Wild Ginseng Museum displays thousand-year-old root in Jilin

A thousand-year-old ginseng root stands quietly at the center of a display case at the Wild Ginseng Museum in Shulan, a county-level city administered by Jilin city, Jilin province. Locals call it the "King of Ginseng", whose slender body and particular shape resemble a dancer in motion.

"Every ginseng root at the museum has a story behind it," said Liu Wei, the museum's curator.

Shulan is building a health industry park for ginseng and traditional Chinese medicine, with a total investment of 519 million yuan ($77.83 million). The park focuses on processing ginseng for medicine, food, and alcohol. It is expected to generate an annual output value of 1 billion yuan and create over 1,500 jobs.

The museum is connected to Jilin's "Museum City" initiative, launched in 2023 to revitalize local cultural resources. The province now has 23 village-level museums, which have turned old customs and crafts into cultural tourism attractions.

The Fujiang village museum features Neolithic stone coffin fragments and straw raincoats. Over the past five years, the village has received over 300,000 visitors, generating nearly 10 million yuan in tourism revenue, with participating villagers increasing their annual income by an average of 6,000 yuan per household.