China has a wide a wide variety of hotpot cuisines, coastal to inland, mild to red hot. The most famous is Sichuan or Chongqing style hotpot, brimming with chili oil, whole peppers, and the numbing sichuan peppercorns. We have also enjoyed various Guangdong style hotpots in Shenzhen, based on a mild seafood broth or rice congee for cooking morsels in. But Yunnan offers a flavorful and whimsical hotpot, based on the prized mushrooms of the region. We enjoyed a delightful hotpot meal of this type in Lijiang, at 石锅渔 (shi guo yu) restaurant, near the south gate of the old town.
We sat down to a table with a stone pot (石锅) embedded in the table, which was quickly sanitized with a blast of steam. Our fuwuyuan added a broth with chicken pieces and a parade of mushrooms. Many mushrooms were named in Chinese by likening them to animal parts: sheep tripe mushroom (羊肚菌), cow liver mushroom (牛肝菌), but still bore the reassuring (to this vegetarian) character of fungus (菌 jun). And then there were the truffles. Maybe a pint of whole black truffles (黑松露 hei song lu) were added to the simmering soup. On top our waitress placed a woven conical lid, like an elfin hat, to contain the flavours brewing inside, and set a timer for twenty minutes. This cooking implement is actually one of the Eighteen Oddities of Yunnan, a traditional list of the quirks of this colorful province.
Twenty minutes later, the straw lid was removed, and we tucked into the nutritious pot, dipping the mushrooms and chicken bits into a sauce of fresh ginger, ground peanuts, cilantro and green onion. The broth poured over a steamed rice pilaf was washed down with cold Dali beer, conjuring happiness on many levels.
The mushroomseason is just beginning in Yunnan, so if you visit from now until September, your hotpot can be even more delightful.
This past weekend China celebrated Dragon BoatFestival, a colorful festival which kicks off the heart of the summer, with racing traditionally decorated boats, seasonal snacks and three days off from work. In Chinese, the festival is known as 端午节 (duan wu jie), or the festival of the extremity of noon or the overhead meridian. It is determined by the lunar calendar, the fifth day of the fifth month to be exact, so from year to year it floats around the months of May and June. This year, it happened to nearly coincide with the actual summer solstice, coming on June 20 just a few days before the sun would be at its extreme on the 22nd. We headed across the Pearl River Delta to Macau to observe the holiday and the proper start of summer.
an antique dragon boat outside the a ma temple
Dragon Boat Festival remembers the life of an ancient poet and statesman, Qu Yuan (屈原), who lived during the Warring States period of ancient China, in about the third century BC. Tradition holds that in protest of the corruption of the government of the time, he threw himself into a river and drowned. Fellow villagers were moved to prevent the decay of his body, and so threw dumplings of sticky rice into the water to distract the fish. Others took off in boats with the head of the dragon to ward off bad spirits and find his body. And two Dragon Boat Festival traditions originated—eating of sticky rice zongzi (粽子), and the racing of dragon boats. Dropping the bundled zongzi to bob in a pot of boiling water, I always think of the ancient story, marveling that battling corruption has origins so ancient and poetic.
An ancient poem attributed to Qu Yuan laments the downfall of his country, with devastating and moving imagery.
zongzi in its bamboo leaf wrapping
unwrapped to taste the red bean filling
After the boat race in Macau, we wandered the village streets, coming upon stalls of dried fish and make shift temples with fists of red incense burning to the local gods. The major A Ma temple at the southern tip of the peninsula of Macau is dedicated to Mazu (妈祖), the ancestral mother of the waters, who protects all those who set sail on the sea. Inside and out, the temple is decorated with the motifs of the sea, carved into outcroppings of stone, and festooned with brilliant flags of local clans. Macau’s maritime roots are a palpable sea spray on this ancient holiday.
