China-WhereToGo.txt

Where to Go
The 32 most-visited cities and sights in China, described in detail in this section, are arranged in alphabetical order. This conveniently puts the capital, Beijing, first. The names of the cities are given in official Pinyin spelling. (To the right of each place name, we also provide the spelling by which it was known in the old Wade-Giles system of romanization: for example, “Peking” instead of “Beijing.”) The authentic Chinese characters for each place name are provided in a list at the back of this guide along with pronunciation guides (see page 251). At the end of this extended gazetteer, we provide “Briefings” on 24 additional cities and sights that are less frequently visited on typical tours.
Planning Your Trip
Choosing an itinerary can be a difficult task, for China is too big to be covered in any reasonable amount of time. An excessively hasty week might take in Beijing, the Ming Tombs, and the Great Wall; the archaeological marvels of Xi’an; the romantic scenery of Guilin; and a glimpse of bustling Shanghai or Guangzhou (Canton). This sort of trip — though you leap around more often than is convenient — takes you to the top attractions.
Less taxing would be a week in and around Shanghai, emphasizing the legendary charms of Wuxi, Suzhou, and Hangzhou. All three towns are on the historic Grand Canal.
If you go inland, you can still take the celebrated four-day boat trip between Wuhan and Chongqing through the Yangzi (Yangtze) River gorges (before they are swallowed up by a massive dam project to be completed after 2009), and from there fly to Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou for sightseeing, shopping, and gourmet dining.
Silk Road enthusiasts fly from Beijing or Xi’an to Urumqi in the far west, returning via the exotic desert oases of Turpan and Dunhuang for the Buddhist cave treasures and camel rides to sand-locked lakes.
Another western China adventure is a visit to Yunnan Province, whose capital, Kunming, is home to members of most of China’s minority groups. Near Kunming are the Stone Forest, a natural monument of bizarre formations, and to the northwest, near the Tibetan border, the dazzling minority villages of Dali and Lijiang. 
If you prefer to stay close to Beijing, the better part of a varied week could profitably be spent investigating the carvings of the Buddhist caves near Datong, visiting the Mongolian lands of Hohhot, and viewing the Chinese and Tibetan temples of Chengde.
Any two of these week-long segments can be combined for a fortnight’s touring. The most popular itineraries invariably include Beijing, Xi’an, Guilin, and Shanghai, each city providing a glimpse of China past and present.
Beijing (Peking)
A visit to the medieval and modern capital of China is an exhausting though rewarding round of palaces and museums, temples and monuments, and streets and stores — a jolting juxtaposition of imperial pomp and contemporary energy.
Beijing has a population of over 12 million, but it is spread over a huge area calculated at a staggering 16,800 square km (about 6,500 square miles). Many neighborhoods are lined with old hutongs (alleyways) alongside traditional one- and two-story courtyard houses, where life has changed little since the days of the Qing Dynasty. Around the corner from these fast-disappearing cozy alleys are new housing projects, offices, modern shopping plazas, and open-air markets. This is a metropolis in the throes of modernization.
Mostly the city is flat, which is a mercy for the millions who bicycle to work in the world’s most unlikely rush hour, a chaos of buses and trucks and more bikes than you’ve seen in your whole life. In 1998, Beijing took the unthinkable step of actually banning bikes from one street, Xisidonglu, where bicycle flow had reached more than 100 per minute.
In the Middle Ages, the emperors decided to do something about the capital’s unrelieved flatness. They ordered hills to be artificially constructed just north of the Forbidden City so they could go up and, in total privacy, enjoy a summer breeze and a bird’s-eye view over the curved tile roofs of their imperial compound. Try it yourself, perhaps at dawn, when a thin haze drapes itself over the pavilions, redefining yet softening the features of this storybook skyline. You’ll see why the emperors wanted it all for themselves.
Beijing in History
Not far from the present-day suburbs of Beijing was the habitat of Peking Man, the startling anthropological discovery of the 1920s. A cave near the town of Zhoukoudian held the skull of a small-brained but upright ancestor of mankind who lived half a million years ago. Scientists are still sifting for the bones, and visitors can tour the dig themselves.
Recent excavations in downtown Beijing show that it was inhabited over 20,000 years ago, but the place made little stir until the Warring States period (fifth to third centuries b.c.) when, known as Jicheng, it became the capital of the Kingdom of Yan. Renamed Yanjing, the town served as capital for the Liao Dynasty in the tenth century a.d. The Jin (Chin) Dynasty of the 12th century called it Zhongdu (“Central Capital”) and built an imperial palace as well as the Lugou Bridge; known abroad as the “Marco Polo Bridge,” it is still in use.
Genghis Khan’s Mongol armies leveled Zhongdu in the 13th century, then rebuilt it under the name Dadu (“Great Capital”). By the time Marco Polo arrived, the city outshone the capitals of Europe. The Ming Dynasty transferred most of the imperial pomp south to Nanjing in the 14th century. Predictably, Dadu received yet another name, Beiping (“Northern Peace”) but had to wait more than 50 years to win back its imperial status and a fresh name. This one — Beijing (“Northern Capital”) — is still around. So, happily, are the Ming palaces and temples.
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Beijing prospered. New palaces and gardens were laid out and scholarship flourished. But during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, European armies wrought havoc in the city in retaliation for the siege of their embassies. This was only the first of many crises which were to rock Beijing: the fall of the empire, the foundation of the Chinese Republic, two world wars, and civil war. In 1949 Beijing became the capital of the new People’s Republic of China.
Sightseeing
The historic heart of Beijing consists of three concentric cities, rectangular and symmetrical, and a fourth — Outer City — to the south. Most of the miles of walls that protected each of the four cities have been lost to “progress,” but the innermost, Forbidden City, still glitters behind its original fortifications.
The elegance of this city plan, basically 700 years old, has never been surpassed. A precise north-south axis links the main elements, from the Bell Tower all the way to the gate of the Outer City, 8 km (5 miles) to the south. At the center of it all is the Forbidden City, imperial heart of the Middle Kingdom.
Tiananmen Square 
Called the biggest plaza on earth, Tiananmen Square covers 40 hectares (100 acres) in the very center of Beijing. The square was the center of world attention during the student demonstrations of 1989 and their tragic aftermath. In contrast, it is now the site of frequent festivities, with magnificent flower displays and sparkling fountains.
At the time of the emperors, the square was only about one-fourth its present size. In the old, less expansive square Mao Zedong first raised the flag of the new nation on 1 October 1949. On 1 October 1999, the People’s Republic celebrated its golden anniversary, each of the square’s concrete blocks freshly replaced by stately granite. 
The newest building on the square, called the Chairman Mao Zedong Memorial Hall, contains the embalmed body of the man who led the People’s Republic for its first 27 years. The mausoleum, which is bigger than Lenin’s tomb in Moscow’s Red Square, is open to a procession of tourists, who are allowed only a few minutes inside. A grandiose building on the west side of the square, the Great Hall of the People (Renmin Dahuitang), erected in 1959, is the meeting place of the National People’s Congress; the Great Hall offers tours. At the heart of the square is the Monument to the People’s Heroes, a granite obelisk where the democracy movement was headquartered in 1989. 
Far across the plaza, two courtyard museums in one building cover the history of China. In the Museum of Chinese History are 9,000 items from prehistoric fossils to breathtaking pottery and bronzes. The Museum of the Chinese Revolution houses Communist Party documents and displays. The explanations are in Chinese only, but you can buy an illustrated guide in English from the bookstall to the left of the entrance. 
North across Changan Avenue from Tiananmen Square (and leading to the Forbidden City) is the Gate of Heavenly Peace, with its famous portrait of Chairman Mao. Atop this formidable stone wall is a rostrum for reviewing parades, and behind it a massive wooden gate-tower with a double roof. The original 15th-century gate complex was rebuilt in 1651. Tourists are now allowed to survey the square from atop the gate, a vantage point once reserved for emperors and rulers.
Forbidden City (Gu Gong)
Beijing is too sprawling a town for strolling around, so you can forget the sort of browsing that some European cities offer. Among several exceptions, though, is the Forbidden City. Here you will find more than 72 hectares (175 acres) of grandeur, with palaces, courtyards, and gardens. It is a walled rectangular island within a massive moat wide enough for naval engagements.
The Forbidden City, so described because it was off-limits to ordinary people for nearly 500 years, is now called the Palace Museum. Designed to contain the auspicious number of 9,999 rooms, its scale is overwhelming and leaves many visitors bewildered. Built in the years 1406–1420, it was the residence of 24 emperors for nearly seven centuries.
Tourists normally enter the Forbidden City from the south, after a long walk along a cobbled roadway from the Gate of Heavenly Peace. The main entrance to the compound, Meridian Gate (Wumen), was designed in the 15th century. Officials used the left portal, members of the imperial family the right. Next comes another ceremonial gate, the Gate of Supreme Harmony (Taihemen), first erected in 1420. A pair of monumental bronze lions stand guard.
Beyond this powerful defense line stands China’s supreme ensemble of ancient architecture. First and foremost is the Hall of Great Harmony (Taihedian), popularly called the “Hall of the Imperial Throne.” This is the biggest building in the Forbidden City and one of China’s most beautiful wooden structures. For hundreds of years during the Ming and Qing dynasties this was the tallest building in all Beijing; by law no house could rise higher. (Counting the hall’s upswept roof decorations, that meant the limit was approximately 371⁄2 m, or 123 ft.) Inside, on a raised platform, the “Son of Heaven” sat on his Dragon Throne surrounded by symbols of longevity and power and cowering acolytes, all covered in a fog of incense. To the tune of gongs and chimes, visitors knelt to kowtow nine times.
Less formal occasions took place in the smaller, golden-roofed Hall of Central Harmony (Zhonghedian), behind the Hall of Great Harmony. A third hall in this series, the Hall of Preserving Harmony (Baohedian), was used, among other things, for the palace examinations, which were the world’s first civil-service tests. Behind this hall, in the center of a stairway, is a ramp full of sculptured dragons carved from a single slab of marble weighing more than 200 tons. It was reserved for the emperor’s sedan chair. Thousands of laborers worked to pull the block to this site from the quarry 48 km (30 miles) away; ingeniously, the operation was scheduled for deepest winter so that the load could be slid along specially iced roads.
From here to the north, the density of structures in the Forbidden City increases markedly as one passes from the Outer Court (where official business was conducted) to the halls and pavilions of the Inner Court (where the emperor, the imperial family, and court members lived). Many of the old palaces and halls are now used to display the artwork and more prosaic belongings of the emperors. The Hall of Clocks and Hall of Jewelry, collections of gifts to the emperors, are worth a detour to the right, as is the Nine-Dragon Screen (Jiulongbi), carved in 1775.
The rear (northern) section of the Forbidden City contains the pavilions where the imperial family resided and ends at the Imperial Gardens (Yuhuayuan), with magnificent stone rockeries, site of a Daoist temple that dates back to the completion of the Forbidden City itself under the Ming emperors in 1420.
Two Parks
Just north of the Forbidden City complex, along the main imperial axis, is Jingshan Park, better known as Coal Hill (Meishan). The highest point of old Beijing, the hill was created from earth that was removed to form the moat system around the Forbidden City. Each of the five artificial peaks was provided with a romantically designed pavilion. The three-tiered Pavilion of Ten Thousand Springs (Wanchunting), on the middle peak, offers an inspiring view over the glistening rooftops of the Imperial City, with the modern capital beyond.
Beihai Park, Beijing’s favorite, has been a beauty spot for many hundreds of years. Its lake, which young couples now explore in rented rowing boats, was created in the 12th century. The graceful Bridge of Eternal Peace (Yonganqiao) leads to an artificial island a mile in circumference with a long covered corridor that sweeps along the northern shore. On a hill in the center of the isle is situated a Tibetan-style tower, the White Dagoba (Baita), at the back of Yongan Temple. In springtime the dagoba seems to burst from waves of green leaves. In summer and fall, this is the most beautiful and lively park to stroll through in the capital.
Temple of Heaven Park
Tiantan Park, known to foreigners as Temple of Heaven Park, is the biggest of Beijing’s parks, celebrated for its assembly of thrilling 15th-century architecture. The highlight is the circular, blue tile-roofed Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest (Qiniandian). This marvel of geometry, art, and engineering, built without a single nail, measures 371⁄2 m (123 ft) to the gilded orb on its topmost roof. In 1889 the masterpiece was struck by lightning and burned almost to the ground. Fortunately, the ruin was quickly restored to its original, resplendent state.
The emperor was carried here in a procession in the first lunar month of each year to pray for a bountiful harvest. The floor plan of the hall provides the key to the building’s function. The four central columns represent the seasons; then come two concentric rings of 12 columns each, representing the months and the dozen two-hour periods into which the day was divided; and 28 hardwood pillars symbolize the constellations.
Although tourists can no longer enter this monument, its colorful interiors can still be glimpsed from outside. Other attractions at the park include the Round Altar (Haunqiutan) and Echo Wall, where whispered secrets ricochet and are mysteriously magnified, crossing an immense courtyard, without benefit of modern technology. 
Top Temples
Beijing’s most popular temple is a 17th-century Lamasery, the Palace of Harmony and Peace (Yonghegong), popularly known as the Lama Temple. It was originally the palace of the prince who became the Emperor Yongzheng. The stately complex of wooden buildings, containing nearly 1,000 rooms, has been painstakingly restored. The temple recalls 18th-century efforts to unify China, Mongolia, and Tibet.
