A first trip runs Beijing to Xi'an to Shanghai: the Forbidden City and a wall section outside town, the Terracotta Army, then the modern half on the Huangpu. That is a week of sights and a few hours of train between each leg. Add Chengdu for Sichuan food and the panda base, Guilin for the karst rivers, or Yunnan for Lijiang and the mountains behind it. Hong Kong runs on its own visa rules and makes an easy first or last stop. April, May, September and October are the months worth planning around.
2 China city guides
Fun fact
China spans five geographic time zones and runs all of them on a single official clock, UTC+8. In the far west that means the sun can come up after 10am.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityThere are eight great regional traditions and they have almost nothing in common. Sichuan builds on the numbing tingle of its own peppercorn, Cantonese cooking chases freshness and steam, the northwest runs on wheat, lamb and cumin, and Shanghai sweetens nearly everything. The same dish ordered in two provinces is two different meals.
The realityIndependent travel is straightforward now. Dozens of nationalities enter visa-free for short stays, transit exemptions cover a long list of ports, and the high-speed network makes a self-planned route simpler than a coach itinerary. Check the current list before you count on it, because it moves.
The realitySigns on the metro, the trains and the motorways are bilingual, translation apps handle menus and taxi drivers, and the whole payment layer is a QR code. The gap is conversation, not logistics.
The realityThe cities are enormous and the air has improved a great deal. Beyond them sit the karst rivers at Guilin, the Tibetan plateau, the desert edge at Kashgar and the terraced hills of Yunnan, which is most of what people come home talking about.
The realityChina skipped the card era. Almost everything is a QR code, and Alipay and WeChat Pay both take international cards after a passport check. Set that up before you fly. Cash still works, it is simply slower than everyone around you.
The realityIt is many walls, built and rebuilt by different dynasties across centuries and running in parallel in places. The first full archaeological survey, published in 2012, counted 21,196.18 kilometres of walls, trenches and fortresses. The restored sections near Beijing are a few hours of that.
Cultural notes that actually help
- Hand over anything that matters with both hands: a business card, a passport, a gift. One hand reads as careless.
- Never stand chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice. That is what incense does at a funeral.
- At a toast, ganbei means the glass goes down empty. Lowering your rim below the other person's is the polite move, and declining is fine if you say so early.
- Avoid public confrontation. Raising your voice loses the room here, and a calm question gets further than being loudly right.
- Tipping is not expected on the mainland and is sometimes refused. Hong Kong and Macau usually add a service charge instead.
- Carry your passport. It is needed for train tickets, hotel check-in, museum entry and the security gate at the station.
- A hotel registers your stay with the police for you. A private flat means doing it yourself, at the local station, within a day.
- Do not photograph military sites, border posts or police. The rule is enforced and the sign is not always there.
- Shoes come off at the door of a home, and the slippers you are handed are meant to go on.
- Numbers carry weight: eight is lucky, four sounds like the word for death. It shows up in floor numbers, phone numbers and prices.
Famous Chinese faces
Confucius
Zhang Yimou
Yao Ming
Bruce Lee
Mo Yan
Tu Youyou
Ai Weiwei
Lang Lang
Qin Shi Huang
Wu Zetian
Zheng He
Sun Yat-sen
Deng Xiaoping
Wong Kar-wai
Gong Li
Jackie Chan
Maggie Cheung
Zhang Ziyi
Faye Wong
Cui Jian
Tan Dun
I. M. Pei
Wang Shu
Qi Baishi
Lu Xun
Cao Xueqin
Liu Cixin
Yang Zhenning
Qian Xuesen
Zhang Heng
Li Na
Su Bingtian
Zheng Qinwen
Must-try Chinese food
Peking duck
Roasted until the skin shatters, carved at the table, rolled into thin pancakes with scallion and sweet bean sauce.
Xiaolongbao
Shanghai's soup dumplings: pleated, steamed, and full of broth that will burn you if you rush it.
Mapo tofu
Sichuan's benchmark. Soft tofu, minced beef, fermented broad bean paste, and the numbing tingle of the peppercorn.
Kung pao chicken
Diced chicken, dried chillies and peanuts, with a sweet and sour edge sitting behind the heat.
Hot pot
A pot of stock in the middle of the table and an hour of cooking your own. Chongqing's version is red and merciless.
Hongshao rou
Red-braised pork belly, cooked down in soy, sugar and rice wine until the cubes turn glossy.
Lanzhou lamian
Wheat dough pulled by hand into noodles to order, then dropped into a clear beef broth with chilli oil and coriander.
Jianbing
The breakfast crepe: batter on a griddle, an egg cracked over it, sauce, herbs and a sheet of crisp cracker folded in.
Roujiamo
Xi'an's flatbread sandwich, filled with slow-stewed pork or cumin lamb. Older than most things called a burger.
Chuan'r
Lamb skewers dusted with cumin and chilli, grilled on the pavement and counted up by the stick.
Shengjian bao
Pan-fried pork buns with a crisp base and a scalding centre, sold by the tray in Shanghai.
Stinky tofu
Fermented, then deep fried. The smell arrives well before the plate and the taste is milder than advertised.
Dim sum
A trolley of small plates over tea: har gow, siu mai, cheung fun, and a table that stays put for two hours.
Char siu
Pork shoulder lacquered with honey and maltose, roasted to a dark edge, served in slices over rice.
Wonton noodles
Thin springy noodles, prawn wontons, and a broth built on dried flounder. A Hong Kong lunch in one bowl.
Egg tart
The bakery counter classic: custard set in flaky or shortcrust pastry, and much better still warm.
Chongqing xiaomian
A breakfast bowl of noodles under chilli oil, sesame paste and Sichuan pepper. Order the heat down if you are new.
Dapanji
Xinjiang's big plate chicken, stewed with potato and pepper, with hand-pulled belt noodles laid in at the end.
Crossing-the-bridge noodles
Yunnan's ritual bowl: a film of hot oil keeps the broth scalding, and everything else is added at the table.
Cumin lamb
Northwestern lamb seared hard with cumin, chilli and coriander. The dish that travelled to every other province.
Tanghulu
Hawthorn berries on a stick under a shell of set sugar, sharp underneath the sweetness.
Douhua
Silken tofu pudding, served sweet with syrup in the south and savoury with soy and chilli in the north.
Mooncake
Dense pastry filled with lotus seed paste and salted yolk, eaten and given at the mid-autumn festival.
Longjing tea
Pan-fired green tea from the hills west of Hangzhou, flat leaves and a chestnut sweetness.
Baijiu
Sorghum spirit, strong and floral, poured at every toast whether or not you asked for it.
Doujiang
Hot soy milk at breakfast, sweet or salty, with a fried dough stick to dip into it.