Bizarre: Mother rents mountain to teach child about nature

Chongqing: A doting and extremely wealthy mother in China has rented out an entire mountain just so her daughter can learn about nature. Gan Lin, 33, used to be a teacher but now spends all day dreaming up inventive ideas of how she can spend her rich businessman husband's money.

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They live in China's Chongqing municipality where Gan's daughter Yin Gan is in the fourth grade. When she discovered just how little Yin knew about plants, vegetables, or anything related to nature, she landed on the perfect idea. She has paid a local council to lease a mountain, including a farm with 1.3 hectares of land.

She said the farmer can stay for free, as long as he lets her daughter and friends help look after his fruit trees and vegetable plots at the weekends. It is believed that she is paying £3,000 (Rs 3 lakh) a month for the exclusive access to the great outdoors, but she refuses to confirm what the deal is.

"I just think this is the best and easiest way to get my nine-year-old daughter in touch with nature," she said. "It is safe, it is clean and it is beautiful. If I can afford to rent a mountain, why not?" Every day after school her daughter takes her classmates out to the mountain where they study plants and animals, and play in the grassy meadows. One of the lessons she will learn, no doubt, is that money does not grow on trees.