'Crazy mom' rents hill for field trip

A Chongqing teacher has been dubbed "crazy mom" online after she rented an entire hill of flowers last month to help her daughter and students get closer to nature.

"Mom, what does peach flower look like? What does it smell like? When does it bloom?" Tian Tian asked her mother and teacher, Gan Lin, who had assigned her class an essay about peach flowers.

Concerned over her daughter's lack of contact with nature, Gan rented a flower-covered hill in the city's Beibei district for the children to get a first-hand whiff.

As a former high school teacher, Gan feels the only thing she's "crazy" about is education.

"I am not a lunatic. I am just crazy about anything good for my daughter's education," the mother said.

Gan rented 20 mu (1.33 hectares) of land on the hillside for the field trip, where the kids planted vegetables and harvested potatoes.

Rent for one mu in the area averages 10,000 yuan ($1,600) a year. Gan said she plans to organize similar trips for children in the future.