S. Pole team grows own veggies now

For the first time, China's South Pole researchers can eat fresh vegetables grown regularly on-site, according to Wang Zheng, the grower, who came home last month after a 400-day mission in Antarctica.

Growing vegetables in Antarctica reminded him of The Martian, a sci-fi movie about an astronaut who survives alone on Mars by eating potatoes he grows there, Wang said on Friday from his home in Shangrao, Jiangxi province.

"I totally understand the main character of the movie. I understand how he feels when he watches a small green plant grow in a fragile man-made environment," said the 40-year-old doctor. But he conceded that the conditions he faced in the Antarctic were "much better than those in the film".