narrated from the perspective of a single spore, depicting the entanglements and connections between people and forests along the matsutake trade routes
Supported by M Art Foundation
In recent years, matsutake has received widespread attention as the subject of anthropological and global supply chain research. Intrigued by its symbiotic relationship with pine trees or attracted by its skyrocketing price driven up by human desire, fanatical “gold diggers” from different regions become connected through matsutake. The same is happening in Yunnan, China. The trade route of Matsutake connects Kunming, Chuxiong, Diqing, and Dali. People from various ethnic groups take on new identities and contribute to the transportation of matsutake mushrooms out of the forests [1]. Through the works of Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing and other anthropologists, we have already learned about the matsutake supply chain from a global and multispecies perspective. Is it necessary to retell the story of Yunnan? The answer is yes, because times have changed. How has the supply chain changed? How is the story of China different from other places? In particular, what is the connection between the abnormal fluctuation of the matsutake market in 2022 and climate change? These questions all warrant further investigation.
Since 1873, China has only issued 17 red alerts, three of which were issued in the summer of 2022 [2]. This June even witnessed the highest temperature recorded since the late 1850s [3], with the global mean surface temperature (GMST) reaching 1.15 ± 0.13°C above the pre-industrial baseline (1850-1900) [4]. According to a report by journalist Huang Yanhao published in the Caixin Weekly, “With the uncertainty in climate change colliding with the uncertainty in matsutake production, 2022 is expected to see a sharp drop on the fluctuating yield curve of matsutake… The decline in matsutake production is but a small annotation on the global heat this year” [5].
However, in the world of matsutake, it is not just an inconspicuous “annotation”. Matsutake is not a passive victim threatened by extreme heat, but a co-creator of nimbostratus clouds. While mushroom spores are as light as a puff of smoke, they can act as condensation nuclei that accelerate the transformation of water vapor into water droplets, thereby inducing precipitation [6]. In this matsutake carnival taking place in human society, we see various players such as matsutake hunters, traders, gourmets, and sporocarps for sale. What is absent here? The mycelium beneath the soil and the dust-like spores, which are not easily detectable but are the origin of matsutake’s existence and growth, form the secret network of the pine forest. Therefore, we have to introduce a non-human narrative from the perspective of spores, allowing the absentees’ voices to be heard.
The floating and drifting of spores in the air is not visible to the naked eye, but it is a real phenomenon. Observed at a microscopic scale, spores fall like rain in the forest, with a hint of sadness. Due to human intervention, the spores embarked on a new journey, which has changed the destiny of matsutake as well as the lives of “hunters”. Therefore, in my project “Matsutake Rain”, I filmed the moment when the spores were ejected. In the atmosphere set by a rain of spores, various encounters on this journey slowly unfolded – that is, narrating the entanglement and connection between humans and forests in the matsutake supply chain from the perspective of a spore.
Under the soil, the mycelium is deeply intertwined with the root system of pine trees, providing the plants with water and mineral nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, while the plants provide carbohydrates in return [7]. As the fruiting body of mycelium, the sporocarp of matsutake plays a similar role to that of a reproductive organ, responsible for dispersing the spores from the mushroom cap to further locations in order to build new connections and obtain more nutrients. However, according to the grading system of the matsutake trade, only mushrooms with unopened caps qualify as high-grade. Therefore, during the matsutake harvesting season, countless treasure hunters rush to dig up every intact matsutake button they come across. Such a pursuit of an unopened cap has led to the absence of spores in the matsutake growth cycle, because the fruiting body, as the reproductive organ, never matured enough to eject spores.
Sporulation is not easy. Although it takes less than a week for a pin to fully grow and the spore release only takes place during the last few days of pileus expansion, matsutake mycelium prefers growing on the roots of pine trees over 20 years old, and it takes more than three years for the first pin to be produced [8]. After a long growth period, the spores that should have been dispersed across the forest by wind were forced to change “course” due to their involvement in the human system of trade and commerce. Instead of air flows, the spores are now carried by human logistics services. Highly developed road networks and logistics systems not only help transport wood and minerals out of the mountains but also facilitate the delivery of matsutake mushrooms to the dining tables around the world in the shortest time possible.
