Ginger city snaps into shape

Confucius enjoyed it daily. Now his home province is continuing to lead the world in producing the plant

The Romans paid premium prices for it when they imported it from China. Two thousand years later and the whole world has come to recognize the culinary and medicinal qualities of ginger, still mostly sourced from the land of the Han.

Central to ginger production in China is Laiwu, a city of about 1.3 million people in East China's Shandong province. It also does a big line in garlic.