Across the street and down a narrow street from the Lama Temple is Beijing’s most serene place of worship, the Temple of Confucius (Kongzimiao), with statues and stone tablets honoring the ancient sage.
Other temples of significant interest and variety are Big Bell Temple (Dazhongsi), with China’s leading collection of antique bells; Temple of the White Pagoda (Baitasi), with its newly renovated 13th century Tibetan stupa, China’s largest; Five Pagoda Temple (Wutasi), decorated with Indian-influenced sculptures; and White Clouds Daoist Temple (Baiyuanguan), where Beijingers of all ages crowd in to pray for good fortune at a variety of most unusual shrines.
An Observatory, a Zoo, and an Aquarium
The Ancient Beijing Observatory (Guguanxiangtai), built in 1442, stands atop a remnant of the old city wall on the busiest street in central Beijing (Jianguomenwaidajie). Many of the bronze instruments, sundials, and sextants on display inside and on the roof of the observatory were gifts from Jesuit missionaries who lived in the capital during the 17th century.
China’s largest zoo, in the northwestern sector of Beijing, now includes a separate indoor-outdoor pavilion for its lovable giant pandas. The older buildings (dating back to the Qing Dynasty) house Manchurian tigers, Tibetan yaks, snow leopards, and Père David’s deer, known to the Chinese as the “quadruple unlikeness” (sibuxiang) because it has characteristics of the deer, the reindeer, the ox, and the donkey. The zoo is popular with local children, but most foreign visitors find the facilities too antiquated and its conditions poor.
Rather than upgrade its aged facilities, Beijing Zoo has just opened the Beijing Aquarium, China’s largest, on adjacent property. Home to whales, dolphins, and 50,000 fish, the huge conch-shaped facility features a “Touch Tidepool,” sea mammal shows, and some of the world’s largest acrylic viewing panels.
Hutongs and Courtyards
Growing in popularity in the face of extinction by bulldozer, the hutongs (traditional alleyways) and courtyard houses of Beijing are worth a visit. Every year these old neighborhoods are reduced as the capital relentlessly reconstructs itself, but it’s still possible to book a guided pedicab tour of the hutongs. Wandering the backstreets in the old lake district north of Beihai Park, these pedicab caravans make stops at the ancient Drum Tower for panoramic views, at Prince Gong’s Palace (Gongwangfu) for tea and sometimes opera in a lavish grand Ming Dynasty estate, and at a typical courtyard home in a hutong neighborhood for a chance to meet and talk with Beijing residents.
If time allows for further exploration of these old neighborhoods, poke around Qianhai and Houhai lakes for weekend street markets. Here you’ll find Songqingling Guzhu, the former residence of Soong Ching-ling (wife of modern China’s founder, Dr. Sun Yat-sen), who lived in this courtyard mansion after the revolution. It is now a family museum.
Shopping Districts
Some of Beijing’s few walkable areas are its chief shopping streets and markets. Wangfujing, running north a few blocks east of the Forbidden City, is the capital’s primary shopping street, lined with upscale boutiques and glittering shopping plazas, although a few venerable arts and crafts shops, small galleries, and old department stores still survive. South of Tiananmen Square, Liulichang Street has been restored to its Ming Dynasty appearance and is a shopper’s delight. Liulichang, Beijing’s premier antiques market, extends eastward into Dazhalan Street, a pedestrian mall famous for silk and jewelry shops.
Outdoor markets, where visitors must bargain at length, are another walking adventure. Silk Alley, the most famous and most overpriced, specializes in designer fashions. More clothes and furs are found at Yabao Market, near Ritan Park (popularly known as the Russian Market). The Hongxiao Market, near the Temple of Heaven, features clothing, crafts, and freshwater pearls. The most colorful market is Panjiayuan (know as the Dirt Market), starting at sunrise every Sunday, with its stalls of collectibles, antiques, family treasures, tomb art, Tibetan rugs, furniture, and Mao memorabilia.
Summer Palace
The Chinese name for this convergence of natural and man-made beauty is Yiheyuan — the “Park of Nurtured Harmony.” Foreigners call this 280-hectare (700-acre) imperial estate the Summer Palace. In actual fact, the 250-year-old palaces, pavilions, temples, and halls occupy only a small part of the dreamily landscaped area. By far the largest feature of the park is Kunming Lake.
Contemporary Chinese historians wax indignant that, under the Qing Dynasty, funds appropriated for the imperial navy were, in fact, siphoned off to make Yiheyuan an increasingly luxurious private park. Perhaps the most astonishing of the items on which the Empress Dowager Cixi squandered the naval budget is a double-decker Marble Boat beached at the edge of the lake. You can view this monument to royal folly, but you can no longer board it.
Among the outstanding structures in the park are the Hall of Joyful Longevity (Leshoutang) and the Seventeen-Arch Bridge, but the most magnificent structure is the Long Corridor, a wooden gallery 728 m (nearly half a mile) in length. This covered way, which is interrupted by octagonal pavilions, is decorated with landscape paintings and depictions of Chinese legends. It’s like a long, unfolding wooden scroll of Old Cathay, a lakeside gallery recording all that was once the Middle Kingdom. 
Not far from the Summer Palace is the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan), once the emperor’s summer retreat. In 1860 British and French soldiers razed most of the grand buildings, including a complex modeled after Versailles. The ghostly ruins make an idyllic picnic ground.
Excursions from Beijing
The Great Wall
It’s about 80 km (50 miles) from the center of Beijing northwest to the most visited stretch of the Great Wall of China, at Badaling. The trip telescopes history, from the modern capital through the outskirts where donkey carts and cargo-carrying bicycles share the road, past farms where nothing seems to have changed for centuries, to a harsh mountain range where nearly one million workers walled in an empire. Like all the real wonders of the world, this one is more awesome when visited in person than it is in any film or book.
The first elements of the wall system were built more than 2,000 years ago, but the expansion and consolidation of the project near Beijing began under the Ming Dynasty in the 14th century. The serpentine stone bulwark and elevated highway became Wanlichangcheng — “The Wall Ten Thousand Li Long” (about 6,000 km/3,700 miles).
The restored section of the wall at Badaling, undulating up the unexpectedly steep hillsides, can be a test of a tourist’s endurance. It is far steeper and more formidable than it looks in any tourist brochure. Out of breath, many visitors exchange sympathetic smiles along the way as they ascend to one or another of the towers. If you walk far enough west, you come upon unrestored sections of the wall at the edge of the Gobi Desert.
The Badaling section is often overcrowded these days. Two other sections now provide relatively easy access to tourists: the Great Wall at Mutianyu, as beautiful as the section at Badaling but a little less steep, and the Great Wall at Simatai, more distant from Beijing than other sections but virtually unrestored. Simatai is the least crowded and most original of the Great Wall sites. Although it too has a cable-car concession, Simatai bills itself as “the most dangerous section of the Great Wall.”
The Ming Tombs
On the way to the Great Wall is the peaceful valley the Ming emperors chose as their burial ground. In 1407 the Emperor Yongle ordered a search for a suitable burial place with auspicious “wind and water” conditions, as well as appropriate grandeur. This site proved so perfect that all but three of the succeeding Ming rulers were entombed in the same valley.
The Sacred Way to the Ming Tombs begins at a great marble gateway more than four centuries old. Beyond this is the main gate with three archways; the middle arch was used only once in each reign — for the delivery of the emperor’s remains to his tomb. Then comes the Avenue of the Animals, which is lined with massive statues of real and mythical beasts.
The largest tomb (Changling) belonged to Yongle himself. Its Hall of Eminent Favors (Lingendian) is among the largest wooden buildings in China. The 32 gilded pillars supporting the coffered ceiling were fashioned from a huge tree that took more than five years to ship here from southwest China.
Ninety-one steps take you down below ground level to Dingling (the tomb of the Emperor Wanli, whose reigned from 1573 to 1620). It took 30,000 workers six years to build this underground palace. Most of the regalia and artifacts on display, including the red wooden coffin containers in the burial vault, are copies of the items discovered during excavations in the 1950s.
The Qing Tombs
While many visitors to the Ming Tombs find the site crowded and uninspiring, there is a fascinating alternative. The Eastern Qing Tombs (Dongqingling) mimic the older Ming architecture but are grander and more effectively restored. They are also more than twice as far from Beijing: 125 km (78 miles) to the east on slow but interesting roads. Of the nine tombs open to view, those of two most powerful Manchu emperors, Qianlong and Kangxi, are impressive, and that of Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1911) is as elaborate as it is strange.
Changsha
If you go to Changsha by train, you will arrive at the second biggest railway station in China, a distinction quite out of proportion to the amount of rail traffic or the size of the city. The explanation is that, until the late 1970s, legions of pilgrims converged on this provincial capital in search of the roots of Chairman Mao Zedong. Now that the cult of Mao has faded in glory, the stations and the shrines are uncrowded and Changsha has returned to its age-old role as a rather prosaic regional center of trade and culture. However, the surrounding fertile countryside is attractive, the spicy Hunan cuisine is worth trying, the scenic mountain areas of the province are outstanding, and the archaeological displays are stunning.
The capital of Hunan Province, Changsha lies along the Xiang River, a wide and often turbulent stream that flows into the Yangzi. The long thin strip of Orange Island (Juzizhou), rich in oranges among other crops, bisects the river and in the early 20th century was home to a small band of Western traders and missionaries. From the pavilion at the southern tip there is an engrossing view of sampans, barge trains, and passenger ships. On the far side of the river, fragrant forests climb the slopes of Yuelu Hill, a favorite escape from the subtropical heat of the city in summer. One of the evergreen trees in the mountainside Lushan Temple is more than 1,700 years old. The Qing Dynasty pavilion on top (Yunlugong) affords a fine panorama.
For most tourists the prime attraction of the region is found in the northeast part of town: the Hunan Provincial Museum, with its renowned relics of the Han Dynasty, including silks, ceramics, and lacquerware of unbelievable sophistication, as well as alluring figurines and musical instruments. All these artifacts survived because they were buried in coffins within coffins in subterranean royal tombs. These beautiful wooden boxes come from the royal graves at Mawangdui, as does the museum’s show-stopper: the remarkably well-preserved silk-wrapped mummy of the Marquis of Dai’s wife, Tohou, who died at age 50 in 186 b.c. Nearly 2,200 years later, her hair is still on her head and her expression is unchanged from the moment of her last breath.
Tourists in Changsha are sometimes taken to visit the local embroidery factory, where Hunan’s handicraft tradition has flourished for 2,000 years. Staff artists paint original designs, usually of landscapes, animals, birds, or flowers, which the artisans reproduce stitch by microscopic stitch in colorful silk. The workers here are proudest of the double-faced embroidery, with a different picture on each side.
Changsha also features sites linked with Chairman Mao and the revolution. Foremost is Hunan’s first Teachers’ Training School (Diyishifan). Reconstructed in 1968, it resembles a European monastery, with arcades and gardens. During the Cultural Revolution visitors thronged the institution every day, for this is where Mao Zedong studied from 1913 to 1918 and later taught. The classroom of 30 desks where Mao sat and the crowded dormitory where he slept under a mosquito net are on view.
Since the 100th anniversary of Mao’s birth (1893), millions of visitors have been to the village of Shaoshan, Mao’s birthplace, two hours by bus from Changsha. The principal sights are the house where he was born, quite roomy by local standards, and a museum with all the exhibits in duplicate, filling two mirror-image wings designed to double the crowd capacity.
Excursions in Hunan
Outdoor enthusiasts and independent travelers might have time to explore two of Hunan’s most spectacular natural attractions. The Southern Heng Mountain (Hengshannan, also called Nanyue), one of China’s Five Sacred Mountains in the ancient Daoist pantheon, is 112 km (70 miles) south of Changsha. Its temples, monasteries, and misty vistas are well worth a day’s hike. Wulingyuan, a large nature preserve better known to the Chinese as Zhangjiajie, is 350 km (217 miles) west of Changsha. Known as “China’s Yellowstone,” this UNESCO World Heritage Site is a remote park of spectacular and uncanny quartz labyrinths and pinnacles, massive limestone caves, white-water rapids, steep hiking trails, and minority villages. 
Chengde (Jehol)
In summer the trip to Chengde, about 250 km (150 miles) northeast of Beijing, might well be one of the prettiest anywhere in China. Fertile fields alternate with stony hills, miraculously sprouting trees, and wildflowers. In the hamlets along the way, trim houses are roofed with thatch or traditional tile with winged projections. In the fields, the labor is done mostly by hand, and when animals are not available, even the heavy plowing is done by men in harness. Chengde itself looks, at first glance, like any other northern Chinese industrial town, but the dreariness is interspersed with beautifully sited old temples and an imperial pleasure-ground big enough to be protected by a wall 10 km (6 miles) long.
The palaces and gardens of Chengde provided summertime escape for the imperial courts of the Qing Dynasty, beginning with Emperor Kangxi, who created the halls, lakes, and hunting grounds here as a second summer palace in 1703. Kangxi called these royal parklands Bishushanzhuang, or “Mountain Villa for Escaping the Summer Heat.” Indeed, its altitude — at about 350 m (more than 1,100 ft) above sea level — provides relief from the summer heat, as do the surrounding mountains, forests, and rivers.
