Why Have Orchids Survived? Four Man-Made Disasters in History
1. The "Taiping Rebellion" (the "Gengshen Turmoil") that broke out in 1851: In 1860, Qing troops suppressed the Taiping army in southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang, leaving famous orchid and cymbidium varieties "scarcely one in ten surviving," with large numbers of precious orchids destroyed in the chaos of war. In addition, this period also caused many valuable ancient orchid manuals to be lost forever when they were burned. 2. From the late 1930s to the early...
2. The Japanese invasion of Jiangnan from the late 1930s to the early 1940s: During this period, the Japanese orchid enthusiast Obara Eijiro and others came to China many times and carried away several hundred kinds of precious orchids. At the time, Obara Eijiro opened a shop called "Keikado" in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in the sale of Chinese curios and orchid plants. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, some of the orchids that had reached Japan were destroyed in the fires of war, while some were preserved through many relocations, and beginning in the 1980s they started to flow back to the mainland, objectively promoting the exchange and preservation of Chinese orchids. (Note: Obara Eijiro held a very important position in the Japanese orchid world; his book "Rankafu" had a far-reaching influence, and he was also acquainted with the literary giant Lu Xun.)
3. The "Cultural Revolution," which began in the 1960s: During this period, growing flowers was labeled feudal, capitalist and revisionist, and most of the orchids of institutions such as the Shanghai Botanical Garden, the Hangzhou Orchid Room, the Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, the Canglang Pavilion Orchid Room in Suzhou and the Orchid Room of Beijing Zhongshan Park, as well as those of famous orchid growers such as Shen Yuanru, the "Orchid King of Jiangnan," were destroyed or stolen and scattered to nothing. At this time, although some precious orchids objectively ended up in the hands of ordinary people, quite a few of them still perished because individuals lacked the necessary cultivation skills.
4. The orchid-hunting movement that began in the 1980s and lasted to the end of the century: During this period, driven by economic interests, a large labor force became the main force in collecting orchids. In traditional orchid-producing areas, people carried out carpet-like searches across hills and fields, and wild orchid resources were destroyed almost completely, having become nearly exhausted. (End)