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From an online "weight-loss hack" to protective manicures: The humble bean that connects harvest, community and home in Shandong_我的网站

一 |     9月27日，市委副书记、市长王庆海会见来辽参加第五届中国辽宁国际投资贸易洽谈会并到抚访问的韩国金泉市市长金忠燮一行。双方就进一步扩大经贸合作、加强人文交流等进行深入交流。    

    A farmer harvests green beans at a vegetable production base in Yantai, East China's Shandong Province, on August 21, 2024. Photo: VCGA viral internet joke about eating raw green beans for weight loss has recently put the humble vegetable in the spotlight. After news reports that a guy lost weight following food poisoning caused by undercooked beans, Chinese netizens jokingly dubbed them a "forbidden weight-loss hack." Others took the joke even further, asking — tongue firmly in cheek — exactly how undercooked the beans needed to be to achieve the "best weight loss effect."
For residents of East China's Shandong Province, however, green beans have never been a miracle diet food or an internet meme. Instead, they are an unmistakable sign that summer has arrived — and, for many families, the beginning of weeks of eating them, giving them away and wondering how on earth there are still more waiting to be picked.
The season of endless beans 
For Zhao Qian, a Shandong native, summer has always had a familiar color: green.
"When I was little, the moment different bean dishes started appearing on the table day after day, I knew summer had arrived," Zhao told the Global Times. "No matter how many we ate, there were always more. It was as if the vines kept producing beans overnight."
A Chinese saying goes, "Eating beans in summer is better than eating meat." Heat-loving green beans have been cultivated in China for more than one thousand years. Originally introduced from abroad, they gradually found a permanent place on Chinese dining tables thanks to their versatility, nutritional value and ability to fill hungry stomachs, according to an article published by People.cn.
Today, with the rise of greenhouse farming and an increasingly sophisticated cold-chain logistics network, fresh vegetables are available year-round across China. The old rule of eating produce only in season has largely given way to year-round abundance. Yet in Shandong, China's largest vegetable-producing province, green beans remain inseparable from summer. More than an endless seasonal harvest, they have become the taste of home for generations of locals.
One of Zhao's strongest childhood memories wasn't eating the beans, but preparing them. 
"Every summer, the adults would hand me a basin full of freshly picked beans and ask me to strip off the tough strings along both sides," she recalled. "I'd sit on a little stool and work through the whole pile. It looked like an easy job, but after peeling bean after bean, my fingertips would start to hurt. By the time I finished one basin, there was always another one waiting."
For many families in Shandong, summer means an endless cycle of picking, eating and sharing green beans. In vegetable gardens, rows of trellises are soon covered in climbing vines. When the peak harvest season arrives, the beans need to be picked almost every day before they become old and fibrous. Those that cannot be finished at home are packed into bags and given to relatives, neighbors and friends.
"Your family has beans, and so does mine, but we still give them to each other," Cao Yu, a Shandong native who grew up on the Jiaodong Peninsula in East China, told the Global Times on Wednesday with a laugh. 
A plentiful harvest also brings what locals jokingly call "bean freedom" to the dinner table. Sesame-dressed beans, braised beans with pork ribs and, above all, bean-filled steamed buns — a dish mentioned by almost every Shandong native interviewed by the Global Times. For many people, these dishes are no longer simply seasonal food, but the familiar taste of summer, family and hometown.
The hands that harvest summer 
Behind the seemingly endless harvest is another busy summer ritual — picking. For many elderly farmers, harvesting green beans means spending hours each day moving from one trellis to another, reaching through dense vines and picking bean after bean by hand.
A nail salon in Jining, Shandong Province, recently went viral after offering free "bean-picking manicures" to residents aged 60 and above. Instead of fashionable designs or glittering decorations, the salon applies thicker, longer nail extensions that make it easier to pinch and snap off the beans while protecting fingertips from pain. A coat of colored polish is added simply to help conceal stains left by vegetable sap, according to video clips circulating on Chinese social media platforms Douyin and Sina Weibo. 
The salon owner, herself the daughter of farmers, said thumb injuries and damaged fingernails are common during the bean-picking process. In videos posted on her Douyin account, many elderly women said the manicures made picking beans much easier. Even more amusingly, some older men initially refused to get a manicure, only to change their minds after hearing enthusiastic recommendations from the "grandmas' group."
For perhaps the first time, beauty took a back seat to practicality, and a manicure became another way of caring for hardworking hands.
While the internet continues to joke about undercooked beans as a shortcut to weight loss, doctors stress there is nothing amusing about eating them raw. Liang Jiajing, a clinical nutritionist at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, said raw or undercooked beans contain naturally occurring toxins that can cause nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea, but the toxins are destroyed through thorough cooking, according to a Jimu News report. 
The internet may remember green beans as the latest viral "weight-loss hack." In Shandong, however, they tell very different stories — one of overflowing harvests, bags of beans exchanged between neighbors, family recipes passed down through generations, and hardworking hands that quietly bring the harvest to the table. Long after the online jokes fade, the taste of summer — and of home — remains.
。         　　王庆海对金忠燮一行表示欢迎，对即将启幕的“金泉市市民节”和“金泉市民体育大会”提前表示祝贺。他说，2022年，习近平主席会见尹锡悦总统时提出，愿同韩方一道维护、巩固、发展好中韩关系。今年4月，省委书记郝鹏率辽宁省经贸合作代表团访问韩国，巩固深化了辽宁与韩国友好合作基础。抚顺市与金泉市自2011年缔结友好城市以来，在经济贸易、农业技术、旅游观光、文化体育等领域交流频繁、成果丰硕。当前，抚顺市正深入贯彻习近平主席重要指示精神，积极参与东北海陆大通道和东北亚开放合作枢纽地建设，以高水平开放引领高质量发展。金泉市在韩国被称为“忠、孝、礼”的故乡，历史文化悠久，自然资源丰富，与抚顺市有较强的产业关联性和互补性。

二 | 希望双方进一步密切往来、厚植友谊，不断加深在农业、物流、体育等领域的务实合作，实现互利共赢、共同发展。

三 |          　　金忠燮感谢抚顺市的热情接待，对抚顺市近年来经济社会发展取得的成绩给予高度评价。他说，金泉市与抚顺市缔结友好城市13年来，建立了深厚的友谊，双方在农业技术、农产品进出口贸易以及人文交流等方面广泛互动、紧密合作，取得了明显成效。

四 | 希望以此次访问为契机，进一步扩大两市在农产品、新能源、交通物流、人文旅游、青少年交流等方面的友好交往，拓展合作空间，共享合作成果，携手推进两市友好关系迈上新台阶。         　　在抚期间，金忠燮一行还到辽宁三友农业生物科技集团、辽宁大自然仙灵芝生物科技有限公司、瑞尔赫满绣文化创意有限公司、抚顺新钢铁有限责任公司及抚顺矿业集团西露天矿等地开展考察访问。         　　副市长王进参加会见及相关活动。                   责任编辑：刘春阳。

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Published on:22:34:56