Visitors enter this royal resort at the ceremonial Lizheng Gate, flanked by two marble lions. The old palace and royal halls now serve as museums. Among the exhibits are bows and arrows and Chinese flintlocks, rare jade and porcelain, and the sedan chairs in which the emperors were transported all the way from Beijing. The emperor’s bedroom is located in the Refreshing Mist-Veiled Waters Pavilion. The halls and courtyards are eminently regal, yet they also inspire a feeling of relaxation appropriate to the setting. The plain wooden corridors connecting the buildings contrast with the illustrated passageways of Beijing’s Summer Palace, which occupies but half the space of the Chengde retreat. 
The landscape beyond the palace compound features many of the romantic elements of Chinese tradition: interconnected lakes and lotus ponds, forests, causeways and arched bridges, ornate pavilions, and towering pagodas. The Tower of Mist and Rain (Yanyulou), a two-story lakeside pavilion in the southern style, was favored by emperors for its foggy views resembling those of an old Chinese painting. Tourists can cross the lakes in hand-poled ferryboats or drift at their own pace in a rowing boat. North of the lakes there are hiking trails in the Garden of Ten Thousand Trees (Wanahuyuan), where Emperor Qianlong gave an audience in 1793 to the first British ambassador to set foot in China, Lord Macartney. The meeting did not go well.
Beyond the wall surrounding the palace and its gardens rise the exotic roofs of the Eight Outer Temples, built by the emperors between 1713 and 1779 to honor and influence Tibetans, Kazakhs, and other northern peoples. All are open to tourists. The two grandest temples are Tibetan in style. The Mount Sumera Longevity and Happiness Temple (Xumifushoumiao) is a copy of the sixth Panchen Lama’s residence in Shigatse, Tibet. The high red walls surround a pavilion with a roof gilded in a ton of gold. A mile east, the Small Potala Temple (Putuozongshengmiao), the largest at Chengde, evokes the Dalai Lama’s Potala Palace in Lhasa and is so steep a climb (164 steps) that sedan-chair carriers do a brisk trade with weary tourists. 
Chengdu (Chengtu)
Balmy and often misty weather keeps Chengdu green and full of flowers year ‘round. It’s the climate in which bamboo thrives, and bamboo is the staple of the giant panda. The best place to spot these cuddly-looking beasts in something resembling the wilds is at the China Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, 11 km (7 miles) northeast of downtown Chengdu, where a dozen pandas have free run of some 30 hectares (80 acres) of bamboo groves. There’s a panda museum here, too. In closer confines, the Chengdu Zoo has more resident pandas (about a dozen) than does any other zoo in the world. The thin bamboo stalks they find so delicious are grown right in the grounds. Because they are the stars of this attraction, the giant pandas are assigned high-ceilinged, spacious cages and outdoor play areas.
Chengdu is the capital city of Sichuan (Szechuan) Province, the natural habitat for eighty percent of the world’s 1,000 giant pandas. But Chengdu has other attractions as well, some of them historical, some of them spiritual, and some of them edible.
At the time of the era of the Three Kingdoms, in the third century, Chengdu was capital of the feudal Kingdom of Shu, and politics, not pandas, was the prime attraction. The principal monument from that era is the Temple of Marquis Wu (Wuhouci), a complex of halls and gardens in the southern suburbs built to commemorate the kingdom’s prime minister. Known in his lifetime (a.d. 181–234) as Zhugeliang, he was posthumously ennobled for his role in unifying the region and developing its economy and culture. In the main hall, built in the Tang Dynasty, there are gilt statues of Zhugeliang, his son, and his grandson; the latter died in battle at the age of 14.
Chinese literary pilgrims are drawn to another of Chengdu’s historic sites, the thatched cottage of Dufu (Dufucaotang), a shrine, museum, and park at the spot where the poet of the Tang Dynasty lived in exile from the capital for several years. Dufu (formerly spelled Tufu) lived from 712 to 770 and wrote more than 1,400 poems, many of them regarded as the greatest in the Chinese canon.
Chengdu’s most popular Daoist temple, Qingyanggong (“Green Goat Temple”), is a lively, garish complex where two bronze “good luck” goats at the main altar have been rubbed smooth by worshippers seeking their fortunes. Not far away is the center of Zen (Chan) Buddhism in Sichuan, the 1,300-year-old Wenshu Temple, which maintains its own company of woodcarvers as well as a vegetarian restaurant and outdoor teahouse. 
Chengdu’s largest and most renowned religious monument, located 28 km (17 miles) north of the city, is the Divine Light Monastery (Baoguangsi). The most photographed element of this vast establishment is the stupa, a slightly crooked 13-level pagoda. It was built of stone at the end of the Tang Dynasty, replacing an ancient wooden pagoda on the same spot. The five main halls of the monastery are filled with works of art, including Buddhist sculptures, religious and landscape paintings, and examples of many schools of calligraphy. One 19th-century hall contains 500 larger-than-life-sized statues of Buddhist saints. The “Ancestor Garden,” formerly reserved for retired monks, has been appropriated for the use of foreign tourists only — as a tearoom.
By long tradition, Chengdu is China’s preeminent city of teahouses. Many still operate along the north bank of the Jin (“Brocade”) River, serving covered cups of flower tea. Customers linger at courtyard tables, watching trinket vendors and pipe and tobacco salesmen ply their trade along the river promenade.
Another restful spot is the River Viewing Pavilion (Wangjianglou), in a park along the south bank of the Jin River. More than 100 kinds of bamboo grow here. As in other traditional Chengdu parks, there are pavilions and towers, rock gardens, ponds, and shady paths. River viewing of a different type is recommended at the site of the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, 57 km (35 miles) northwest of Chengdu. This ambitious irrigation and flood-control project, built in the third century b.c., is still in use. The lush hills along the shore provide a poetic setting for an engineering wonder.
In the center of town some neighborhoods retain a medieval look. Two-story shophouses, some sagging with age, line the narrow streets. They have stores on the ground floor and living quarters above, with wooden balconies and distinctive carved designs. But “progress” is inevitable. On the site of the ancient viceroy’s palace, in the very center of Chengdu, stands a heavy, columned socialist-realist building; a giant statue of Mao Zedong graces the entrance. The edifice is now a department store. In the main hall shoppers are inspired by portraits of Mao, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. A special department catering to tourists features such local specialties as Shu embroidery, toy pandas (made of rabbit fur), pottery, and bamboo ware.
By way of local color, you shouldn’t turn down a chance to see Sichuan Opera. To make things more challenging, it’s all sung in the local dialect, but you can just relax and watch the spectacle of mime, dance, and acrobatics. Backstage tours are arranged these days by private tour operators. 
Sichuan cuisine, one of the four great schools of Chinese cooking, produces such imaginative creations as “abalone and chrysanthemums,” “peonies and butterflies,” and “stewed bear’s trotters in brown sauce.” One of the most famous dishes, mapo dofu, consists of beancurd infused with chili peppers in a manner that numbs the tongue upon impact. 
For the more adventurous, Chengdu is the gateway to the Great Buddha at Leshan and Mt. Emei (see page 136).
Chongqing (Chungking)
Although the city’s history goes back thousands of years, Chongqing was never a cultural center, and it isn’t today. It cannot offer spectacular temples, palaces, or archaeological sites. Rather, it is a place to see the daily life of a major Chinese industrial city and to begin some outstanding excursions on the legendary Yangzi River.
In the Qin Dynasty, in the third century b.c., the city was the capital of the dreamily named Kingdom of Ba. Its present name (Chongqing means “Double Jubilation”) dates from the medieval period, commemorating a lucky streak in the life of the local prince. Until the last few years it was spelled Chungking, by which name the city was best known in the West as the political and military capital of the Nationalist government from 1939 to 1945, the wartime redoubt of Chiang Kai-shek.
Although Chongqing is physically located in subtropical Sichuan (Szechuan) Province, since March 1997 it has been an autonomous governmental unit (as are Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin), with a staggering metropolitan population of over 30 million people. Set on a promontory where the Yangzi and Jialing rivers converge, this starkly industrial city of smokestacks is crucial to transportation and commerce in southwest China. It presides over the portion of the Yangzi upstream from the massive Three Gorges Dam project, which sometime between the years 2009 and 2013 will create an immense reservoir and drown the most scenic section of the river. 
The sightseeing you remember best might be the lively free market lining the hundreds of steps that descend higgledy-piggledy from the hills of central Chongqing to the river. Hustling, bustling peasants hawk the rich harvest of the surrounding farming country: cabbages and oranges, eggs and live chickens (they are weighed while flapping), river fish and squirming eels, and table after table of the most fragrant spices, while stalls and hole-in-the-wall cafés heat up the city’s number-one dish, the Sichuan hotpot.
Leading down to the river’s edge, the steep stone stairway known as the Gate to the Sky (Chaotianmen), which appears not to have been cleaned since the Ming Dynasty, is treacherously overlaid with mud and muck, so wear your safest shoes and walk with care. Happily, at the bottom of this long descent there is a terminal for the funicular that returns you to the top of this town, which is so hilly bicycles are almost unknown.
Sights worth seeing in town include the Chongqing People’s Hall, built in 1953 to serve as a 4,000-seat conference hall and hotel. It blends the styles of the Ming and Qing dynasties with the needs of a modern conference hall. The Chongqing Museum, while poorly-lit and aging, does contain a collection of dinosaur eggs and two 3,000-year-old wooden boats that, suspended from the cliffs of the Yangzi, served as caskets for nobles in the days of the Ba Kingdom. Perhaps the liveliest sight in Chongqing is the 1,000-year-old Luohan Temple, where blind fortune-tellers and devoted followers of Buddha converge from dawn to dusk. 
In the domain of darker political history, two former Nationalist prisons outside town are open as monuments to the Revolutionary cause. The US/Chiang Kai-shek Criminal Acts Exhibition Hall (so goes the catchy title) includes cells and torture chambers. Western visitors are not usually shown around unless they specifically request it. This is largely in deference to the sensitivities of Europeans and Americans, who are blamed for collusion with the Nationalists in the excesses of their anticommunist struggle.
Because of Chongqing’s notoriously torrid summer weather — it’s known as one of the “ovens” of China — hills and parks are a very welcome refuge here. Loquat Hill (Pipashan), the city’s highest spot, has gardens, a teahouse (Hongxing), and some splendid panoramas. The Northern and Southern Hot Springs parks (Beiwenquan and Nanwenquan) are also popular gathering places, with well-kept public gardens. A typical Chongqing method of escaping the heat is to take refuge in a cool cave. During the years of Japanese air raids, hundreds of air-raid shelters were dug into the mountains here, and some have been turned into cafés and restaurants.
Even in the heat of summer, however, the most popular dish remains the Sichuan hotpot, a bowl of seething oils into which the diner dips and boils to perfection a selection of meats, vegetables, and beancurd, much like fighting fire with fire.
Excursions from Chongqing
Yangzi River Cruise
China’s most exciting boat trip is the Yangzi River cruise through the spectacular Three Gorges (Sanxia). It takes at least three days to go downriver from Chongqing to Wuhan, and as many as five days in the reverse direction, bucking the considerable tide. Until relatively recently the trip was considered an extended, risky adventure. The most awesome scenery is concentrated between the Sichuan city of Baidi and Nanjin Pass in Hubei Province. The sight of the Yangzi water rushing between the sheer walls and evocative rock formations never fails to stir the traveler’s spirit. 
In 1992 the National People’s Congress passed a resolution to launch the massive Three Gorges Hydropower Project, including the construction of a huge dam and a reservoir, slated for completion sometime after the year 2009, which will submerge the most scenic sections of the river. 
Tourists can choose between ordinary Chinese passenger ships or more deluxe luxury cruise ships that cater to overseas visitors. The river boats that the Chinese use lack frills, amenities, and guides. The luxury craft charge much more but offer a good range of tourist services, including decent meals. Often reserved in part for package tours, these ships are also open to independent travelers, and staterooms can even be booked in advance overseas with such lines as Victoria Cruises.
Dazu Stone Sculptures
One of China’s great artistic wonders, rated on par with the Mogao Caves on the Silk Road in Dunhuang, is the Buddhist sculptural treasure of Dazu. This district northwest of Chongqing was so inaccessible in earlier times that many thousands of statues were never exposed to pillage. Today, it still takes three hours to cover the 112 km (70 miles) from Chongqing, even via the new Chengyu Expressway.
The stone carvings of Dazu were begun late in the ninth century during the Tang Dynasty; the work lasted well into the Southern Song period, hundreds of years later. Although Buddhism is their central theme, there are also sculptures representing historical and human-interest subjects.
Northern Hill (Beishan), situated only a couple of kilometers north of Dazu, begins with a Buddhist temple and a big, animated square. The wide, rocky valley below is filled with sculpture; every inch of stone seems to have been carved. Among the perfectly preserved figures in “The Wheel of the Universe” in Grotto 136 are the statues of two holy women, the Bodhisattvas Manjusri and Samatabhadra, who triumphed over evil. Helping to make Northern Hill an overwhelming experience is the presence of Buddhist pilgrims who still call upon these ancient shrines. 
Even more magnificent is Treasure Peak (Baodingshan). Its sculptures are located in a natural arc of stone known as the Great Buddha Crescent, carved over a 70-year span by Buddhist monks during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279). The biggest single work, an immense reclining Buddha 29 m (96 ft) long, is surrounded by the infinitely smaller statues of lifelike disciples. Whereas grotto sculpture in China is usually laid out more or less spontaneously, the caves here were apparently all planned to the last detail before the first stone was chipped, thus eliminating any repetition. Dazu represents the last great period of Buddhist cave sculpture in China, and a long day’s journey out and back from Chongqing to this stone crescent is unforgettable. 
