Hello and welcome to a special edition of Roundtable.
I'm He Young coming to you from Beijing. let me teleport you to Xizang Autonomous Region, otherwise known as Tibet. in southwest China, where the air is thin, the winds are fierce, and the land is unforgiving.
Farming there has always been a test of human will.
Yet a team of farmers from Shandong province in the eastern part of the country cross mountains and storms to help local villagers build greenhouses on the plateau.
Out of this Mission Impossible came the first sweet melons and fresh greens. nourishing local families and delighting visitors who never dreamed of tasting such freshness on the roof of the world.
This remarkable journey comes alive in radio drama, Sweetness on the Plateau. a proud CGTN radio production.
We'll talk more about the drama and the true stories behind it at the other end.
So for now, sit back and enjoy. Hello? Emergency!
My driver, he can't breathe! 700 kilometers?
We'll never make it. Please, help. I'm contacting the...
Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Please? Hello?
Thank you. I can't breathe. It feels like...
Buddha on my chest. Charm, stay with me.
Breathe slowly. Here, oxygen. I'm fine.
I just need a minute. This deal... It's important.
We've got to get it there. Save your breath, John.
None of this matters if we don't make it out alive.
Someone's out there? Quickly! He's suffocating!
There! hot stone on his chest. Well, and this, this root, too hard.
Okay, it wakes the blood You know how to fight this?
My father carried herbs over this pass every winter and One year, the mountain kept him.
But anyhow, go call for help! I'll keep him alive.
Right. All right. I'll do it. They're coming.
They're on their way now. I feel better.
Breath coming. Good. He'll be fine for now, but we must drive.
We'll meet them halfway. Yes. Yes, let's go.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Finally, he's safe now.
I... I don't know how to thank you. I don't even know your name.
Terang Tomo. And you? I mean, what kind of man drags this much steel through a path like this in winter?
Ha! I'm Meng Desheng. I'm from Shouguang, Shandong Province.
I'm hauling the steel to Bailang. to build greenhouses.
Huh? You have crossed Death's doorstep to grow vegetables?
You're mad Lowlander. Mad or not, I have to try.
No one believes it's possible, but I do.
On this land? Only the gods can make green from stone.
Then maybe today the mountain gods smiled on me. and sent you to help us.
Well, if you truly make this barren land grow green, I'll bring my whole village to see the miracle!
Then you can tell them, just ask for the crazy Shandong farmer trying to grow vegetables in Bailao My name is Meng Desheng.
I've spent half my life in the fields of Shouguan. where melons taste like honey.
I thought I knew every fight a seed could face, But up here, it's a different war.
But I won't back down. Someone here pulled me back from death and I swore if I lived I would give this mountain a new kind of life.
We've finally reached Bailao. That's 4,000 meters.
The winged rips roofs like paper and knives cut straight to the bone.
Before you can plant a single seed, you find something tougher than the soil.
The idea of it. A plastic house! Oh, sacred grounds!
Tell me, stranger! Did you even ask the mountain first?
Sam Tam, let it be. Look at them. Those eyes aren't a drifter's.
That's a man. Come to fight for real work.
Hey guys, I'm not here to fight your gods or your soil.
Back at my home, kids eat greens every day.
And here, they deserve it too. Our children have lived on barley and yak meats since my grandfather's time.
This ground's never seen a lettuce. Come on, just give it a try.
If it works, you'll have sweet melons in summer.
Melons? At 4000 meters? That's a trick worth seeing!
I had to prove it. To them, and to myself.
Up here, it had to be a steel arc. 300 meters long, Five times bigger than the ones back home.
Every joint, hammered by hand. Breath after breath.
6,000 deaths! Four thousand to go! Hold it tight!
The storm won't stop for us! Feels like this mountain's trying to kill us first!
Bosman! I can't! This isn't building anything!
It's killing us! Have your breath! This is like a knife!
In my chest. It's freezing. It's thick. Like knives.
My back. When's that gonna end? Ma, stop for a minute, will you?
Look at our hands. We're tearing ourselves to pisses out here.
Viscous clips! One every three feet! Miles of them!
Why not mud walls, rope, like back at home?
Cause mud walls won't last here. one crack one loose edge and storm would rip his heart out Heavy clips are ripped in this frame.
If you miss one, the mountain swallows it whole.
And the sheet costs a fortune. Where is the town?
Why bother? Hey, look at that sun! It burns through everything!
And cheap film collapses in months! And look!
This one's five layers! It's tough as yak hide! and it keeps life breathing for four winters.
So guys, skip one replacement Feed people one more season!
Here, yak butter tea. Drink while it's hot.
