Ginseng intern Sarah Yang reflects on her semester studying this enigmatic plant and gives a glimpse of her journey from interviewing at Hsu Headquarters to creating a final project which expresses the complex trade networks associated with ginseng.
3. Introduction
● No prior knowledge of ginseng
● Found internship through
folklore class
● Read Ginseng Dreams
● Went to the Wisconsin
Historical Society Archives
4. Archives
● Fromm Brothers documents
● Minutes of a Ginseng Growers meeting
○ Talk about pesticide usage and labelling
■ Still an ongoing issue!
● Letter to editors about misinformation spread about ginseng
○ From Fromm Brothers
○ Editors revised to make article more ambiguous rather than fear mongering
○ Fromm Brothers write another letter for an apology and another revision
● Original Document about Harmful Effects of Ginseng
○ Lab tests were not controlled very well
○ Correlation of symptoms
16. Wild Ginseng
● Sold and
processed at HQ
● Some pieces can
be presented in
gift boxes
● Some grown by
Hsu’s some bought
17. Final Project
● Data Source(s)
○ USDA Census 2017
○ USFWS Ginseng Exports
● Mock up
● Format and Insert Data
● Initial Design
● Re-design
● Meta Data
● Final Touches
Total time = ~30 hours
*Rough draft
21. Map Meaning
● Represents the amount of ginseng farms in each
State and the destination of ginseng
● Thickness of the lines indicate amount
● Data of the amount of farms is from 2017 while
export numbers are from 2015
○ This was to represent the most recent data
● Symbols are hand drawn
● I wanted to include pull out stories of a few farms,
but it would clutter the map