Dali
In Yunnan Province, about 250 km (155 miles) northwest of its capital Kunming along the historic Burma Road route, is the scenic village of Dali, a favorite of independent backpackers. The surroundings could hardly be more spectacular, with Erhai (“Ear Sea”) Lake to the east and the steep Cangshan mountain range to the west. Best of all are the people of Dali, mostly members of the Bai minority, outgoing people who treat Western travelers with wonderful hospitality.
The town, capital of the Bai Autonomous Region, has sections of a medieval wall with formal gates on the north and south ends. Within the walls are a few intersecting main streets whose tile-roofed shops and houses now serve as souvenir shops, private travel agencies, hostels, and — above all — small, intimate, friendly cafés serving a truly international mix of inexpensive dishes.
The café life in Dali is one of its chief delights. Cafés are perfect spots to wile away the sunny hours over coffee or beer or to meet local Bai people as well as other travelers. Perhaps the most famous of the dozens of cafés is Mr. China Son’s Cultural Exchange Café, run by Uncle Li (Heliyi), the first Bai in history to go abroad. His autobiography, on sale at his café, is an epic soap opera.
Dali also has sights and attractions well worth attending to when the café and bistro scene begins to pale. Erhai Lake is a 30-minute walk from town, and its main village, Caicun, is a maze of unpaved alleys and mud houses. Ferries cross the lake to even more remote villages, including the temple dedicated to Guanyin (goddess of mercy) on Putuo Island. Any of dozens of local travel agents can quickly arrange an excursion to lakeside villages, including the market at Wase. One popular diversion is the Monday morning outdoor market at Shaping, 30 minutes up the eucalyptus-lined road by minibus from Dali. It’s a vast market of country wares, batik, and horse-trading, with hundreds of locals dressed in their traditional bright Bai jackets, tunics, and plumed caps.
The chief monument at Dali is the Temple of the Three Pagodas (Santasi), founded in 825. The tallest of the three towers, all sealed up, rises to 16 tiers. The complex is ringed by hundreds of stalls, many of them selling specimens of the local marble. There are also temples and pagodas in the steep foothills of the Cangshan (Green Mountain) range. Although seldom open, they provide the perfect ornaments for a day’s hike from vista to vista over this long, narrow valley that reaches west to Tibet.
While young adventurous travelers still flock to Dali, the opening of several new hotels and a modern airport an hour away has brought this exquisite little Chinese Shangri-La within any visitor’s reach.
As Dali is discovered by more and more tourists, travelers are heading out into even more remote regions of northwestern Yunnan. Particularly recommended is the village of Lijiang, 150 km (95 miles) north of Dali, under the shadow of the 5,500-m (18,000-ft) Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (Yulong Xue Shan). The old-town section, recently restored after a serious earthquake, is even more quaint than downtown Dali, the local Naxi people are warm and open, and the nearby monasteries are intriguing.
From Lijiang, one can journey still farther into China’s ultimate outback, to Leaping Tiger Gorge (Xutiaoxia), Lugu Lake, and villages on the Sichuan and Tibetan borders.
Datong (Tatung)
It takes about seven hours by train from Beijing to reach Datong, to the west in Shanxi (Shansi) Province. The trip, through some gorgeous mountain country, is a favorite of train enthusiasts who are drawn to Datong to see the quaint steam locomotives still at work in the center of China’s richest coal-mining region. Coal was the logical fuel for the long trains carrying coal to the rest of the country, and Datong became the major steam locomotive manufacturer for China. The Datong Locomotive Works could turn out a locomotive every working day. This factory now makes diesel engines only, but it is open for tours, highlighted by a ride on one of the old steam locomotives.
Datong itself is a rather poor coal-mining and industrial city, somewhat behind the times, set on a loess plateau 1,000 m (3,280 ft) above sea level. The summers are short here on the edge of Inner Mongolia, and winters are glacial. It’s not the sort of place poets would eulogize, yet for nearly a century (398–494) it served as the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Three monasteries and a famous dragon screen recall Datong’s once stately history. The Nine Dragon Wall (Jiulongbi), a Ming landmark (1392), stands in the old part of town among the narrow streets lined by single-story houses. This is said to be the largest and oldest screen of its type anywhere in China, at 457 m (150 ft) certainly longer than the more famous version in the Forbidden City. The ceramic mural shows nine dragons, each in a different dynamic pose. When the sun reflects on the pool that runs along the base of the wall, the glazed tile figures flash to life.
The Huayan Monastery, built under the Liao Dynasty in the 11th century, was finished by the Jin Dynasty rulers in 1140. The monastery faces east and not, as was customary in China, south. The main building, the Great Treasure Hall (Daxiongbaodian), is one of the two biggest Buddhist halls still standing in China. The fine ceiling comprises 749 illustrated squares, no two the same. In the center are enthroned the Five Buddhas of the Five Directions, relics of the Ming Dynasty.
The other big temple in town, Shanhua Monastery, faces the old city wall, which is undergoing renovation. The monastery dates from the Tang Dynasty, but it was largely rebuilt after a fire. Standing in the grand, red-walled pavilion are 24 celestial guardians, each of distinct mien. A circular “moon gate” in the side wall of the monastery leads to the Five Dragon Wall (Wulongbi), transplanted here from a former Confucian temple. This ceramic screen resembles the lavish Nine Dragon Wall in the town center, but here the middle dragon, terrifyingly, faces forward.
A major attraction near Datong is the Temple Suspended Over the Void (Xuankongsi), situated a two-hour drive south through a barren sandstone plateau. Tours usually stop along the way at one of the area’s cave houses, where residents are happy to show off their hand-dug quarters. The sixth-century temple is spectacular, with over 40 halls and pavilions which are joined by ornate catwalks, suspended as if by magic on the face of a sheer limestone cliff.
Yungang Caves
Most tourists head for Datong in pursuit of history and art, and they are not disappointed. The city is best known for the Yungang Caves, which are 16 km (10 miles) west of Datong and contain one of China’s most treasured displays of ancient Buddhist sculpture. When the pious project was undertaken 1,500 years ago, about 100,000 statues were carved into the walls of the rock temples dug into the cliff. About 50,000 statues remain — from the size of a postage stamp to the height of a five-story house — despite the rigors of time, the weather, and marauders.
Visitors enter the caves through a monastery where 2,000 monks once lived. A wooden structure four stories high, built in the Ming Dynasty, blocks the winds that blast the caves. Carvings of the fanciful Third Son of the Dragon protect the building from fire. Tours normally begin at Cave No. 5, which contains a seated Buddha figure that is 17 m (56 ft) high. The gold plating, an afterthought, was added in the Qing Dynasty. As in most of the caves, the walls are filled with niches and small statues. In Cave No. 6, nearly square in plan, a pagoda reaches to the ceiling. The life of the Buddha from birth to the attainment of nirvana is illustrated in an intricately carved frieze running around the pagoda walls and the sides of the cave. The decoration in this cave is considered the supreme achievement of Yungang. 
Cave No. 7 is notable for its beautifully carved ceiling. At the entrance to Cave No. 8, graceful Indian-style statues face each other. Cave No. 9 contains the smallest of all Buddha figures here, only 2 cm (less than 1 inch) high. In Cave No. 10, note the Greek influence in the headdress of the guardian figure carved at the entrance. Cave No. 11 is said to contain some 12,000 Buddha figures, more than any other cave; high up on the wall is a tablet reporting that 83 artists worked for six years to complete the carvings in this one grotto. In Cave No. 12, heavenly musicians carved over the entrance are playing 12 different ancient instruments. Notice an unusual feature of the giant statue in Cave No. 13: the Buddha’s right wrist is supported by the small figure of a four-armed sportsman.
Cave No. 14 has suffered severe damage. (In general the wind has eroded the outward-facing walls in most of the caves; the best preserved carvings tend to be on the opposite walls.) The Cave of Ten Thousand Buddhas is the name of Cave No. 15; the figures in this cave are arranged in a pigeonhole grid pattern.
The oldest caves of the whole complex — dating from the fifth century — are numbered 16 to 20. (The currently used east-to-west numbering scheme was inaugurated in modern times and bears little resemblance to the system used in earlier centuries.) In Cave No. 16 are three holes pierced through the outer wall, showing the original positions of three Buddhas appropriated by foreign collectors; tour guides here say they are now in New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Cave No. 17, like its neighbors on either side, has an oval floor-plan. The Buddha’s upper arms sport Greek-style armbands.
The giant standing Buddha in Cave No. 18 wears a strange vestment called the “Thousand Buddha Robe”; on the front of the garment the sculptor has carved a throng of mini-Buddha figures. Cave No. 20, the last one carved while Datong was the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty, is occupied by a giant seated Buddha. It’s all the more dramatic since the front wall crumbled away, leaving the statue open to the sky.
Dunhuang (Tunhuang)
It used to take 24 hours by train, plus a cruel two- or three-hour bus or jeep journey, to reach the sleepy desert town of Dunhuang, in Gansu province. Now it’s an easy airplane ride from Xi’an. Dunhuang has come a long way since the days when the Silk Road camel trains stopped here. Camels still work in and around Dunhuang, pulling plows or transporting cargo. If you’ve just come from overpopulated eastern China, you might feel all but alone in a town of only 10,000. Although some donkey carts and bicycles occasionally impinge on the tranquillity of the main street, the townsfolk have plenty of time to stand around and gossip.
In China even provincial museums can be treasure troves. The Dunhuang County Museum, in the center of the town, overflows with Silk Road relics, from works of art to 2,000-year-old chopsticks. The first hall is devoted to calligraphic rarities found in Cave No. 17 of the Mogao Grottoes. Paper documents have survived for a thousand years in the dry climate of the cave. In the second room, sacrificial objects unearthed in ancient tombs are shown alongside pots, a plow, and armor. Ancient handicrafts displayed in the third hall include a Tang Dynasty chess set, a present from the governor to the emperor.
Mogao Caves
In spite of the difficulties, tourists still head for this 2,000-year-old town to see China’s most magnificent ancient murals and painted statues. Since you’ve come this far, they’re worth another 25 km (15 miles). 
The Mogao Caves, hewn from a desert cliffside, tell the story of the great flowering of Buddhist art in China. Begun in the fourth century, they were created in fits and starts over the next thousand years. Statistics aren’t everything, but consider that there are 45,000 sq m (484,000 sq ft) of mural paintings. They cover the walls and ceilings with brightly colored pictures of men and gods and speculations about eternity. And in the same caves stand more than 2,000 painted sculptures, realistic or fantastic. Of the several hundred grottoes still intact, only a few dozen are open to the public. And even these are kept locked so that visits can be supervised. The outer walls of the caves have been reinforced, with walkways added. Tours cover various itineraries. Here are some highlights:
Northern Wei Dynasty (386–534). Statues with Persian or Indian faces. Graceful, lifelike animal paintings with three-dimensional effects.
Sui Dynasty (581–618). Illustrations of religious stories. Notice the emotions revealed in the characters’ faces; also, Chinese robes have replaced foreign dress.
Tang Dynasty (618–907). Don’t miss Cave No. 96, a nine-tiered temple from the seventh century. The seated Buddha statue inside has toes as long as your arm. Cave No. 158 is filled with a statue of the reclining Buddha, the face unusually peaceful and godly when seen from the far left. You’ll be struck by the imagination, life, and color of the Tang wall paintings.
Later dynasties. Murals from the tenth century onward provide valuable details of everyday life in medieval China.
Crescent Moon Lake
Most of the desert is grey and menacing, a sea of gravel out of which stark rocky mountains occasionally appear. But everybody’s dream desert can be seen a few kilometers south of Dunhuang. With oases in sight, awesome dunes rise in waves to 250-m (800-ft) crests. As the sun and clouds move, the colors and textures of the sand hills change.
Hidden between the hills is a small, clear lake — Crescent Moon Lake (Yueyahu). It’s not a mirage. Reeds grow at the edge of this cool blue spring and tiny fish swim in it. You can reach the lake from the edge of the desert on the back of a camel or (if you like walking in sand) on foot. Twenty minutes each way should do it. Beside the pool is a magnificent pavilion tower with a teahouse. For a rare desert experience, climb to the top of a dune and listen to the musical — or thunderous — sound as the sand slides down. This is the same sound Marco Polo heard when he passed this way on his own camel caravan 700 years ago.
Guangzhou (Canton)
Foreigners have been turning up in Guangzhou for a couple of thousand years, for it was China’s first major seaport. This has made for such dramatic historical incidents as the Opium Wars, which broke out when the authorities cracked down on the opium trade here. This crowded city has maintained its gateway role. Ever since 1957, the biannual Canton Trade Fair has attracted throngs of international business people. Even in the years of political upheaval, Guangzhou kept open the nation’s ties with foreign countries and with overseas Chinese, millions of whom have their roots here in Guangdong Province.
Guangzhou straddles the Pearl River, China’s fifth-longest river, which links the metropolis to the South China Sea. The waterway provides a good deal of charm and excitement. The daily drama of ferryboats, freighters, junks with dirty grey sails, low-lying sampans — even small tankers and big gunboats — unfolds right in the center of town. The river is also used to irrigate the surrounding farmlands, which yield a cornucopia of rice, fruit, and vegetables.