It'll chase the cold from your bones. My mother says no man can fight the mountain with an empty belly.
Thank you. Thank you. But... Even if we build this beast, will anything truly grow here?
If you can't take it, I won't force you, but I'm not leaving.
If you stay, Let's fight this mountain, together!
Then let's do it! Let's make it stand, whatever it takes.
Then came the real test. April 23rd, 2017. a brutal windstorm slammed into Bailang.
Force 11 Screaming through the valley. The storm has passed.
Wow! Four new greenhouses! Still standing!
We did it! It's solid! Everything's holding!
We did it! Yes, we did it! Take that, Mountain!
Bye. Bye. Santam! Come see this! Still holding up a sky no one ever could!
Maybe the gods wanted this deal here after all.
I don't bow to strangers. But today, you earned it.
With the steel finally standing, it was time to plant.
And that morning, I heard the footsteps of an old friend at the gate.
Mon! Still breathing, huh? I thought the mountain would have eaten you by now!
Tomo! You made it! Wow! You mad man! You really built this thing! you know what back on that pass i swore i'd drag the whole village here if you pull it off and well Here we are!
Haha, thank you. But you came early. We haven't started planting yet.
Oh. Well, perfect. We'll plant them with you.
Fruit only tastes sweet when you've got dirt under your nails first, right?
Mr. Meng, I'm chokie. I lost my shop. my home, everything.
If you've got work for two pairs of hands, My husband and I, we just need a roof for tonight.
Hey! You'll have one. Anyone who builds life here has a home with us.
This place really gonna grow vegetables?
Only one way to find out. Come on, that one.
Let's see if you can tell a carrot from a rock.
Hey, I didn't come for miracles. I came to plant them.
And one day, every child here will bite into a sweet watermelon and see greens on their table.
That's my promise. I thought the first battle was the mountain, but it turns out it was the farmers we just hired.
No! No, no! Stop! That's not a weed! But the leaves stink like nettles.
We thought it was poison. Well... These vines are like a baby's lifeline.
You pull them, no fruit survives. Gentle.
Just like this, like you'd stroke a newborn calf.
And sometimes, planting meant wrestling with habits older than the soil.
This plastic smothers the earth. The spirits can't breathe under this. hey you're right to care sometime but let the vegetables grow first because once they do They will feed life back into this soil, enough for every spirit watching over it.
Then let's bless it properly, so they know we mean no harm.
Thank you. I came here with manuals and measurements.
But this land speaks a different language.
Patience, trial and error, lessons you only learn with dirt on your hands.
I cut it off. Did I just kill the whole plant?
I swear I didn't mean to! It's okay, Na Wan.
Look here. Red ribbons mean hands off. Green flags, safe to cut.
If you follow the colors, you'll do fine.
Hear, hear. Most giving seeds their own rules now.
Day by day, vine by vine, we were learning this Earth's language, and somehow, Learn each other's too.
And then, summer came. 25,000 kilos of Bailang's first malice Fat and heavy on the fights.
Everyone's waiting. hoping the mountain would finally give us a taste of victory.
Monk, the flesh is brown. Burn inside. And this one too.
Dry dead in the heart. Ma, I checked every single one.
Not a melon worth eating. One hundred and fifty thousand, you're... gone.
I stake everything. Every last coin, every day and night.
What do I have left now? Why? You promised us sweet fruit.
Why is this all rotten? So what now, Mon?
What's left to do? I used what I knew. one vine, one fruit, Full sun all day, back home, the sun feeds life.
Here is not warmth. It's like a blade. carving the fruit from the inside out.
Let me Try it again. Try again? Enough of this madness!
Can we even try again? What if... It all dies like this once more.
Quiet, all of you! I saw this man wrestle a storm barehanded.
While the rest of us preyed on the blankets, he fled to give us a chance.
You think quitting now makes us wiser? No.
It makes us cowards before this mountain.
Yes, we failed. So what? Maybe the mountain said, not today!
But you, madman, you swore we'd taste sweet melon one day, Don't think you're wriggling out of that promise.
Deal's still on. Guys, listen to me. If you trust me, tomorrow will start over.
I swear. There has to be a way. If you're willing to try again, then I'll stay.
I can learn. I have nothing to lose anyway.
Me too! Let's do it! This mountain hasn't beaten us yet!
Thank you. Mung, still plodding in the dark?
One vine, one fruit... left them naked under the sky.
But if I block the sun too much, they won't ripen either.
You lowlanders. No hats, no shade. Don't wonder why the sun bites.
You know, up here the sun's no enemy. But if you bare your skin like this, It burns you raw.
