Laifeng Tung Oil

Laifeng Tung Oil

　　Tung oil is used to make paints, inks, oilcloth, and more. When a baby has diarrhea or catches a cold, the mother will place a drop of tung oil on her palm, warm it over a flame, and then gently rub or pat the baby’s back or navel with the warm hand. Sometimes this remedy works even better than taking Western medicine. Superstitious people also use tung oil to “refine demons” or “exorcise ghosts.” The so-called refining of demons or ghosts simply involves pouring tung oil over stones, tree stumps, or cow dung and then setting them on fire.

　　The workshops where tung oil is extracted are called oil mills. These mills house massive stone rollers, which are turned by horses or oxen to crush the seeds of the tung tree.

　　The crushed seeds are then placed into a wooden press. Above the press, from the beam of the mill, hangs a large round wooden beam called the pestle. Several men hold the pestle and put all their strength into thrusting it forward against the press.

　　With a shout of “Hei!” and the sound of the pestle hitting the press — a loud “Pa!” — the tung oil oozes out drop by drop. This is what is commonly known as “oil beating.”

　　Besides tung oil, the oil mill also extracts vegetable oil and tea seed oil.

　　After the oil is extracted, the residue is pressed into cake-like forms called “ku.” Vegetable ku can be used as fertilizer. Tea ku, besides being used as fertilizer, is also used for “naoyu” (a dialect term meaning to poison or stun fish). Tea ku has a strong fragrance; just scatter a few cakes into a river, and fish will swim over to eat. The fish that consume the tea ku will then float belly-up to the surface one by one, ready to be caught. Tung ku is also an excellent fertilizer. When planting sweet potato seedlings, just wrap a bit of tung ku around the roots, and you won’t need to apply any other fertilizer. The sweet potato vines won’t get insect damage, and when you dig up the sweet potatoes, you won’t even see ants in the soil.

　　Laifeng tung oil is the best under heaven, and Maodong (in ManShui Township and BaifuSi Town) tung oil is the best in Laifeng.