We transferred planes at Kunming, the green capital of Yunnan, where the lines of a grand ultramodern airport came into view and then receded as we huddled back on another 747 bound for Lijiang. As we boarded, attendants handed us herbal candies for altitude adjustment and a bottle of water. Rows of wide brimmed hats and backpacks laden with hiking gear gave away the Shenzhen city slickers’ plans to escape to the wild side of Yunnan. Our journey to the west had begun.
viewing shuhe and lijiang from the old tea horse road
Yunnan (云南 literally south of the clouds) in southwest China is one of the most diverse provinces in China, with 25 of China’s 56 ethnic minorities represented here, and innumerable rare types of wildlife and edibles flourishing in its river valleys, plateaus, and mountain foothills. The province borders Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Tibet Autonomous Region, and Chinese provinces Sichuan, Guizhou, and Guangxi. The peoples, landscapes, and cultures of Yunnan are as varied as the mental pictures this list summons.
the weekly market of shaxi, drawing women from the diverse villages in the nearby mountains
Our plane would take us from Kunming over rolling mountains on to Lijiang, an old merchant town along the ancient Tea Horse Road (茶马古道 cha ma gu dao). This ancient trade route was carved north-south through the region, to carry tea in past millennia from the southern part of the province at Pu’er near Burma into Tibet and beyond, and horses from Tibet into China. It was a kind of southern parallel to the northwestern Silk Road, which took silk and porcelain from central China west into Central Asia and Europe. These trade roads were a path to other lands and cultures, taking Chinese treasures and ways out into the world and receiving peoples and ideas in return. This international exchange has shaped China and Eurasia since the Han dynasty, for over 2,000 years.
following the ancient tea horse road
Chinese history is accented by individuals who made these journeys, for commerce, for scholastics, for exploration. In the eighth century, a monk named Xuanzang went on an expedition from the Chinese capital throughout India in search of original Buddhist scriptures, and brought back new words and ideas, and inspired the epic tale Journey to the West. Marco Polo’s father and uncle pursued business in Central Asia, but ended up as emissaries for Kublai Khan and the Pope, bringing religious teachings and culture east and west. In the twentieth century, Peter Goullart fled political turmoil in Russia and was able to secure a post in the Republic of China government, setting up rural cooperatives in Yunnan province. But his greatest legacy was accomplished through his book Forgotten Kingdom, a kind of true life Lost Horizon, in which he describes the peoples, traditions, and complex social and business structures which he found along these crossroads. This book is a major reason the west knows the existence of this corner of the world in Yunnan province.
Whatever takes you out your door—necessity, business, or adventure, you are bound to discover something you unexpected. Travel the world. Come to China. You never know what you will discover.
Two recent tourism projects in China strive to recreate a lost national landmark far from its original location.
replica of water town wuzhen outside of beijing
At one famous area of the Great Wall near Beijing in northern China, you can now visit a recreated water town from southern China. The water towns of the Shanghai and Jiangnan region (south of the Yangtze river) are an exalted type of scenery in Chinese culture. Many of these towns are known as the “Venice of the East,” complete with canals, picturesque bridges, riverside markets, and hand pulled boats for tourists. One such town, Wuzhen of Zhejiang province, is said to be the inspiration for the new Gubei Water Town at the Simatai section of the Great Wall. A distance of 1300 km (800 miles) separates the national capital Beijing from the region of water towns near Shanghai and Hangzhou.
replica of the old summer palace built in zhejiang
In a bizarre twist of symmetry, a replica of the imperial Old Summer Palace was opened to the public in May, not in its original location of Beijing, but in Zhejiang province. An octogenarian businessman has personally made his last wish in life to rebuild the Qing dynasty palace. The original Old Summer Palace was sacked in 1860 by British and French forces during the Second Opium War, and much of it still lies in ruins in northwestern Beijing as a somber reminder of the era.
the ruins of the old summer palace in beijing
Turn a cynical eye, but emperors and designers have been rebuilding and replicating such works for centuries in the Middle Kingdom. The Old Summer Palace and “newer” Summer Palace built during the Qing dynasty incorporated features of southern China’s lakes and canals, and the mountains and monasteries of western China, to create an idyllic wonderland for the imperial family. The “new” Summer Palace features a Suzhou Street which legend holds was built for the emperor’s favorite concubine, beating the Gubei Water Town by over two hundred years as the first southern canal landscape in the capital.