With a population above 6 million, Guangzhou is primarily an industrial city of more than 3,200 factories. Production lines turn out buses, ships, agricultural machinery, chemicals, and sewing machines. It is one of China’s richest cities, with new skyscrapers, expressways, and fashionable shopping centers to prove it. Although the economy has changed radically in recent years, many local traditions live on, including the love of flowers, Cantonese Opera, and the local dialect (incomprehensible to fellow Chinese). And then there is Cantonese food — some say the world’s greatest cuisine — much appreciated in its adaptations internationally but unexcelled when created in its home kitchen.
Guangzhou in History 
In the third century b.c. the founder of the Qin Dynasty annexed the remote Guangzhou area, thus furnishing China with its first major seaport. By the end of the Han Dynasty, foreign trade linked the port with other areas of Asia as well as with the Roman Empire. The name Guangzhou was bestowed during the Kingdom of Wu (third century a.d.), but foreigners came to call it “Canton.”
As commerce expanded, so did the foreign population of the port. By the ninth century, a large colony of Arabs, Jews, Persians, and others had settled here. They traded in tea, silk, and porcelain, all in constant demand abroad. It was to be another seven centuries before Europeans established themselves in Canton. The Portuguese were first, followed by Spaniards, Dutch, and English. The Chinese authorities tried to keep the foreigners at arm’s length, limiting their activities to certain districts and seasons.
The expansion of trade did eventually bring conflict, because China would accept nothing less than silver bullion in payment for its exports. However, the wily British soon thought of an alternative commodity: opium (see page 41). The Opium Wars ended in 1842 with the Treaty of Nanking (later denounced as “unequal”). Under the terms of the treaty, China was compelled to open “Canton” and four other ports to foreign penetration.
The ever shakier Manchu Dynasty fell in 1911, to be replaced by the Chinese Republic, founded by Guangdong’s most famous native son, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. In 1927, the Communist-led forces who established the Guangzhou Commune were wiped out by the troops of Chiang Kai-shek. During World War II the Japanese occupied Guangzhou. In the subsequent civil war, Guangzhou briefly served as the Nationalist capital before the Communists captured the city and gained power nationwide in 1949.
Sightseeing
Guangzhou can’t claim to compete with Beijing or Xi’an when it comes to sightseeing attractions. But its monuments and parks are well worth visiting, not least for the chance to mingle with the Cantonese people themselves.
Yue Xiu Park, near the Trade Fair in the northern part of the city, covers a 93-hectare (230-acre) site. In addition to its pretty gardens, lakes, pavilions, and sports facilities, Guangzhou’s largest park also contains the city’s oldest building, the red “Tower Overlooking the Sea” (Zhenhailou). Actually, “tower” is a misleading description for this building of five stories. Built in 1380, it now houses the municipal museum (Guangzhou Bowuguan). With signs in English and Chinese, the museum is quite interesting and includes artifacts and displays recording the city’s contacts with the West (from Bibles to radios). The top floor of this watchtower museum is now a charming teahouse.
An equally famous but modern landmark in the park is a granite sculptural representation of five handsome rams, based on the legend of Guangzhou’s founding. It is said that five gods descended from heaven riding rams holding sprigs of rice in their mouths. The celestial visitors distributed the rice, blessing the local people with eternal freedom from famine. The gods thereupon disappeared, according to the story, but the five rice-bearing rams turned to stone. And here they are (or at least their replicas), giving Guangzhou its nickname: “City of Rams.”
Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), who began his political career in the city, is honored in Yuexiu Park by an obelisk 30 m (about 100 ft) tall. South of the park is an even more impressive monument to the statesman, the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, built in 1931. This vast, modern version of a traditional Chinese building, with its sweeping blue-tile roofs, contains an auditorium big enough to seat nearly 5,000 people.
Guangzhou’s prime Buddhist monument, the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees (Liurongsi), was founded over 1,400 years ago. The trees that inspired the 11th-century poet and calligrapher Su Dongpo to name the temple have died, but the often-restored complex remains a focus of local Buddhist activities. Overlooking it all is the Flower Pagoda (Huata), a slender relic of the Song Dynasty. From the outside, the pagoda appears to be nine tiers high, but there are really 17 floors inside. Adjacent is an unusual “death hall,” where the departed (their pictures posted on the walls) are remembered in daily prayers — for a fee, of course.
In the early medieval period, Guangzhou had a significant Muslim population as a result of trade with the Near East. This is how it came to pass that the city has what is said to be the oldest mosque in China, the Huaisheng Mosque (built in 627). Its white minaret can be climbed via a spiral staircase for a view of the courtyards, gardens, and Guangzhou’s modern skyscrapers.
The city’s leading tribute to the days of imperial splendor is the Chen Family Temple (Chenjiaci), a memorial to members of a large merchant clan from all over China. This sprawling compound of courtyards and showy 19th-century pavilions is decorated in a pantheon of finely carved friezes, gates, and gold-leaf tableaux depicting scenes of Chinese myth and romance. 
The atmosphere of 19th-century colonial “Canton” is best evoked by Shamian Island, in the Pearl River, linked to central Guangzhou by two bridges. This small residential enclave, shaded by banyan trees, was the closed community of the foreign colony in the era of the Western “concessions.” The stately European-style buildings, including old banks, factories, and churches, have been spruced up. Sidewalk cafés, boutiques, traditional craft shops, and the stunning White Swan Hotel make this Guangzhou’s leading place for a stroll. 
Across from Shamian Island is China’s most notorious and colorful marketplace, Qingping. A maze of alleys crammed with stalls, Qingping offers up acres of herbs, spices, jade, antiques, memorabilia, goldfish, songbirds, and a sometimes nightmarish display of live animals destined for the kitchen, including dogs, cats, and rare species.
Among modern attractions, the flashiest is Oriental Studio 2000, Guangzhou’s answer to Hollywood’s Universal City, where daily shows are staged on two movie sets, one evoking notorious Shanghai in the 1930s, the other a traditional courtyard in the throes of a kungfu battle.
No visit to Guangzhou is complete without indulging in its famous cuisine, particularly its fresh seafood and delicate dim sum. Two of the best dining spots are its traditional garden restaurants, Beiyuan and Banxi. Beiyuan consists of over 40 dining pavilions and tearooms, each decorated in intricate latticework. Banxi, on the shores of Liwan Lake, also has a classic décor, with etched glass from the Qing Dynasty and delicacies to match. The availability and proximity of fresh ingredients is one good reason why Cantonese food tastes so special in its native city — almost unrecognizable from many of the simulations so prevalent abroad.
Guilin (Kweilin)
China’s most famous landscapes, the subjects of thousands of paintings, are to be found in Guilin. The “finest mountains and rivers under heaven” are so inspiring that poets, artists, and tourists have made this China’s number one natural attraction. 
The climate is subtropical, with an annual rainfall of 190 cm (75 inches), so avoid the rainiest season, from April through July. An additional incentive for visiting in autumn is the sight and fragrance of osmanthus (cassia) blossoms all over town; in fact, the name Guilin means “Cassia Woods.”
Tourists are so numerous in the otherwise relaxed shopping district of Guilin that the pedestrian crossings have signs in English as well as Chinese. Another cosmopolitan influence comes from the area’s many minority peoples: Guilin is part of the Guangxi-Zhuang Autonomous Region, which borders Vietnam. The proliferation of so-called Muslim restaurants is explained by the presence here of thousands of people of the traditionally Muslim Zhuang nationality, China’s largest minority group. 
The geological history of Guilin, the key to the wonder of its moody mountains and caves, goes back several hundred million years. The area was under the sea when an upheaval raised it to the status of terra firma. Later it was flooded, then lifted again in further cataclysmic events. The alternation of sea water and air through the millennia created limestone formations called karst, which eroded into pinnacles, mounds, and peaks that captivate the imagination.
Guilin was settled more than 2,000 years ago when the Ling canal was built, effectively linking the great Yangzi and Pearl rivers. Guilin’s connection with one of mankind’s most ambitious engineering projects was important, but otherwise little was heard from the town. It served as provincial capital for several hundred years, and in modern times, thanks to the profusion of caves to hide in, Guilin was a center for resistance during the war with Japan. Today, rebuilt from the rubble of war, the city is thriving, thanks in large measure to its spectacular scenery.
On the River
The transcendent tourist experience of Guilin — and perhaps of all China — is a boat trip on the Li River. The karst scenery could hardly be more romantic. But life along the river is also fascinating: washerwomen squatting on the shore, water buffalo ambling down for a dip, the improvised ferryboats, and the captive cormorant birds, their necks ringed to prevent them from swallowing all their catch, waiting for orders to go fishing from bamboo rafts.
Large, flat-bottomed tour boats usually leave early in the morning from the quay near the Liberation Bridge in central Guilin. (In the dry season, when the river is at its lowest, the first part of the journey must be undertaken by coach.) With room for more than 100 passengers each, most of these vessels are quiet and serve a lunch cooked en route.
Even before leaving town, the spectacle begins. On the right bank is Elephant Trunk Hill, the first of many peaks that romantics have endowed with animal or supernatural identities. It takes no great imagination to see the resemblance of this outcrop to an elephant drinking in the river; the space between the trunk and the body has been hollowed through. The river traffic, meanwhile, keeps amateur photographers snapping in all directions at flat-bottomed tubs, hand-poled bamboo rafts, sampans, and towboats.
Images unroll before the eye like a painted scroll as your boat continues downstream: Tunneled Hill, Pagoda Hill (also known as Battleship Hill), Washing Vase Hill, and Fighting Cocks Hills (facing each other from opposite banks of the river). A large village on the left bank, Dragon Gate Village, is noted for water chestnuts and its thousand-year-old banyan tree.
To the south is a much larger village, Daxu, with a high bridge from the Ming period called “Longevity Bridge.” Here and elsewhere, the rich, flat land produces the ingredients for a formidable fruit salad: oranges and grapefruit, chestnuts and persimmons, plus exotic tropical delicacies all but unknown outside Asia. Adding to the entrancing beauty of the scene, great stands of a feathery variety of bamboo grow along the riverbanks, forming huge cascades of green.
Beyond the village of Yangdi unfolds the uncanny scenery that prompted a Chinese poet more than a thousand years ago to write: “The river is a green silk belt, the mountains emerald hairpins.” Peaks and pinnacles crowd the river, white goats pose on steep mountainsides, and an eagle soars above the cliffs. The river itself flows green and transparent. Credit for this limpid rarity goes not only to the strict antipollution standards to protect the River Li but also to nature itself, which endows the water with a high content of carbonic acid.
Mural Hill is so called because the sheer cliff face comprises so many patches of color that it might be a fresco. In the lights and shadows of the cliff, the shapes of nine different horses can be discerned, hence the cliff’s alternate name, “Nine Horse Hill.” Near the end of the voyage, the village of Xinping comes into view on the left bank, surrounded by magical scenery — landmarks with names like Snail Hill, Five Fingers Hill, and Carp Hill.
The boat trips end at the county town of Yangshuo, a favorite of poets and painters and a destination in its own right. The distance traversed by river is a mere 83 km (52 miles), but there is no river trip like it. The trip back to Guilin by bus provides yet another facet to the soaring scenery.
Sightseeing in Guilin
It’s not only the river journey that makes a visit here so rewarding. The town itself also has much to offer.
Hills and Parks
The best way to appreciate Guilin’s unique setting is to climb to the summit of one of its limestone pinnacles: for example, the hill called Diecaishan, on the north side of town. The name means “Piled Silk Hill” or “Folded Brocade Hill,” a metaphor suggested by the layers of rock. Hiking to the lookout point at the top is strenuous, but catching your breath is only one of the good reasons for stopping along the way. For instance, there is Breezy Cave, which cuts through the hill from south to north. It is permanently cooled by a refreshing breeze, to the great relief of grateful crowds on hot summer days. The many inscriptions carved into the cave walls over the centuries are much admired by connoisseurs of calligraphy.
At the summit, where the altitude is 223 m (732 ft), the charmingly named Catch-Cloud Pavilion (Nayunting) provides a 360-degree panorama. The view is worth savoring: the winding river, the tile-roofed cityscape, the green flat farmland, and the surreal hills forever popping up near and far.
Closer to the city center is Fuboshan (“Whirlpool Hill”) another natural stone tower with a view as well as other distractions. According to legend, a General Fubo, who passed this way 2,000 years ago, tested his sword in the Sword-Testing Stone, a stalactite formation that comes down to within inches of the ground. Further on, the Thousand Buddha Cliff is carved with several hundred figures dating from the Tang and Song dynasties.
The District of the Two Lakes, in the southern part of town, has been made into a delightful public park with gardens, walkways, and pagodas. Originally, Banyan Tree Lake (Ronghu) and Fir Tree Lake (Shahu) were a single expanse, forming part of the moat which protected the city wall. The Song Dynasty-era Green Belt Bridge across the middle created the two lakes.
Caves
Around Guilin, you’ll find caves of every size and mood — gloomy, inspiring, immense, or coy. Most tourist itineraries take in one of the two best known caves, Reed Flute or Seven Star, on opposite sides of town.
Reed Flute Cave (Ludiyan) burrows deep into a hill, while on the surface grow reeds suitable for making flutes. The visions within are strange indeed and benefit from good lighting effects. As in most other caverns, certain formations have been given poetic names. Apart from Virgin Forest and Giant Lion, there is one huge rock that suggests the form of an Old Scholar, seated in contemplation of a simulated waterfall across the way. According to legend, a scholar tried to write a poem worthy of the cave’s beauty, but before he could find adequate words he had turned to stone. The cave’s largest chamber, called the Crystal Palace, can accommodate a thousand people. Bats inhabit the darker recesses, but the eerie waters that flow through the cave have no fish.
