The Qinling Mountains form one of the most important natural boundaries in China. Running roughly east to west across the heart of the country, this ancient range separates the temperate…
Push a cube of properly made hong shao rou with your chopstick and it should tremble — not fall apart, not resist, just a slow, gelatinous wobble that tells you…
Hidden in the terraced hills of Sichuan, Taiping Qiang Village is one of the most remarkable surviving examples of Qiang ethnic architecture in China. This Taiping Qiang village guide walks…
Yesanpo sits deep in the Taihang Mountains in Laishui County, Baoding, Hebei, about 160 kilometers southwest of central Beijing and a short hop north of the Baoding plain. It is…
If you picture Shanxi as coal country, loess terraces and empty temple courtyards, the southern edge of the Taihang Mountains will change your mind. In Huangcheng Village, Beiliu Town, Yangcheng…
You Hear Peking Duck Before You Taste It Slice the breast of a well-made Peking duck and it answers with a soft, glassy crackle — the sound of thin ice…
Guilin sells Guangxi to the world: polished limestone peaks, bamboo rafts, postcard mist. Bamei is what happens a whole province southwest of that postcard. Bamei village sits deep in the…
The Night a Bowl of Mapo Tofu Shut Me Up The first time I ate real mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐, mapo doufu) I was sitting on a plastic stool in a…
There are few places in China where the hour of the day changes the view more completely than Dongjiang Lake. At midday it is a deep blue reservoir ringed by…
What Xiaolongbao Really Are Xiaolongbao (小笼包, Xiǎolóngbāo) are the pleated soup dumplings that arrive at the table in a bamboo steamer, each one holding a spoonful of hot broth trapped…