer: If you could give advice to your younger self, what would it be?

Driver: Learn computers, maybe. The world is made of screens now. Also—save more, but that’s more like for myself five years ago. I wasn’t young then. Trust less. And write things down. I still remember all that stuff about ginseng I told you, but you won’t believe it, I haven’t even recalled half of what’s there! I’ve had so many deals, memories, so many stories to tell—some just slip away. I wish I kept a journal. Maybe I’ll start one. You know, you tell yourself that, and then you wait for the next day, perpetually so.

Interviewer: When you were managing the ginseng sales, did you ever travel to villages or meet with farmers who actually harvested it?

Driver: Oh yeah. I’ve been back to the Northeast a few times. Each time I go back to visit the field, I pass by my home and stay for a few days, haha. If you only stay in offices and boardrooms, you forget the core of our product: Dongbei ginseng is great because, of course, is ginseng, but more so because it’s grown in Dongbei. The tradition, the climatic conditions, the technology, all the stuff made ginseng the top among the “three treasures of the Northeast.” I used to go to Fusong County in Jilin—Jilin is my hometown. That’s the heartland—real, authentic Feilin-di. The soil there is dark and rich, and farmers take great care harvesting the roots. The scene goes to prove the roots’ quality; I tell coworkers to take photos, and I describe how the roots are like before they get in our glass boxes and put on the shelf. I remember this one old man, who’d been farming his whole life. Early on, he seeded staples only because even then, some people still starve; that was back in the 50s and 60s. There were times he’d find wild ginseng when tilling the ground, and he’d save and wait to sell it when the town market opens. The village collective initiated campaigns to clear forests and make arable land, slash and burn. Then a few decades later there’s 退耕还林 (Tuigeng Huanlin, “grain for green,” the official slogan for a decade long campaign to reforest areas that had been cleared for farming). And then a few years ago, they reversed course again and started 退林还耕 (Tuilin Huangeng, “green for grain,” expanding arable land through clearing forest covers). So, anyways, the old man had a lot to experience in his life. He’s born a generation earlier, you know. I always think of myself as lucky for not being born at his time. Anyways, now he’s been a ginseng farmer for over a decade; the cultivation techniques’ gotten better, people starve a lot less these days, and it just became more profitable to grow ginseng. He said, “Ginseng is more temperamental than a cat. It needs shade but not too much. Moisture but never soggy. You have to give it water, but the water can’t stay in the soil or else the roots won’t go down there. It’s like…cats! Cat’s can’t live without water, but they’re afraid of water. When you want to chase away cats because they make such a huge mating noise, you spray cold water at them. And ginseng’s even more delicate. If you talk too loud, it won’t grow right, haha!” He was joking, of course. Or perhaps half-joking.

Interviewer: Earlier, you said something about being proud of your pitch. Can you walk me through a specific moment, maybe a training session or negotiation, that stands out?

Driver: Ah yes. There was this particular one at the Haiwang Xingchen headquarters. Monday morning, all their store managers in the region had gathered. Usually, they give you ten, fifteen minutes. That day, they gave me half an hour. So I thought I might as well give a lecture worth 30 minutes. I walked in with samples, brochures, even a small thermos of brewed ginseng tea. I showed them how to sit across important customers and brew ginseng tea for them, like how the tea sellers do it. I started with a joke: “You sell what you don’t understand, you’ll end up selling apologies.” (editor’s note: this translation does not reflect the joke’s original wording accurately, but its wit and meaning are relatively uncompromised.) That got a few laughs. Then I went into the process—how our roots grow six years, are dried without sulfur that makes it look better, and how they were tested for heavy metals at reliable agencies. By the end, even the finance guy was nodding. And I ended with: “This root grew for six years to meet you today. Don’t let it down.” They applauded. I signed another trial contract that same day. That was when I still went to training sessions myself. Later on, our professional lecturers handled that.

Interviewer: And then eventually, you mentioned living through blackouts and harder decades. Do you ever think the younger generation, like your daughter, can truly understand that world?

Driver: Not really. I mean, it’s not like I’d hope she can. And I don’t blame her. Nowadays people grow up with meat, with shoes that weren’t hand-me-downs; maybe not all, but most people, I’d say. When I was young, we used to save chicken bones and cook it again for another meal. Then when there's absolutely no flesh left, we boil the bone again into congee so it has some meat-like flavor. Now kids toss half a latte—is that how they’re named?—because it’s gone cold. And the chicken bones? Now fried chicken rack’s become an internet celebrity snack! KFCs, BBQ places, they all sell Dongbei fried chicken racks, and the young ones love them like crazy. But back then in Dongbei, chicken racks were for the poor, the unemployed. We had no choice but to eat it—who would cook bones twice or thrice for the little meat that’s left? And most of us couldn’t afford to pour all that oil to submerge and fry the racks either. At best we stir fry them with salt and a little oil. When fresh chicken is expensive, there’s no reason to think that oil would somehow be more affordable, you know. When we were to the point of eating chicken racks, we couldn’t afford to waste oil. I’ve eaten so much chicken racks that I want to vomit when I taste them, or even if I just smell them. Chicken isn’t the most smelly meat by far, but their bones’ got that very particular poultry taste. One generation eats bitterness so the next can taste sweetness. I just hope they don’t forget.

Interviewer: Has your relationship with your daughter changed over time?

Driver: Definitely. She used to see me as just ‘Dad’—snoring on the couch, doing nothing. Now that she’s working, paying rent, dealing with taxes? I think she gets it. Sometimes she asks me how I handled rejection, how I managed a team. She’s more of an adult now. I’m still her dad, but I think I’ve become someone else too.

Interviewer: What’s something she’s said to you that really stayed with you?

Driver: A few months ago, we were having noodles, and she said, “Dad, I think if I had grown up where you did, I might not have made it.” I told her, “You would’ve.”

Interviewer: As a driver now, have there been passengers that surprised you or gave you new perspectives?

Driver: Well, you see all sorts of people. That’s just part of being a taxi driver. A teenage girl once got in, blasting music, glued to her phone. I thought she wouldn’t say a word. And then, an old man told me he used to be a violinist. Lost his wife, pretty much not working anymore, and moved to Shenzhen to be near his son, who barely talks to him. I tried to comfort him, but I didn’t really know what to say. I was never into the classicals, you know. I did ask for his rec and turned up the classical station.

Interviewer: Do you think people underestimate taxi drivers?

Driver: Oh, I mean, what does “underestimate” mean? Some passengers just treat you like…uh…a piece of furniture with a steering wheel, if you will. But some are very talkative, they chat, exchanging stories. And some ask us if we know the detours, the shortcuts, the neighborhoods and good food places that don’t show up on tourist maps and Xiaohongshu posts (“little red book,” a social media platform, similar to Instagram, popular among the Chinese youth).

Interviewer: If you weren’t driving, what do you think you’d be doing now?

Driver: Hard to say. Maybe a tour guide? I like telling stories. Maybe selling tea—tea is sort of similar to ginseng, you know, haha. Perhaps work in, or even open, a little shop, brew pots for customers, explain the type’s taste and characteristics like I do ginseng, and sometimes hand out cups of tea to old men playing Xiangqi (Chinese chess). Or maybe I’d be doing nothing, you know. Who knows? Life’s like traffic—you don’t always choose the lane you end up in.

You don’t choose the lane you end up in. You just try not to crash.