Far south in Zhejiang, where the province bumps against Fujian, lies a mountainous county that most foreign travelers have never heard of and that Chinese architecture lovers revere. A Taishun…
In the hills of northern Guizhou, along a slow red river, sits a small city that produces the most famous spirit in China. A Renhuai Maotai town guide is a…
Most visitors to Guangxi never reach its southwestern edge, where the hills give way to the Vietnam border and a single stone gate has witnessed a thousand years of trade,…
When most foreign travelers picture Guangxi, they imagine the postcard karst of Guilin and the lazy rivers of Yangshuo. A proper Jingxi travel guide, however, points you to the far…
The first Chinese New Year I spent in China, I made every mistake in the book: I arrived the day before the holiday, found the cities eerily empty, the trains…
The first time I trekked in China, I underestimated everything: the distance, the vertical gain, and the kindness of strangers who pressed warm sweet potatoes into my hands at a…
When my friends married last year, they skipped Bali and came to China instead. Ten days later they sent me a photo from a private balcony in Sanya, two glasses…
There is a moment, somewhere in late March, when the whole of China seems to exhale after winter. I first felt it standing on the causeway at Hangzhou’s West Lake,…
If I could pick one season to send a first-time visitor to mainland China, it would be autumn. The rice terraces turn gold, the cities shake off summer’s humidity, and…
People picture China in summer and imagine heat — and yes, the eastern plains can broil. But after years of routing foreign friends through mainland China in July and August,…