You know you have to dance with it, not fight it.
Dance with it. Don't fight it. That's it!
That's it! Two vines, two melons, more leaves, more shade!
Let them dance with the sun together! Oh no, what's gotten into you now, madman?
Thank you, Tomo! Thank you! This time we'll do it the mountain way, and soon we'll be dancing with sweet watermelons in our arms!
Good morning, friends. Welcome to our live stream.
Today we're in Bailong County, Sifang. We're over 3,800 meters up here, but look around.
You think this was a garden floating in the clouds?
Rows of green vines, golden melons glistening in the sun.
Once a futuristic dream, now a living, breathing reality.
Let's meet someone who's been here since the very first planting.
Tomu, please give us a grand tour. sure come on in You know, back then it was all dust and wind-burned faces.
Now, I help train newcomers, keep seedlings alive, and, well, my dream's simple.
No child here should grow up without fresh vegetables on their plate.
And speaking of dreams, there's Choki! Hey Choki, come over!
Folks, this is our local success story. Chokey, tell us what's changed.
Oh, you wouldn't believe it. I was drowning in debt once, barely scrapping by.
Now I lease three greenhouses My elders just got into one of the best schools in Lhasa.
And dinner, my kids fight over who gets the last cucumber.
And it's not just the locals. People from all over the country come to this wonderland.
¶¶ Mind if I pick one of these melons? Sure thing.
Twist it gently like this. Last time I got overt excited and put the whole van out, but Simone nearly fainted.
See, I'm a pro now. sunshine and honey in one bite so sweet And over there, that's Semtem, our crew boss now.
Hey, hey, Sam Tam. Come say hi. Uh. Hi, folks.
See that rusty sculpture behind me? Meng once told me a crazy story.
An old fool named Yu Gong spent his life digging at a mountain said his kids and grandkids would finish the job one day.
I tell that tale to every new pair of hands here.
This mountain's tough. but fair. Work with it, sweat for it, and it will give you sweetness You will never forget.
And we all owe it to that stubborn madman.
Meng De Xiang. Anyone seen where he's hiding today?
Hey Mo, remember Tangula Pass? Thought we'd die there.
Now look at us, years later, getting fatter with the melons.
John. Did I ever tell you this? When I was a kid, our teacher gave us seas to plant. and we mailed them to faraway Xizang.
They said it was a gift. Never thought, decades later, I'd come here myself. and finally see those seas take root.
His son says just wait for the right foods to plant them.
Yeah. And I'll never forget the first time we tasted sweetness here.
Come on, everybody! This one's ready! Quick, slice it!
It's sweet! Sweet as sugar! Mmm! Can't believe it!
Phylon's first real melons! We did it! My long melons!
Sweetness on this mountain at last! My own melons!
We made sweetness happen. That's sweetness on the plateau, an English language audio drama based on real people and real events created by CGTN Radio.
Steve and Yushun, what did you guys make of it?
This is what I thought. Why are we not... Is it weird to clap at your own production maybe a little bit?
I don't know, but it was just... So well done, I think, right?
Obviously, the production quality was very good.
It should be. Of course, but it was. The acting, well done.
We had a great time listening to that. This wasn't our first time to hear it.
Sitting here, we work with all of the people who are in that drama, so we had a lot of fun. listening to that.
But on a serious note, This is such a great way to tell a story about something real that happened to real people.
You know, this type of story can be told in textbooks of course, right?
Or you can write some sort of paper about it.
But to be able to deliver this story shows a new side of the story because you can hear the passion.
You can hear... The messages, the themes, perseverance, don't give up.
When you're faced with something that seems impossible, you can overcome it. if you keep trying.
So all of those messages spoke to me and that's why I think it's important for these types of things to exist because There's something that we can learn today from a drama like this.
I think it was fantastic. Yeah, and as we're talking about the production, I've always...
I can always be fascinated by these kind of radio dramas because the production, the surrounding, the sound effects, can always be so realistic that make you feel that you're actually in that kind of environment and you're part of the crew. that you are trying to grow plans on such a high plateau. as you said the idea of they are being so like persistent and that kind of thing Actually, for us, living on the plains... seeing plants growing out is like just nothing to be surprised, right?
But at an average altitude of like 3,600 meters, growing out vegetables and fruits like that.
Like, you... The moment that you see that is a miracle, right?
So... I think that is the hard part when people are trying to do that kind of thing. and get there a group of people to actually join that and make it an industry I think that is really... Yeah, yeah.
Look at just what happened. in the first place without thinking about industry.
You had a person or people who believed that something was possible. in a place that seemed like it would be impossible, and they had to convince other people to join them.