Seven Star Cave (Qixingyan) is a mere million years old and has been a tourist attraction for more than a thousand years. Some of the scenic formations of stalactites and stalagmites have names like Old Banyan Tree Welcoming Guests and Dragon Splashing Water, providing an idea of the poetic license enjoyed by Chinese cave explorers. The round-trip tour of this cave is considerably longer than the itinerary in the Reed Flute Cave. Both underworlds have constant, comfortable temperatures year ‘round, but they are dripping with a humidity that makes the going slippery. Another attraction of Seven Star Park is its Forest of Steles, a cliff where poems and pictures have been carved into rock over the past 1,500 years.
An Amusement Park
One of Guilin’s newer attractions is the Minorities Cultural Park (Fengqingyuan), on the eastern shore of the Li River. This ethnic amusement park, where members of the Zhuang, Dong, and Miao minorities in traditional costumes display their native cultures, is as educational as it is entertaining. 
Hangzhou (Hangchow)
Several dozen lakes in China are named “West Lake,” but only one is so celebrated that it needs no further identification. It is West Lake (Xihu) in Hangzhou, on China’s east coast. The Song Dynasty poet Su Dongpo likened West Lake to one of ancient China’s greatest beauties, Xizi — who was also calm, soft, delicate, and enchanting. (The girls of Hangzhou are still famous for their light, clear complexion, which is attributed to the mild, humid climate.)
But Hangzhou has more than scenery. The capital of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou is 189 km (117 miles) from Shanghai — about three hours by train and two hours by bus or car on the new toll road. A city of over a million people, rich in historic and cultural monuments, it also offers some educational outings. Here you can see how two of China’s major inventions, silk and tea, are produced.
Historically, Hangzhou enjoyed 237 years of imperial glory from the ninth century onward. In all, 14 kings and emperors held court here. When Marco Polo visited in the 13th century, he pronounced the city superior to “all others in the world, in grandeur and beauty as well as its abundant delights, which might lead an inhabitant to imagine himself in paradise.” Hangzhou is the southern terminus of the world’s first canal, the Grand Canal, which is still in use. It is said that the emperor extended it to Hangzhou so that he could choose concubines from among the city’s most beautiful women. 
West Lake
For a full panorama of West Lake and the city, go up to the viewing platforms at a pavilion atop Wu Hill (Wushan), south of the lake. The hilltop is richly forested with gingko, maple, and camphor trees. Another vista spot is located on the summit of the hill on the north side of the lake, where the hauntingly beautiful Baochu Pagoda stands. But the beauty of the lake can best be appreciated at close range: from the deck of a sightseeing boat or from the paths and causeways along its shore. The lake edge is abundantly supplied with flowers, trees, and (unusual in China) secluded places where lovers can find privacy.
The highlight of a boat trip across West Lake is the largest of three man-made islands, a “small fairy island” known as Three Pools Mirroring the Moon (Santan Yinyue). The island, created in the Ming Dynasty, was ingeniously provided with an island of its own, in the center of its own lake. A zigzag bridge will get you there. Three small stone pagodas, rebuilt in the 17th century, rise from the main lake just south of the isle. On the night of the Moon Festival, candles are placed inside the pagodas. The flickering light emanating from the small round windows gives the lake 15 reflections imitating the real moon.
Solitary Hill (Gushan), in the northern part of the lake, is reached from the city by a causeway named after a Tang Dynasty poet, Baijuyi. In the ninth century he was demoted from a high imperial post to the job of governor of Hangzhou because he wrote poems satirizing the court. This made him popular with the ordinary people. The hillsides are brightened by trees and flowers and pavilions. The Zhejiang Provincial Museum on Solitary Hill contains the oldest grains of cultivated rice in the world, harvested 7,000 years ago. 
From Monastery to Plantation
One of the country’s best-known Buddhist monasteries, Hangzhou’s Lingyin Temple (“Spirits’ Retreat”), west of West Lake, attracts crowds of Chinese tourists and believers. The monks — for this is a working monastery — are kept busy supplying joss (incense) sticks to devout or merely fun-loving visitors. The main hall contains a statue of the Buddha seated on a lotus leaf. Carved of camphorwood, it is 191⁄2 m (64 ft) high and thought to be the largest such sculpture in China. Nearby, the “Peak That Flew from Afar” (Feilaifeng) shelters 380 Buddhist stone carvings created during the Yuan Dynasty and four sacred caves. The most famous sculpture is of the Laughing Buddha with a bulging belly, an animated figure fashioned about a thousand years ago.
Further southwest into the lush West Lake hills is the village of Dragon Well, where Hangzhou’s celebrated Longjing tea is cultivated. The villagers welcome visitors who arrive by local bus or bicycle, sharing cups of tea and selling the precious leaves. On the way, it’s worth a stop at the China Tea Museum, a recently expanded attraction with displays of ceremonial tea implements and its own model teahouses.
Hangzhou is also renowned for its silks. The Hangzhou Silk and Satin Printing and Dyeing Complex is the largest in China. Tours follow the production process from the sorting of cocoons, which arrive by barge in 20-kg (44-pound) sacks, to the silk-screen printing stage. At the end of the line is a shop where foreign visitors, exploiting their newly gained expertise, browse through the bolts of silk.
Other museums with tours and shops are devoted to traditional Chinese medicines and pottery. The lakeside promenade also provides plenty of shopping and small restaurants. But the essence of Hangzhou is its scenery. The lake and hills afford some of the most scenic walking and bicycling of any city in China.
Harbin
Only an Eskimo, you would think, could survive winter in Harbin, the capital of China’s northeastern-most province, Heilongjiang. The average temperature stays below freezing five months of the year, and in January the mercury has been known to descend to -38°C (-36°F).
In a country of ancient cities, Harbin is an anomaly. Until the 20th century it never amounted to more than a fishing village. Then the Manchu Dynasty agreed to let Czarist Russia build a branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway through Harbin. Russians and other foreigners peopled the fast-growing transportation hub, which soon boasted hotels and banks, bars and gambling houses. With the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, perhaps half a million Russian émigrés fled through Siberia to Harbin, consolidating the Russian appearance of the city with more pastel-colored stucco houses and churches with onion domes. From 1932 to 1945, Harbin was under Japanese occupation, followed by one year under the Soviet army. In 1946 the Chinese Communists took control of the city. Under the People’s Republic, Harbin has become an important industrial center as well as the heart of a rich grain-producing area.
At the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival (in late January or early February), Harbin puts on its keystone event: a spectacular show to rival the Snow Festival of its sister city in Japan, Sapporo. While the rest of China is celebrating with paper lanterns, Harbin is showing off with lanterns carved out of ice in its Ice Lantern Festival, held downtown in Zhaolin Park. Delicate sculptures and whole buildings made of ice are brilliantly illuminated. It’s so festive, you might forget the cold.
The mighty Songhua River, running through Harbin from west to east, inevitably attracts tourists. In summer months there are sightseeing launches and, for the brave, swimming. On the south bank, Stalin Park (Jiangpan Gongyuan) is a wide, inviting promenade, with its Flood Control Monument the chief focal point for visitors and vendors. Visible from shore is Sun Island (Tai Yangdao), in the middle of the river, a mixture of health resorts, beach installations, and gardens. It now boasts Siberia Tiger Park, a large animal preserve where endangered tigers, dodging tourist buses, train to hunt live prey before their release into the wild.
The main walking district, the cobblestone Daoli Old Town, bordered by Stalin Park, retains much of Harbin’s Russian heritage in its onion-domed architecture. Other attractions include the inactive but spectacular Santa Sophia Church and two active temples. Sixth-century stone tablets grace Wenmiao, Harbin’s temple to Confucius, while Jilesi, the Temple of Bliss (the largest in the province) hosts an active community of monks and nuns and opens onto a large, lively street market.
One of the darker attractions is the Exhibition Hall for the Ruins of the Japanese Troops Invading China, site of a secret biological warfare center set up by the occupying Japanese forces in 1939. Its existence was hidden until the 1980s. A brighter site is Harbin’s Children’s Park, where there is a miniature railway operated by children — the only one of its kind in China. Small trains carry passengers of all ages from “Harbin Station” to “Beijing Station,” a distance of 2 km (just over a mile) here, but, in reality, 1,388 km (862 miles).
Hohhot (Huhehot)
The capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Hohhot is a sprawling, booming city with a metropolitan population of more than one million. The center of town looks to the future with new official buildings, housing blocks, and wide avenues, but the traffic evokes nostalgia with its parade of donkey carts, ox carts, pony carts, and farm tractors, plus the usual proliferation of bicycles.
It might come as a surprise that Mongolians are only a small minority here. Most of the residents of Hohhot are Han (ethnic Chinese), and Inner Mongolia’s close connection with China dates back several centuries. For tourists in search of the exotic, though, Hohhot and vicinity offer many opportunities to make contact with Mongolian traditions. You can drink butter tea with millet and sleep in a yurt, a felt-covered circular tent.
A quite unexpected feature of Hohhot is its modern racecourse. Under the sky-blue domes of the reviewing stand, visitors are often treated to a Mongolian “rodeo” of racing and trick riding and perhaps a procession of two-humped camels. Another lively spot is Xinhua Square, where half the town seems to exercise and play before work, returning each evening to sample the kebabs and other Muslim fare from dozens of food stalls. Along nearby streets peddlers shout out their wares with equal enthusiasm, whether they’re selling shirts, vegetables, or sunglasses. Cobblers work hand-cranked sewing machines in the open air. A bard, banging a cymbal, chants a story, while his partner — a trained monkey — dons the masks and hats of various Chinese opera characters, mesmerizing the crowd.
The Inner Mongolia Museum (Nei Mengu Bowuguan) has an ample display of native yurts and riding gear, as well as China’s largest dinosaur skeleton. Among sacred sites, the Xiletuzhao Temple stands out. It is an active Lamaist Buddhist shrine, with many Tibetan trappings. Attractive to photographers is the aptly named Five Pagodas Temple (Wutasi), a striking 18th-century structure capped with five towers. Buddhist scriptures are inscribed on the outer wall in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Mongolian, along with carvings of 1,600 figures.
The Great Mosque (Qingzhen Dasi), built in the Ming Dynasty, serves the large Hui Muslim population that lives in the neighborhood. The mosque has a minaret that culminates in a Chinese-style temple roof (topped by a crescent). The front of the prayer hall is adorned with Arabic inscriptions and ceramic abstractions.
Hohhot’s oldest historical site, situated 17 km (11 miles) southwest of town, is the Tomb of Princess Zhaojun (Zhaojunmu). In 33 b.c., at the age of 18, this famous Chinese beauty married a tribal chief, thus bringing about what is now hailed as peace among the nationalities. You can take a stroll to the top of the 33-m (98-ft) earthen pyramid built above her grave and, from here, look out over the endless, flat farmland.
Southeast of Hohhot is the 12th-century White Pagoda, known in Chinese as Wanbuhua Yanjingta: the Pagoda of the Ten Thousand Scriptures. The seven-tier octagonal structure, standing all alone in farmland, was constructed of brick about 900 years ago and recently restored.
The Grasslands
The most memorable aspect of a visit to Hohhot is likely to be an excursion to the grasslands, across the desolate Daqing Mountains, where horseback riding is a way of life among Mongolians. A good paved road eases the strain of the zigzag climb that continues up approximately 2,000 m (more than 6,500 ft) above sea level.
Most visitors end up at either Xilamuren or Gegentala. At these tourist camps, guests sleep in wool-felt yurts with quilts, hot water flasks, and electric lights. Bathing facilities and dining halls are often in separate buildings. Daily activities can include archery, Mongolian wrestling, visits to local villages, and horseback riding on the celebrated grasslands. Folk dancing and singing provide evening entertainment.
Visitors might also be treated to an informal rodeo in which Mongolian horsemen race their energetic ponies. Disarmingly, the cowboys are dressed like ordinary Chinese farmers. Tourists are then offered the chance to ride camels (stepladders are provided for mounting these mild-mannered animals) and ponies.
Travelers with more time can venture deeper into the wilderness grasslands, where there is a better chance of sleeping in a real yurt, not one specially furnished for foreign visitors. Other popular destinations west of Hohhot are the Genghis Khan Mausoleum in the Ordoes Highlands (actually built in 1954 and recently augmented with a reconstructed Yuan Dynasty village) and the nearby Resonant Sand Gorge and Wudang Lama Temple.
Huangshan (Hwang Shan)
Although “Yellow Mountain” is the literal translation of Huangshan (which is not one mountain but a range of dozens of peaks), yellow is not the color that first comes to mind when describing this romantic site that has been the subject of Chinese poetry and painting for centuries. In reality, green is the color of the stunted pines clinging to purple cliff faces. Pink are the wildflowers, blue the sky, and white the sea of clouds that rolls in beneath the rocky pinnacles.
Huangshan is the only region of eastern China’s Anhui Province that appears on major tourist itineraries. Trains and planes link Shanghai with a terminus at the foot of the mountains, where coaches continue the journey. The scenic mountain resort now has hotel facilities, from extremely basic to comfortable. Chinese tourists — and poets — might spend a week or more exploring the mountains, but foreign visitors try to squeeze it all into a day or two.
