In the past two days, we have experienced the opening ceremony of the Exchange Camp of 2022 “Green Lifestyle for Children in Lancang-Mekong Countries” Program, listened to the speeches and sharing of guests from China, Thailand and Laos, and watched the visual art works of students from all over the world. On the third day, we went outdoors together to the world's largest botanical garden for medicinal use -- Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Botanical Garden for Medicinal Use, immersing ourselves in nature to learn and experience the importance of the ecological environment.

Despite the relatively low temperature and drizzles from time to time, everyone was still in high spirits. Mr. Tan, the senior lecturer of the botanical garden, is a very amiable and humorous uncle, and makes everyone feel the intimacy at the beginning. There are a lot of green trees and spreading vines in the garden. Along the path all the way up, thick trees and low-hanging branches get everybody immersed in greenery. Mr. Tan keeps explaining to students while they are watching various kinds of medicinal plants, some of which they have heard but never had the chance to see in person. Now they see the real plants, such as dandelion, taxus, Kaempferia rotunda, gardenia...... All the plants here have labels indicating whether the plant is poisonous, non-poisonous, or useful. In the must-visited shade garden, Mr. Tan said that there are more than 750 kinds of medicinal plants in here, mainly the world's oldest plants - ferns, which prefer to dark and humid environment instead of places with sunshine. Students also visited the area for various kinds of grasses listed in Li Shizhen’s famous book Compendium of Materia Medica, the grass area is divided into subareas for fragrant grasses, moss, poison grasses and so on. The common spices that can be seen on people’s dining table, including basil, trichosanthis, and Perilla favored by Nanning people, while there are also highly toxic plants that can kill people instantly. In the Museum of Medicine, all kinds of Chinese medicine are shown, such as Ganoderma lucidum, Eucommia ulmoides, gastrodia elata and so on. Moreover, everyone was also given the Handbook on Plant Exploration and Popular Science Research to record the learned knowledge points about medicinal plants.

After the "meeting" with all kinds of plants, we came to the Exhibition Hall for Science Popularization of Medical Plants for Environmental Protection to participate in the experience activity themed on "I am little Shennong -- Making a medical sachet". The botanical garden has prepared for each student a variety of herbs with different effects, tools for herb smashing, as well as a beautiful sachet bag. After the teacher’s introduction to the sachet's origin, efficacy, production methods, everyone began to make their own sachets. As the herbs are mashed, the scene was gradually filled with the unique aroma of Chinese herbs. At last, everyone contentedly held up their own beautiful sachets, ready to go back to give them to their parents.

After going back to the activity hall of the exchange camp, the closing ceremony of the Exchange Camp of 2022 “Green Lifestyle for Children in Lancang-Mekong Countries” Program officially began. First, the volunteers led the students to participate in the environmental protection game. Through the interesting form, the game required students to select the correct trash can for different pictures with different garbage, thereby making everyone know what is harmful garbage and recyclable garbage. In the first day of December, there are three students celebrating their birthday. We believe that meeting together represents the fate, so we sang a happy birthday song around the several "birthday stars" and gave them our sincere wishes, the organizing committee also prepared beautiful birthday gifts for the students. In the end, every student participating in the exchange camp received the exquisite and authoritative certificate of Excellent Campers issued by China National Children's Center, the organizer of 2022 “Green Lifestyle for Children in Lancang-Mekong Countries” Program". When they took a group photo with the certificate in hand, you could see the proud and satisfied smiles on their faces. "Green Lifestyle for Children in Lancang-Mekong Countries, see you next year!", the shouts of students also made us full of expectations for the next activity, and also drew a successful end to this exchange camp. Drinking water from the same river, establishing Lancang-Mekong relationship via children activities, let us take actions and make joint efforts for the future of the same river and the same earth.