“venice of the east” built in the eighteenth century in the summer palace in beijing
Even the ancient emperors had a taste for recreating far off places for their own amusement. The first emperor Qin Shi Huang is said to have had the palaces of capitals he conquered replicated at his new capital of Xianyang, near today’s Xi’an. His many palaces dating back to around 200BC have been lost to time. One illustrious palace, the Epang Palace, was actually rebuilt in 2000 as part of a tourist cultural park, although within the past two years local authorities have been mulling tearing the newly built replica down in favor of attracting visitors to a new park holding the actual archaeological relics. To build your own fantasy and to rebuild what is lost—both have been part of China’s history since the beginning.
Read more about the palaces of the great capitals of Beijing and Xi’an in China Tea Leaves.
Wake up every morning to banana pancakes and local berries, a blue mountain filling your window. A land of plenty, a Shangri-La of simplicity. And it really exists, nearer than far, farther than near. We’ve just returned from a twelve day adventure through Yunnan province, through Shuhe (Lijiang), the Tiger Leaping Gorge, Shaxi, and the Erhai Lake of Dali prefecture.
This is the major tourism corridor of Yunnan province, and there were areas thumping with Chinese tourists in Lijiang and Dali, but the days were also filled with moments listening to the mysterious twang of a guqin in a Naxi courtyard, gazing on the sea of stars over the rice fields of Shaxi, and imagining creatures materialize and shift form in the sunset clouds of Dali.
We didn’t hear pop music for twelve days, except for our own rendition of the Beatles and Eagles on a lone guitar by red lantern light. Worries about food safety and PMI levels were about the farthest thing from our minds, clear water flowing under cerulean blue skies.
Today my thoughts try to hold on to the images and moods of Yunnan before they slip into another shape. Further posts will explore the many scenes and highlights of our expedition. With chance and perseverance, I will see you again in Yunnan.
A place where it’s always summer, the Summer Palace of imperial Beijing.
If your summer travel plans include a trip to Beijing, undoubtedly you will make a visit to the exalted Summer Palace, the largest imperial garden in China and one of the big four sights in Beijing (the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, and the Summer Palace.)
a view from longevity hill towards xiangshan park
Established in the Qing Dynasty by the Qianlong Emperor, ransacked along with the Old Summer Palace by the British and French in the 19th century, then rebuilt and expanded by Empress Dowager Cixi, the Summer Palace is a masterpiece of classical China, infamous for its place in history, and an emblem of the resilience of China through the turbulence of last two centuries.
The Palace is known as in Chinese as the Garden of Nourishing Harmony (颐和园 yi he yuan), while its original name was the Garden of Clear Ripples (清漪园 qing yi yuan). The emperors of the Qing Dynasty would escape the brutal summer heat and rigid formalism of the Forbidden City for the rambling gardens of the Summer Palace. The main features of the garden include Longevity Hill, covered with pavilions, courtyards and temples, and the Kunming Lake. Today you can still sense the ease and peace they must have felt in the cool lake breezes.
the veranda surrounding the tower of buddhist incense is a prime spot for feeling the lake breezeit’s cooler on the lake–take a boat across the clear ripples
The Summer Palace was designed to incorporate features of the greatest landscapes and gardens from across China, including the great West Lake of Hangzhou, which heavily inspired the design of the lake and the West Causeway. The Palace incorporates many styles from all parts of China and beyond. You can see Suzhou style gardens, the Western renaissance style Marble Boat, and Tibetan architecture at the Buddhist complex of the Four Continents with its square forms and stupa towers. The Kunming Lake itself takes its name from the western city of China, transporting us to the blue skies of Yunnan. Visit this imperial garden and take a summer cruise through China.
If you’re an expat living in China, or are Chinese and want to travel to a foreign country, then chances are that you’ll need to visit one of the foreign consulates at some point. Living in Shenzhen, that means making a trip to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, and usually the consulate closest to Shenzhen in Mainland China. Recently I needed to add pages to my American passport, so I too had to make this well-tread pilgrimage to the consulate of my home country.
The US Consulate in Guangzhou recently moved from its traditional location on Shamian Island to the CBD of Tianhe, where it is now found in a clean cut, granite and steel building designed by SOM Architects. Here it’s a block away from modern icons like Guangzhou’s tallest completed building, the International Finance Center, and Zaha Hadid’s Opera House.
