Kung Pao Chicken (Gongbao Jiding): Recipe, Taste and Who It’s For
What Kung Pao Chicken Actually Is Kung Pao Chicken (宫保鸡丁, Gōngbǎo Jīdīng) is the dish I order first whenever I land in Chengdu with a blank stomach. It is a…
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Xunpu Village Guide: Shell Houses and the Flower Hairpin Village of Quanzhou
Xunpu village sits on a narrow finger of land in Fengze District, where Quanzhou Bay opens into the estuary, and it looks like nowhere else in Fujian. The lane walls…
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Anxi Travel Guide: Tieguanyin Tea Hills and Fujian’s Tea Horse Trails
Anxi travel guide is a phrase that only made sense to me once I stood on a terraced hillside near 800 meters and watched a farmer’s hands turn a mound…
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Tianlong Mountain Grottoes Guide: Tang Buddha Carvings Above Taiyuan, China
Most travelers to Shanxi head straight for Datong, Pingyao and the Ming walls, and treat Taiyuan as a railway station on the way. That is a shame, because 40 kilometers…
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Gongyi Travel Guide: Kang Family Mansions, Song Tombs and the Yellow River
Gongyi is not on the list most first-time visitors to China write for themselves, which is precisely why this Gongyi travel guide is worth reading before you book anything. This…
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Panan Travel Guide: Dapan Mountain Waterfalls and Zhejiang Hidden Valleys
Most maps of Zhejiang give you the same three dots: Hangzhou with its lake, the water towns north of it, and the seafront cities to the south. Panan is the…
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Longyan Travel Guide: Hakka Halls and Earth Buildings of western Fujian
My first time into Longyan was at the end of April, and the rain had only just stopped. I boarded at Xiamen North, reached Longyan station in a little over…
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Hunchun Travel Guide: Korean Villages, Tumen River Borders and Wetland Dunes
My first morning in Hunchun began as a mistake. I had booked a single night, planning to use it as a sleep stop on the way to Changbai Mountain, and…
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Huailai Travel Guide: Jimingyi Post Station, Guanting Lake and Pine Ridges
Huailai sits underneath the Great Wall, and that is the whole appeal. This county of Zhangjiakou City in northern Hebei lies roughly 130 km northwest of Beijing and about 60…
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Rongcheng Travel Guide: Winter Swans, Sea Cliffs and Fishing Village Lanes
Rongcheng is a county-level city on the northern shoulder of the Shandong Peninsula, and it holds the easternmost ground in mainland China. At roughly 122 degrees east, the coastline here…
