Since last year, young urban dwellers have been chasing various outdoor activities, from camping, citywalks or urban exploration to hiking and cycling on the outskirts of cities and even “20 minutes in the park”. This year, there has been a new outdoor trend for the younger generations in China: foraging (挖野菜, lit. digging for wild vegetables), mostly in parks and the suburbs.
On the lifestyle platform, Rednote, notes that mention “Foraging” (#挖野菜) grew 359% in March compared to the previous month. There are over 180 million views and 820,000 comments. Many on social platforms in China are calling foraging “jungling” (打野), borrowing a gaming term. People seek “dazi” (搭子, lit. partner) for their foraging trips. The topic “Jungling is the new socialising for young people” (#打野成了年轻人新社交) has over 1 million views, ranked number 12.
From fiddleheads to dandelions, young people are targeting veggies that are considered a delicacy if bought in supermarkets. For this reason, some are already starting to offer guided foraging tours, from 50 RMB (6.94 USD) a day to 99 RMB (13.75 USD) for 3 hours, selling maps for 5 RMB to 10 RMB (0.69 to 1.39 USD), or even paid group trips for anywhere between 20 RMB to 158 RMB (2.78 to 21.94 USD) per person.
For students and young professionals, the price of foraging equipment (mostly trowels and hoes) and tour guides is merely an entry fee into socialising in group chats and “dazi” for weekend activities. But for many veteran foragers, there’s no long-term business in this. “You can learn everything on Rednote”, what’s the point of charging people?” said an organiser of a free foraging group chat. Like the “citywalk”, hiking and biking before it, foraging is not the point, the point is who you forage with.
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