Booking Chinese Museums and Attractions: The Real-Name Reservation System Explained
You arrive at a major national museum at nine in the morning, join the shortest queue you have ever seen in China, and are turned away in four seconds because…
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Shipping Souvenirs Home From China: Couriers, Costs, Customs and What Not to Send
It happens on about day nine. You are standing in a Jingdezhen ceramics studio holding a tea set that will not survive a baggage carousel, and your suitcase is already…
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China Departure Tax Refund: How Tourists Claim VAT Back on Shopping
Buy a ¥6,000 jade bracelet in Shanghai and roughly ¥540 of that is refundable when you fly home — if you asked for the right piece of paper at the…
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Transiting Through China: Terminal Changes, Baggage Through-Check and Recheck Rules
Connecting through Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou is one of the cheapest ways to cross Asia, and one of the easiest ways to miss a flight if you assume it works…
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Michelin and Black Pearl in China: Fine Dining Worth the Booking Hassle
Somewhere around your third day in Shanghai, after the noodle stalls and the dumpling queues, you start wondering what the top of the ladder looks like. It looks like a…
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Baijiu Guide for Visitors: Aroma Types, Toasting Rules and Bottles Worth Buying
Sooner or later, usually at a round table with a lazy Susan and far too many dishes on it, someone will fill a thimble-sized cup with a clear liquid and…
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Hairy Crab Season in China: Where to Eat It, How to Eat It, What It Costs
Every autumn, roughly from the middle of September, something close to a national obsession takes hold across the lower Yangtze. Restaurant windows fill with tanks of dark, furry-clawed crabs tied…
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Luosifen Guide: How to Survive and Love Liuzhou’s Notorious Snail Noodles
You will smell it before you see it. Somewhere down a side street in Liuzhou, a warm, sour, faintly barnyard aroma drifts out of a shopfront and stops you mid-step….
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Eating on Chinese Trains: Dining Cars, Trolley Meals and What to Bring Aboard
Somewhere around the third hour of a long ride, the trolley comes rattling down the aisle and you have to make a decision you did not prepare for. Food on…
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China Airport Transit Hotels: Where to Sleep on a Long Layover
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that belongs only to the eleven-hour connection: too long to sit upright in a departure lounge, too short to justify a taxi into…