Now think about how that happens in our daily lives, right?
You want to do something, but you you need support from other people, so you have to convince them, and they say, no, that's impossible, but you believe.
You believe in your heart, no, I can achieve this.
This is possible. If we work together, we can pull this off.
What a powerful message that is. I think so too and I wonder if you've caught that little line in the audio drama spoken by one of an older Tibetan gentleman saying that, oh, our children here have been raised on yak meat and barley.
Barley. For generations after generations.
Fruit and veggies? have traditionally been absent of the local people's diet.
But thanks to this improvement in agricultural technology and the strong will of people building greenhouses because this is the only way to grow vegetables and fruit. and to introduce this to the diet of the local people as well as you know you've got so many visitors going to seesong all the time now and then just to have a wide rich array of fruit, veggies, and food to choose from and it just improves the whole experience as well and that's just such a great message.
And I think it's worth our attention. And I'm just really happy to enjoy it and listen to our co-workers and sort of trying to find traces and little clues, who's which character.
And it's a lot of fun doing it as well. I had, you know, a very small part. in it and it wasn't much acting for me, but I'm floored by how well our co-workers or those who've really acted in those characters.
And then there was that one small line, but it really hit me like a punch.
Every breath is like a knife and I can...
I can feel that because I've been on reporting trips before. in a seesaw or or Tibet autonomous region, and also I've passed the Tangula Pass, which is above 4,000 meters above sea level.
And I was only doing some reporting. using my brain and moving my lips.
But I caught this high fever after days of work, and this is not about me, but anyway, even for me at the time, it was... unbearable and it was just thinking about people who need to do physical labor to really you know, build the greenhouse and bring so much heavy material drag it up to on the plateau and and all that immense physical labor is just almost unimaginable.
You can also sense that from the audio drama, which I think is really cool, done through superb acting. production and sound effects.
And then Yuxin, you were in the place where they're growing all of these. wonderful fruits and veggies not so long ago.
Yeah, actually the greenhouse that I visited is not exactly the same a greenhouse that in this story, but it's run by the same manager, Meng Lesheng. who is the main character in this story.
And his team built another greenhouse in Lhasa, which is another city in Xizang. so the greenhouse i saw um isn't Only for planting, actually.
They're developing a whole new, I think... sphere of their farmer.
I mean, they are developing into a multi-purpose space. kind of uh... combining family friendly fruit and vegetable picking and then uh... leisure activities and restaurants so in the future you'll be able to like pick the fruits and vegetables by ourselves and then send them into the kitchen and then you can have the actual meal that you just picked.
In that greenhouse. Sky is the limit now.
I mean, just the opportunities that are available now that weren't available before absolutely and I was going through some of the videos that you shouldn't have published during that reporting trip recently to seize on And I saw one that I will forever remember.
That's you and a human. ginormous pumpkin yes that's one don't get him started on the space pumpkins That's the one that I will never forget. that huge ginormous space-bred pumpkin can grow up to as big as 150 kilograms and it is as big as I cannot hold it by myself. and I was like sitting next to it.
You look petite next to that pumpkin. Yes.
Basically, it's of course addable, but mostly it's for sightseeing. so when you visit there you can see a whole field of these huge pumpkins and that is I think a part of their plan to make the whole green house not only for a planting um factory but also a like leisure area that you can actually enjoy this the site there And also, they're implementing a lot of high tech, I would say. to make the whole farm really, really... kind of futuristic, I would say, because we talked about a lot of vertical farming.
Do you remember that? Like all of the plants are just in that kind of shelves and the water is going and flowing underneath them.
So that is actually supplied by a system called aquaponics, which means it is kind of a coexistence of fish and vegetables.
Yeah, so they are like raising fish in a water tank, a huge water tank, and then the waste produced by these fish make the water super fertilized and this water like flow underneath all of these vegetables and as the natural fertilizer and so which means they don't need any like fertilizer, also pesticides.
So totally green, totally healthy and healthy. even tastier very cool through these real-life events the radio drama tells a powerful story of working together. of technology revitalizing rural communities and of resilience, hope, and building a better future together for the world to hear. from the panorama of rivers and mountains to the echoes of Kulang, to Sweetness on the plateau.
It's become a tradition of... cgt and radio we produce one amazing radio drama audio drama every year Enjoy this one and stay curious for the next.
Coming up, Chuanbei Pipa Gao, a 400-year-old Chinese herbal syrup. is finding fans around the world.
We discuss how China's ancient remedies are being reimagined for modern wellness from energy drinks to stylish tea shops.
Stick around, everybody. We'll be back after this break.