The fruiting bodies of matsutake decay quickly after harvest. Eating before they spoil is the key to preserving their value. This is why many suppliers advertise guaranteed 48-hour delivery. In just 48 hours, the embodiment of the forests will be delivered to you from some distant, mysterious land, without the need to personally climb a thousand mountains and survive all the dangers along the way. In a tea house in Hangzhou, the chef takes a cold matsutake mushroom out of a gift box as if it’s a freshly delivered organ. With a sharp knife, he then cuts it into the iconic thin slices. From the slices, you can see the mushroom cap is still curled and folded, perhaps with some spores still stored on the gills. Here, matsutake transforms into the embodiment of a distant “fairyland”, a “sacred object” that connects the city dwellers with the forests, and a “dream-making” tool of the consumer market. The spores, on the other hand, eventually fell into oblivion behind the fabricated illusion of the forests and ceased to grow.
For hunters, matsutake is a precious gift from the mountain gods, a bridge that connects people. Every family in the village knows an area of the mountains particularly well, and the location of fungal colonies is often passed down as a family secret. Sharing the location of fungal colonies with others and helping identify the type of fungus is an excellent way to gain others’ trust [1]. Matsutake mushrooms are like fairies that can only be encountered by chance. They love to play hide and seek with the hunters in the forest – matsutake mushrooms change where they grow every year. Harvested matsutake mushrooms will be delivered to the bulkers’ field agents by noon every day, who are not allowed to pick and choose, so that the risk and uncertainty caused by the lack of standardization of matsutake can be shared equally. Even at late night, the matsutake trading markets in Shangri-La and the wild mushroom trading markets in Kunming are still filled with bustling crowds. The bulkers’ shops are constantly packed with field agents whom they have known and worked with for years. The trust they have built accelerates the transactions, makes grading and pricing more efficient, and thereby gives humans an advantage in the race against time before the harvested matsutake mushrooms spoil.
This investigation into the circulation of matsutake mushrooms includes visiting the annual Matsutake Festival in Shangri-La; mushroom recording and picking in the mountains and forests; in-depth interviews with traders at the Matsutake Wholesale Market in Geza Town, Shangri-La Matsutake Trade Market, and Shuimuhua Wild Mushroom Trading Center in Kunming, Yunnan Province; first-hand experience at forest-to-table Tibetan restaurants located near matsutake mushrooms’ natural habitats, as well as that of Zen-inspired matsutake feasts served in high-end clubs in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces… These stories were vividly narrated from the perspective of spores, because just as Robert Macfarlane writes in Underland: A Deep Time Journey, “Maybe, then, what we need to understand the forest’s underland is a new language altogether – one that doesn’t automatically convert it to our own use values… Perhaps we need an entirely new language system to talk about fungi… We need to speak in spores. [9]”
- Matsutake, Mobility, and Class: A Socio-cultural Study of a Yi Ethnic Village, Zhang Ting, Minzu University of China, 2020
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State of the Climate: 2022 on track for a summer of extreme heat, ZEKE HAUSFATHER, Carbon Brief, July 25, 2022
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Blue Book on Climate Change in China (2022),National Climate Center of China Meteorological Administration, Science Press, Beijing
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WMO Provisional State of the Global Climate 2022, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Published by WMO, 2022
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Decline in Matsutake Production: A Bite of Climate Change,Huang Yanhao,Caixin Weekly, August 2022.
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Mushrooms as Rainmakers: How Spores Act as Nuclei for Raindrops, Maribeth O. Hassett, Mark W. F. Fischer, Nicholas P. Money. October 28, 2015
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Entangle Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds & Change Our minds & Shape Our Futures, Merlin Sheldrake, Random House, 2020
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The Life History and Cultivation Methods of Matsutake, Yasuto Tominaga, Translated by Tan Wei, Sichuan Institute of Edible Fungi at Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 1992
- Underland: A Deep Time Journey, Robert Macfarlane, Translated by Wang Rufei. Wenhui Publishing House, 2021
Written by Long Pan