The weather can be a critical factor in the pleasure of mountain rambles and sightseeing. On average, mid-July to the end of September is considered the most dependable time of year because of the mild temperatures and relatively restrained rainfall. Drizzle rather than heavy rain generally falls from late May to late June, when the spring flowers burst forth, but temperatures are brisk. Mist and fog often enhance the views.
Huangshan has many peaks that are well known by name in China, often through thousands of poems describing these as China’s most beautiful mountains. The three principal summits are Lotus Flower Peak (Lianhuafeng), Bright Summit (Guangmingding), and the Heavenly Capital Peak (Tiandufeng). All are over 1,800 m (6,000 ft) and all can be climbed via endless stone stairs, some as steep as ladders.
Climbs begin on the east side of the range at Yungu Temple, where a cable car whisks some visitors to the summit while most begin an 8-km (5-mile) hike. At the twin summits, the Northern and Western Sea of Clouds, there are a large hotel and smaller inns, the place to get some rest before viewing the sunrise. The descent on the west side is longer, with up to 14 km (9 miles) of paths and stairs. When hiking becomes too strenuous, Huangshan visitors can recuperate in a hot spring resort between Purple Cloud Peak (Ziyunfeng) and Peach Blossom Peak (Taohuafeng). Here, piping hot water with a curative mineral content bubbles from the spring year ‘round. You can drink it, bathe in it, or both.
The Huangshan phenomenon that has most inspired painters and photographers is the sight of cottony clouds nuzzling the mountainsides. The peaks and pinnacles, jutting above the clouds in the early morning sky, look like islets in a celestial sea. If there’s a single source for classic Chinese landscape painting, it’s surely Huangshan.
Jinan (Tsinan)
Sweet water gushes from more than 100 springs within the city limits of Jinan, the capital of Shandong (Shantung) Province. The water enhances agriculture and industry and even turns this “City of Springs” into a tourist attraction. And thanks to nature’s generosity, Jinan is the only city in China where you can safely drink the tap water. Even so, most visitors only pass through Jinan on their way to such traditional sights of Shandong as the holy mountain Taishan (see page 163) and Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius (see page 195).
The Jinan area seems to have been inhabited since the New Stone Age. More than 2,500 years ago, a town wall was built. Jinan has been a prosperous provincial capital since the medieval period. At the turn of the 20th century, the Manchu Dynasty granted foreign concessions in Jinan, prompting an influx of Europeans. The city was a focus of bitter fighting during the Chinese Civil War. Today more than a million people live in the city.
Sightseeing starts among the weeping willows along the shores of the Lake of Great Light (Daminghu), in the northern part of the old city. In recent years the lake has been dredged and stone embankments built. All around it are parks, playgrounds, and pavilions.
Southeast of the city is Thousand Buddha Mountain (Qianfoshan), but instead of a thousand Buddha images you’ll find a hundred today. And, at only 280 m (about 900 ft) above sea level, it is more a hill than a “mountain.” But a hike up the hill and down again permits a close look at old temples, grottoes with Buddhist statues, and refreshing forests.
Of all the springs in Jinan, the one with the most historical associations is the Jet Spring (Baotuquan). It was from this spring in the 17th century that the Qing Dynasty Emperor Kangxi took a swig and pronounced it the “First Spring Under Heaven.” It is now surrounded by a carefully landscaped park. A short walk away is Black Tiger Spring (Heihuquan), its sweet water roaring from the mouths of three tigers carved in a black stone cliffside.
As the provincial capital, Jinan is the site of the Shandong Provincial Museum, where more than 400,000 items illustrate local history and nature. The highlight of the collection is an exhibition of Longshan Black Pottery found near Jinan — an elegant, delicate ware fired 4,000 years ago. 
Kaifeng
The ancient walled city of Kaifeng, located in eastern Henan (Honan) Province, lies near enough to the unpredictable Yellow River to have known more than its share of catastrophes — and when it wasn’t being flooded it was being pillaged. The most terrible of the invasions, in the 12th century, ended the dreams of the Northern Song Dynasty and left Kaifeng in ruins. All things considered, it’s almost miraculous that several historic buildings have survived to this day. So, remarkably, has much of the city’s old imperial dignity.
Kaifeng rose to fame more than 2,000 years ago during the Warring States period, when it was capital of the Kingdom of Wei (220–265). The city’s most prosperous and glorious era was between the years 960 and 1127, when it was the Eastern Capital of the Northern Song Dynasty.
The Iron Pagoda (Tieta), Kaifeng’s best known symbol, only looks as if it’s made of iron. The exterior walls are faced with glazed bricks and tiles of an iron-like hue. Built in 1049 and restored in modern times, it is a lucky 13 tiers tall. It was originally part of a sixth-century monastery complex, but the other buildings were washed away in one of the great floods of the 19th century. Another relic of the Song Dynasty, the square and imposing Pota (“Pagoda of the Po Family”) reveals none of the high-flying grace of the Iron Pagoda. This might be excused by the fact that the top three tiers of the building collapsed several hundred years ago.
In the northwest quarter of the city, the Imperial Way of the Song emperors has been reconstructed. Tile-roofed shops line the street for three blocks, terminating at the entrance to Dragon Pavilion Park (Longtingyuan). Its double-decker central pavilion, with upswept golden roofs, was reconstructed in the 17th-century.
West from Dragon Pavilion Park along the lakeshore is the Stele Forest of the Imperial Academy, an outdoor arena with over 3,000 ancient carved tablets. Nearby is Kaifeng’s newest tourist attraction, the Qingming Park Up the River, a theme park modeled after a 12th-century scroll picturing festive and imperial Kaifeng. 
At the center of Kaifeng, the main attraction is the Xiangguo Monastery, founded in the sixth century. Inside is the gilded statue of the “Thousand-Armed and Thousand-Eyed Buddha,” which (incredibly) has more than the advertised number of arms and eyes. Outside the temple is a the city’s liveliest and largest open-air market, complete with dancing monkeys.
A community of Jews migrated to Kaifeng in about the tenth century. They established a synagogue in 1163 and maintained a community until the great flood of 1852. Although assimilated, as many as a hundred Kaifeng residents still claim Jewish heritage. Stone tablets recording the history of Jews in Kaifeng are stored in the Kaifeng Museum. The grounds of the Purity and Truth Synagogue (Qingzhensi), north of a Catholic church and east of a mosque, can still be located with the help of local guides.
Kunming
Flights into Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, land on an unexpectedly long runway that has a dramatic history, commemorated neither by plaques nor monuments. This was once the end of the line for the Flying Tigers, the American pilots who supplied China in World War II. Kunming was also the Chinese terminus for supplies traveling down the tortuous Burma Road; milestone “0” — otherwise unmarked — can be seen on the right side of the road 21 km (13 miles) from the center of Kunming, on the edge of the Western Hills.
One of Kunming’s best attractions is its benign climate. At an altitude of 1,894 m (more than 6,200 ft), temperatures are pleasantly mild, producing what is described as perpetual springtime. During one season or another the camellia, azalea, magnolia, and begonia are in flower, and the region is renowned as China’s pharmacopoeia. The thatched roofs of farmhouses are draped with drying corn and chili peppers.
The total metropolitan population stands at 2 million, of which half live in the city proper. To make it all the more exotic, a high proportion of the citizens belong to minority nationalities and often appear in ethnic costumes. The city’s leading university, the Institute for Nationalities, enrolls over 20,000 minority students.
Downtown Kunming has modernized rapidly, but there are still a few touches of the old, the exotic, and the scenic: a colorful bird and flower market, the Nancheng Ancient Mosque, the blind masseurs who work outside in the public square at the Workers’ Cultural Hall. A few charming older neighborhoods remain around the city’s main park, Green Lake (Cuihui), and the lake is charming, too, particularly on a Sunday when families visit and in winter when the “laughing gulls” stop over on their way from Siberia.
Then there’s Kunming’s most interesting temple, Qiongzhusi, the Bamboo Temple, 13 km (8 miles) northwest of downtown. It houses the surreal work of a 19th-century sculptor who created a version of the 500 arhats (followers of the Buddha) unequaled at any other Buddhist temple in China.
Kunming’s prime scenic and recreational area is at Lake Dian, China’s sixth largest. Tour boats cruise the crystal waters. Grand View Park (Daguan Gongyuan), on one shore, provides the flowers for which Kunming is famous, along with arched bridges and pavilions. On the opposite shore, the rich green slopes of the Western Hills (Xishan) rise abruptly. One newer attraction on Lake Dian is the Yunnan Nationalities Village, an ethnic theme park exhibiting 24 minority mini-villages, probably the best such park in China.
A strenuous climb up the sheer face of the Western Hills via tunnels and stair treads carved from stone ultimately leads to Dragon’s Gate (Longmen). During the Ming Dynasty the emperor was carried all the way up from the lakeside by four bearers. There are several excellent places to stop and catch your breath on the way up, including a teahouse, a former concubines’ residence, and an emperor’s temporary living quarters. The gate itself is wide enough for only one person to pass through at a time. Caves painstakingly cut into the mountainside contain colorful painted carvings, all the work of a single-minded Daoist monk of the 18th century and his followers.
The Stone Forest (Shilin)
From Kunming it’s just 80 km (50 miles) southeast to Yunnan’s most popular scenic attraction, the Stone Forest. This is an otherworldly fantasy of twisted limestone hundreds of millions of years old, the world’s largest natural stone maze. Geologists say this wonder originated 200 million years ago with the interaction of limestone, sea water, rainwater, and seismic upheavals. The bizarre pinnacles that resulted are of the distinctive type of limestone called karst, the same geology one finds in Guilin. 
The Stone Forest covers about 26,000 hectares (64,000 acres) of Yunnan Province, but most tourists confine themselves to a manageable area of concentrated wonders. Here there are paved paths, protective railings, and a few painted signs, but it is indeed possible to lose one’s way inside this massive labyrinth. Near the starting point, women from the neighboring village (members of the Sani tribe of the Yi nationality) sell embroidered blouses, bags, and assorted knickknacks. The Sani also work as freelance guides. In an open area beyond a grove of giant bamboo is the formal entrance to the forest: a wall carved with the Chinese characters for “Shilin.”
Many of the formations resemble particular animals, plants, buildings, and characters out of Chinese classics. You will find one pinnacle in the image of an “Elephant on a Stone Terrace” and another like a “Rhinoceros Looking at the Moon.” At one point in the maze you must squeeze through the Narrowest Pass; doing so, according to Sani legend, adds ten years to your life. From Peak Viewing Pavilion, the highest point in the Stone Forest, there’s a comprehensive view of this great thicket of jagged rocks thrusting skyward.
The biggest open space in the Stone Forest, a lawn surrounded by cherry trees, is the site of a Sani festival each June. For 48 continuous hours, the tribesmen devote themselves to singing and dancing, wrestling matches, bullfights (actually, water buffalo fighting each other), feasting, and romancing. Many of the celebrants come from Five Tree Village (Wukeshu), across Shilin Lake from the hotel. This community of several thousand Sani residents shelters water buffalo, pigs, goats, and dogs. The Sani themselves live in thatched-roof, mud-and-wattle houses.
Those who stay the night in the Stone Forest are usually entertained with a Sani folklore show. Among the instruments in the orchestra are flutes, zithers, and a giant banjo with a hollow bottom. Women dancers wear red, white, and black conical hats, while the men sport floppy black turbans. Through song and mime they recount the legends that link their people to the otherworldly presence of the Stone Forest.
Lanzhou (Lanchow)
Two legendary thoroughfares pass through Lanzhou: the broad, powerful Yellow River and the ancient trade route known as the Silk Road. Today the big, busy city boasts broad new boulevards as well as intriguing old streets of shops and houses. Adding local color, members of minority nationalities — mostly Muslim Hui people and Tibetans — contribute their own customs, costumes, and cuisine to the cosmopolitan mix. In some neighborhoods the pavements are crowded with “free market” peddlers and artisans.
Lanzhou is the capital of Gansu (Kansu) Province, which extends from the farmland of the Yellow River basin through the narrow Gansu corridor, with its steep rocky mountains, to China’s far west of desert and oases. Lanzhou received its name under the Sui Dynasty more than a thousand years ago. In recent times its role as a transportation center has strengthened with the spread of the railways and air routes. Industrial development here since 1949 has transformed the city, adding vast new suburbs of oil refineries and factories. The population of the metropolitan area now tops 2 million.
The Gansu Provincial Museum (Sheng Bowuguan), just across the street from the big Soviet-style Huaiyi Hotel, houses Silk Road treasures and perhaps the most famous sculpture in all of China, the galloping “Flying Horse of Gansu.” With its right rear leg touching a symbolic bird, the Gansu horse is the subject of countless reproductions at home and abroad. The original bronze was found in an ancient Han Dynasty tomb in Gansu Province in 1969. You can buy a bronze copy in the museum shop — for a tidy sum.
For a view of the muddy, swiftly moving Yellow River and the city along its banks, go along to White Pagoda Hill Park (Baitashan Gongyuan), once a military stronghold. The temple itself, an octagonal seven-tier structure, was rebuilt in the 15th century. Five Springs Hill Park (Wuquanshan Gongyuan) climbs a steep mountainside on the opposite bank of the river. The springs provide water for various needs, from making tea to ensuring fertility. To break up the climb there are temples and pavilions to visit and a big pond crossed by a crooked bridge. The temples date from the 14th century; one artifact, a 5-ton bronze bell, was cast in 1202.