Thanks to some Chinese friends who recently made the trip for their American visas, I knew that security at the consulate is extraordinarily tight. No bags, nor cell phones, are allowed inside the consulate. The facility does provide phone-sized cubbies to leave your mobile in, but no true lockers for valuables. Because of these regulations, a cottage industry of Chinese women has grown up around the fronting street, where you can pay 30RMB for them to hold onto your things while you’re inside for your appointment.
Not quite comfortable with this scenario, I decided to make more of this sojourn to Guangzhou. After securing my appointment online, I booked a one night stay at the Guangdong Victory Hotel on Shamian Island, the site of the French and British concessions in the nineteenth century, and later many consulates, foreign banks, and social clubs. This way I could arrive the night before, and leave my things safely in the hotel room while I was at the consulate the next morning.
Shamian Island is a shaded strip of land along the Pearl River (珠江 Zhu Jiang), separated from the city by a narrow canal and connected by a few antique bridges. Its three main avenues are lined with banyan trees and stately, arcaded buildings of brick and stone. Most weekends these streets are filled with selfie taking girls and wedding photographers, but are very quiet during an weekday overnight stay. The Victory Hotel’s name card had a map of the area, still including the site of the old American consulate. During the 90s, all US adoptions of Chinese children came through the Guangzhou consulate, so Shamian’s hotels were frequent hosts of American couples taking their adopted children home for the first time.
the west wing of guangdong victory hotel
After checking in Sunday night, I took a stroll around the twilight streets, and dined at a vegetarian restaurant with flavorful Cantonese and Thai dishes. Next morning, I set out for the consulate with metro fare and my paperwork. The central avenue was warm and fresh in the South China dawn, with just one group of Chinese grannies dancing to some soaring anthem in the landscaped boulevard. I stopped for coffee in the Starbucks next to the west wing of the Victory Hotel, a fantastic place to enjoy a pastry and even pour over coffee in its bright open interior, or under the turquoise arcade overlooking the garden boulevard. It may have been both the most pleasant and least crowded Starbucks I have ever been to in China.
I arrived at the US consulate, where wielding my American passport led me to short security lines and the office for US citizen services. The huge, fully ADA compliant handicapped accessible bathroom certainly made me feel like I was back on American soil. After a short wait, my husband’s and my passports were amended with dozens of blank pages, bearing the promise of many future travels.
Tips:
茶 How to get there: Guangzhou is a convenient 1hour 20min train ride from Shenzhen (go to Guangzhou East station from Shenzhen’s main Luohu station). Shamian is located near Huangsha Metro Station (黄沙). Take the yellow Line 1 directly there from Guangzhou East station, or take a taxi to Shamian Island (沙面岛 sha mian dao), although taxi queues may be long at the station.
Go on a Sunday night, and if you score one of the earliest appointments on Monday, you could be back in Shenzhen by lunchtime or early afternoon Monday. Make your appointment online before you book your hotel.
茶 Guangzhou’s first language is Cantonese (which I don’t speak), but many people speak or at least understand some Mandarin. Of course English is spoken at the US consulate.
茶 Guangdong Victory Hotel has two wings—the west wing in the handsome former HSBC Bank, and the newer classical revival east wing two blocks to the east. If it’s available, book the west wing for more historic surroundings.
茶 Take only your passport, the paperwork, and payment you need to the consulate. No cell phones allowed, but do wear a watch (like Vegas – no clocks inside) and take a small book or magazine with you.
In China these days, there is much talk of the flowers of the season. Pale pink cherry blossoms are opening in pockets of central China and Yunnan, actually the ancient place of origin of the esteemed bloom. But eastern China is maybe the best for spring flower viewing, especially in the jiangnan (江南) region, south of the Yangtze River.
Du Mu wrote over a thousand years ago:
江南春
千里莺啼绿映红
水村山郭酒旗风
南朝四百八十寺
多少楼台烟雨中
Jiangnan Spring
A thousand miles of orioles crying, red among the green
Along the village shore and city wall, wine banners wave in the breeze
Four hundred and eighty temples of the southern court
How many towers hidden in the mist and rain
We’ve just returned from Qingming Festival in Hangzhou, part of the jiangnan region, where we saw so many of these ancient images painted before us. Peach blossoms in fiery pink, the pale plum blossom in early spring, the wild orchid in secret watery groves. Delicate young shades of spring green cascade through the landscape, in a way we miss in Shenzhen where it’s green all year.
