Country book · Asia

China

Five thousand years, one giant leap forward

China is a civilisation that never stopped rebuilding itself — ancient dynasties, imperial exams and calligraphy sit beside bullet trains, mobile payments and megacities built in a decade. This book is the country as it is lived today.

Myths

What's true, what isn't

Actually true

Mobile payments have replaced cash almost entirely
WeChat Pay and Alipay QR codes are used for everything from street noodles to taxis; carrying cash can actually be inconvenient in big cities.
High-speed rail is genuinely extraordinary
China has the largest high-speed network on earth, with trains regularly running at 300+ km/h between cities hundreds of kilometres apart.
Regional food is wildly different
Sichuan's numbing chilli, Cantonese steaming and dim sum, and Xinjiang's lamb skewers barely resemble each other despite being 'Chinese food'.
Tea culture runs deep and everyday
From roadside teahouses to elaborate gongfu ceremonies, tea is a daily ritual, not a tourist performance.

Commonly believed, wrong

"Everyone eats with chopsticks the same way"
Regional etiquette varies hugely — sticking chopsticks upright in rice is taboo everywhere, but many other customs differ city to city.
"It's one uniform grey landscape of factories"
China has tropical rainforest in Yunnan, deserts in Xinjiang, karst peaks in Guangxi and snow-capped Tibetan plateau — enormous ecological diversity.
"Mandarin is the only language spoken"
Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hokkien and dozens of other languages and dialects are spoken daily, often mutually unintelligible with Mandarin.
"The Great Wall is one continuous wall"
It's a network of walls built and rebuilt over centuries by different dynasties, with gaps, parallel sections and varying styles.

Highlights

The best of China

The Great Wall beyond Badaling

Jiankou and Mutianyu offer crumbling, dramatic sections without the crowds of the main tourist stretch.

Guilin and Yangshuo's karst rivers

Limestone peaks rising straight out of the Li River, best seen from a bamboo raft at dawn.

The street food nights of Chengdu

Numbing Sichuan peppercorn, hotpot steam and night markets that run until 2am.

The Forbidden City and Beijing's hutongs

Imperial grandeur next to narrow alleyway courtyards that have barely changed in centuries.

Culture

Cultural riches

Calligraphy and ink painting

Still taught and practised as living art forms, not museum relics — parks fill with people writing water calligraphy on stone.

Morning tai chi and square dancing

Parks across the country fill at dawn with tai chi, sword forms and, in the evening, mass square dancing.

Lunar New Year migration

The world's largest annual human migration, as hundreds of millions travel home for reunion dinner.

Mahjong and teahouse culture

Clicking tiles and steaming pots are the soundtrack of a slow afternoon in Chengdu or a Beijing hutong courtyard.

Food

What to eat

Peking duck

Lacquered crisp skin, thin pancakes, scallion and hoisin — Beijing's signature dish since the imperial era.

Xiaolongbao

Shanghai's soup dumplings, folded by hand and eaten in one careful, scalding bite.

Mapo tofu

Sichuan's silky tofu in a fiery, numbing chilli-bean sauce with minced pork.

Hotpot

A simmering communal pot of broth for cooking thin-sliced meat, tofu and vegetables at the table.

Dim sum

Cantonese small plates — har gow, char siu bao, cheung fun — wheeled around on trolleys for Sunday brunch.

Music

World-famous voices

Jay Chou

Mandopop's defining artist (Taiwan-born, all-China icon).

Faye Wong

The dream voice of Chinese pop.

Lang Lang

The world's best-known concert pianist.

Teresa Teng

Timeless ballads across Asia.

Karen Mok

Cantopop and Mandopop crossover.

History

Important people in history

Qin Shi Huang

259–210 BCE

First emperor to unify China, standardising script, currency and beginning the earliest Great Wall sections.

Deng Xiaoping

1978–1989

Architect of China's economic reform and opening-up policy that transformed the country into a manufacturing and trade powerhouse.

Empress Wu Zetian

690–705 CE

The only woman to rule China as emperor in her own right, expanding the civil examination system.

Cities