Qingming is a traditional time to behold springtime flowers, but the jiangnan will be in bloom through April and May, so a trip to one of the area’s cities will be especially vibrant during this season. The May 1 holiday is one upcoming three day weekend, which could make a lovely time to visit this region. Hangzhou, the former capital Nanjing, Suzhou, and Yangzhou will all hold classical scenes as in the poems, and be dressed in beautiful blooms throughout these months. Here’s a great guide to flower viewing in Hangzhou.
Peach blossoms along Su Causeway, the top sight of Hangzhou in spring
During our time in Hangzhou at Qingming Festival, we took a day trip to see Longjing tea, some of the best in China, being harvested in the nearby villages. At the Dragon Well (Longjing 龙井) itself, the Qianlong emperor praised its sweet tasting water. This revered tea is harvested right around the Qingming Festival, which usually falls on April 5. Qingming means Pure Brightness, the name for the Tomb Sweeping Festival and the two week agricultural mini-season in the Chinese calendar. The best grade of tea is picked in the days leading up to the holiday and is called Mingqian (明前), which means before the brightness. Tea leaves picked later will be priced lower and lack the subtlety of the first young leaves of the season.
We visited two farmsteads, one in Meijiawu village and the other in the Longjing village itself. The roads twisted through foothills, covered with knobby tea bushes and on this day swathed in a misty rain. The tea picking ladies (called 采茶女 cai cha nü) bobbed amongst the bushes in straw hats and plastic raincoats covering their traditional patterned uniforms. In Meijiawu, thanks to our private guide for the day, we were able to walk out into the fields, cross a stream by stepping stones, and pick a few Longjing leaves ourselves. Just the three brilliant leaves of each branch’s tips are picked. Inside, the husband and wife bosses showed us how the air dried tea is roasted, and gave us a taste of the latest vintage from two days prior. Green tea’s antioxidant effects are well known, and our guide tells us how Chinese women even use the tea water to beautify their skin and protect their face from the computer screen’s free radicals.
In Longjing we visited a farmstead half way up a hill cloistered in bamboo. Three generations of women do the majority of the work here. The most senior matron leads the charge herself, spreading out the tea leaves just brought up the hill by a young man in two bushel baskets, and laughing about how her daughters worry she works too much. We finish our tea on the porch and look out over potted green orchids and listen to the rustle of the bamboo. The afternoon fades to a pale green as the young spring leaves steep in the cup and our spirits are revived.
Living in China, we’re lucky to celebrate both Chinese and Western holidays, and this week we’re enjoying the fortunate coincidence of Qingming Festival and Easter, both on Sunday April 5. Qingming Festival, besides being a holiday spent tending the graves of loved ones, is often the major marker of the beginning of spring and a three day holiday set aside for basking in spring weather. For Qingming Festival this year, we decided to return to our beloved Hangzhou. The days leading up to Qingming here are especially important, as the treasured Longjing tea which is picked right before this holiday is considered the highest quality of the entire harvest season.
For this occasion, we’re also happy to announce the launch of China Tea Leaves on Instagram! Find us @chinatealeaves. We’ll be posting through the holiday weekend. Today gave us blue skies over West Lake, with willows and red peach blossoms blowing in the breeze. Above is our featured Instagram picture of the day. Check out more over on Instagram. Tomorrow we’ll be in Longjing village, tasting and picking the young leaves of green tea.
Living in China, we’re lucky to celebrate both Chinese and Western holidays, and this week we’re enjoying the fortunate coincidence of Qingming Festival and Easter, both on Sunday April 5. Qingming Festival, besides being a holiday spent tending the graves of loved ones, is often the major marker of the beginning of spring and a three day holiday set aside for basking in spring weather. For Qingming Festival this year, we decided to return to our beloved Hangzhou. The days leading up to Qingming here are especially important, as the treasured