West of Lanzhou are the magnificent Thousand Buddha Temple and Caves (Binglingsi Shiku), with ancient frescoes and hundreds of statues, and, at Xiahe, the Labrang Monastery (Labolengsi), one of the largest and most active lamaseries outside of Tibet. Southeast of Lanzhou, requiring an overnight visit, is one of the most celebrated of the great Buddhist grottoes, the Maijishan Caves (Maijishan Shiku), dating back to the fourth century.
Leshan
From the provincial capital of Chengdu, a three-hour drive via a new expressway through populous Sichuan (Szechuan) Province ends at the town of Leshan, the base for visits to a monumental riverside Buddha and to one of four sacred mountains of Chinese Buddhism, Emeishan. A 13th-century poet wrote that the most beautiful scenery of China is found in Sichuan, and, indeed, some of the best of that scenery is concentrated in Leshan. Here, three rivers converge and flow along the city wall, and far away in the mist rises Mt. Emei.
Open boats ferry visitors from Leshan to the site of the Great Buddha (Dafo). Whether seen from the river or, later, from the hillsides, the world’s largest seated Buddha is an impressive spectacle. Carved from the cliffside by a monk starting in the year 713, its height is 71 m (233 ft). The statue’s feet are so big that a hundred people can sit on each instep. 
The boats tie up some distance from the Buddha and passengers climb from the shore to Dark Green Temple (Wuyousi), with its view of Mt. Emei, the gate to Western Paradise. A pathway and suspension bridge lead back to the Great Buddha. There, the Stairs of Nine Turnings wind steeply down one side of the statue to the feet. Another honeycombed stairway carved from the cliff leads back up the other side, coming out level with Buddha’s massive crown, where you have a view of the Buddha’s serene and knowing countenance. More temples and caves lie on the road back to the boat landing and the buses to the sacred peak. 
Mt. Emei 
Dubbed “the fairest mountain among the fair mountains of the world,” Mt. Emei reaches an altitude of well over 3,000 m (over 10,000 ft). You don’t have to climb all the way to the summit of Emeishan to appreciate its charm and mystique. But the higher you go, the more chance you’ll have of sighting the rich fauna of the hill forests, from gregarious monkeys to red pandas. This was the traditional Buddhist “Peak of the West,” the mountain shrine to countless pilgrims, emperors included.
At the foot of Mt. Emei are the 16th-century Loyalty to Country Temple (Baoguosi) and the Crouching Tiger Temple (Fuhusi), foreshadowing the many temples ahead. There are monasteries and famous scenic spots every few kilometers along the paths to the summit, but this is a climb (for the energetic only) that requires several days. Many tourists have time to spend only a night on the mountain in one of the basic inns, such as those at the Shrine of Limpid Waters (Jinshui), before being driven to the summit before dawn to see the famous sunrise.
At sunrise on Golden Peak (Jinding) pilgrims and vacationers alike gather in hopes of seeing an optical phenomenon called “Buddha’s Halo.” Here, each viewer can see his or her shadow perfectly framed inside a bright halo formed when the morning sea of clouds below Suicide Precipice is penetrated by the rising sun. 
Luoyang (Loyang)
The population of Luoyang today stands at nearly a million, almost the same as it was during the Sui Dynasty 1,400 years ago, when it shared the imperial court with Chang’an (present-day Xi’an). Those were the days of imperial splendor and glory. Luoyang is sometimes known as the Capital for Nine Dynasties, reflecting a political and cultural prominence that originated nearly 4,000 years ago.
In the tenth century the imperial court moved from Luoyang to the northeast. Luoyang later became capital of the central province of Henan, but by the 20th century it was merely a shadow of its former self. After the Communists took power, they decided to revive the small, sleepy city as a model industrial center. Hundreds of new factories were built, turning out tractors, mining equipment, ball bearings, and thousands of other products.
The Luoyang Museum, housed in a Ming Dynasty temple, contains the fossil of an elephant tusk half-a-million years old, Stone Age pottery, Shang bronzes, and glazed Tang ceramic figures. The nearby Wangcheng Park, with its two Han Dynasty tombs, is a delight during the late April peony season. But Luoyang’s most precious relics are to be found outside of town.
A short distance east of Luoyang is White Horse Temple (Baimasi), which dates from the first century a.d. It is often cited as the first Buddhist monastery built in China. The name refers to the story of two envoys returning from India with two Indian monks they met along the way. The monks transported the first Buddhist scriptures to China on the backs of white horses.
Longmen Caves
Counted among the most precious of the grotto complexes in China, the Longmen Caves lie about 14 km (9 miles) south of Luoyang. The name Longmen, which means “Dragon’s Gate,” might derive from the lie of the land here: cliffs standing like gate towers rise on either side of the River Yi. The best time to visit is early morning, when the rising sun lights up the contours of the statues, giving them an eerie, lifelike quality.
The hard rock here was conducive to delicate carving, carried out on a monumental scale for about 400 years starting in a.d. 494. More than 1,300 grottoes were constructed, as well as 2,100 niches and nearly 100,000 statues. These range from a height of about 17 m (56 ft) to a fingernail-sized 2 cm (less than an inch). In addition, there are 40 pagodas and more than 3,600 inscribed steles or tablets, of keen interest to historians and calligraphers. Some priceless sculpture was in the past looted by Europeans and Americans. Guides often point out one wall from which two classic reliefs were chiseled in 1935 “by a Chinese curio dealer bribed by an American.” The works ended up in museums in New York and Kansas City.
Some of the earliest constructions were the three Binyang Grottoes, dedicated to an emperor and empress of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–534), after the capital was transferred to Luoyang. The principal sculpture, five times life-size, displays features typical of that dynasty’s Buddhist art: a thin face, large eyes, straight nose, and quiet smile. An inscription reports that these works required the labor of 802,366 craftsmen.
The subtleties of Tang-Dynasty art can be seen in the Qianqi cave temple, begun in the year 641, and in the Fengxian cave temple, constructed a few years later. The Fengxian cave shelters a 17-m (56-ft) Buddha, seated atop a thousand-petaled lotus and accompanied by lesser but equally brilliant statues of his disciples. The fierce, heavenly guard trampling a devil underfoot is thought to bring good luck to those who put their arms around his ankle, but an iron fence keeps most onlookers at bay.
Probably the oldest and one of the most beautiful of the grottoes is Guyang, begun in 495 and completed under the Northern Qi in 575. The Buddha depicted here is guarded by two magnificent lions at his feet, and the Buddha’s head is a Qing Dynasty replacement for the original. A great curiosity of the complex, not at all sculptural, is the Grotto of Prescriptions (Yaofangdong), begun in the year 575. The 120 inscriptions here amount to a compendium of ancient Chinese illnesses and treatments.
The showstoppers at Longmen, carved in the years 680 and 675, respectively, are the Cave of Ten Thousand Buddhas (Wanfodong), with 15,000 little Buddhas carved into its niches, and the Honoring Ancestors Cave (Juxianshiku), constructed at the behest of Tang Empress Wu. It is the largest cave at Longmen and the large Buddha inside it is said to bear the face of the never-humble Empress Wu herself.
Nanjing (Nanking)
This ancient capital of China has suffered so many catastrophes that few historic monuments have survived — and these are widely dispersed. Perhaps this is why so much emphasis is placed on modern triumphs, such as the heroic bridge across the Yangzi River that has become Nanjing’s emblem. But past and present are often juxtaposed in Nanjing, like the blue pedicabs sharing the streets with big new buses, or the fresh pink-and-white plum blossoms on the hillsides around the Mingxiaoling tomb.
Nanjing, a booming city of over 5 million, is about 300 km (185 miles) west of Shanghai in Jiangsu (Kiangsu) Province. Here the great Yangzi River narrows to slightly more than one kilometer, so even before there was a bridge the city had held high strategic significance. Visitors are usually advised to avoid Nanjing in July and August, when the heat can become debilitating; temperatures of 40°C (104°F) are no rarity.
Nanjing means “Southern Capital,” a name conferred rather late in the city’s history. During its early grandeur under the State of Chu, the town was called “Jinling,” a name still used in literary and other allusions. Then in the third century, in the era of the Three Kingdoms, it was christened “Jianye.” Under that or similar titles it served as the capital of six southern dynasties. The Ming emperors made it the national capital, but this was soon moved north to Beijing in the 15th century.
In the 20th century a series of dramas overtook Nanjing and gave it new prominence. It was here that Dr. Sun Yat-sen was elected president of the republic. Chiang Kai-shek made it his capital until the advance of Japanese invasion forces induced him to head west. When the Japanese troops finally arrived here in 1937, the “Rape of Nanking” was added to the catalogue of war’s atrocities. A monument (Datusha Jinianguan) just outside the old city wall commemorates the victims; around 100,000 died in the first four days alone. The Nationalists regained the battered city after the Japanese surrender in 1945. The Communist army crossed the Yangzi (which the Chinese people call Changjiang, or “Long River”) in April 1949, bringing the new order to the old capital.
The Yangzi River Bridge (Nanjing Changjiang Daqiao) is an extraordinary engineering achievement. Only a few bridges span the entire river, and this is the longest: at 1,577 m over water, it is a little less than a mile. Proudly claimed to be the world’s longest two-tier bridge for rail and road traffic, it has greatly improved contacts between North and South China. And it inspired national self-confidence at the time of the Sino-Soviet schism of 1960. When the Soviet Union withdrew its technical experts, the Chinese built it themselves, in eight years.
Nanjing claims a little-known distinction — the longest city wall in the world. In the 14th century, the Ming rulers mobilized 200,000 workers to build fortifications extending 331⁄2 km (nearly 21 miles). The largest of 24 city gates, newly renovated as a tourist attraction, is the Zhonghuamen, on the southern edge of Nanjing. It was a formidable redoubt, with tunnels for 3,000 besieged defenders, and was never taken by enemies.
Also in southern Nanjing, you can see the ruins of the Palace of the Heavenly King (Tianqangfu), built when the forces of the Taiping Rebellion captured the city (see page 41). It was the most ambitious architectural project of the mid-19th century. The Western Garden is full of fine touches: an imaginative rock garden, a dragon wall, a children’s maze, and a bottle-shaped lake for an imperial stone houseboat.
The Nanjing Museum (Nanjing Bowuguan), founded in 1933, is located inside Zhongshan Gate, the main eastern portal of the city wall. Among art and artifacts from prehistoric times to the end of the empire, the museum displays colorful ancient pottery, elegant figurines, and a famous jade burial suit 2,000 years old. 
Back in town, the Ming Dynasty Drum Tower (Gulou) has been restored to its eminence on a hill in the very center of Nanjing. The drum (since replaced) told the time and warned the citizens of danger. Now there’s a tearoom upstairs and a viewing deck. One of the city’s liveliest temples is Fuzimiao, a Confucian temple located in the heart of Nanjing’s main shopping district; it is especially interesting to stroll through after working hours.
Nanjing’s distinguished history as a political and cultural center accounts for its considerable local pride. One area in which rivalry is freely revealed is the realm of cooking. Nanjing claims its salted duck is superior to the more famous Peking duck. Nanjing ducks, it’s pointed out, are raised naturally on ponds, not force-fed like their less fortunate Beijing comrades.
Around Nanjing
Chinese pilgrims of all political persuasions come from many countries to honor the founder of the Chinese Republic at the Mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-sen (Zhongshanling), in the Purple Hills east of Nanjing. The hillside complex roofed with blue tiles, completed in 1929, could scarcely be more grandiose. Following a long winding avenue planted with plane trees, you continue up the 392 granite steps of the ceremonial staircase to the actual memorial hall. There are statues of Dr. Sun standing, sitting (by a French sculptor, Paul Landowski), and recumbent above the vault itself. On the ceiling is a mosaic version of the Nationalist (Guomindang) flag, a white star on a blue background. Dr. Sun often roamed these hills during his Nanjing years. It was his own wish that he be buried here, although he could never have anticipated the imperial splendor that developed.
Nearby in the Purple Hills is Mingxiaoling, the tomb of Emperor Hong Wu, founder of the Ming Dynasty. What with wars and revolutions, there is not much left of the 14th-century complex. But don’t miss the Sacred Way, lined with large stone statues of elephants, camels, horses, lions, and mythical animals, which turns north into an approach road guarded by statues of generals and mandarins. In the hall above the burial site are displayed pictures of the emperor. Guides report he was even uglier in real life; two court artists are said to have lost their heads for an excess of realism in their portraits.
Despite its long history, Nanjing is most remembered today for its role in 20th-century events. The Yangzi Bridge, the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial, and the “Rape of Nanjing” epitomize for many the essence of Nanjing. So, too, perhaps does Meiling Palace (Meilinggong), the vacation house of Chiang Kai-shek and wife Song Meiling, now open as a period museum for those nostalgic for the pre-Revolutionary days between the Last Emperor of the Manchus and the First Chairman of the Communist Party.
Qingdao (Tsingtao)
Imagine Copacabana beach set down on the shore of the Yellow Sea, mix in some century-old German villas and castles, and paint in pinewoods, parks, and treelined hills for background. This world-class resort setting is one of the surprises of Qingdao, an important seaport situated on the Shandong (Shantung) Peninsula.
Six beaches make this charming city one of China’s favorite summer retreats. The sea is refreshing and so, usually, is the air, cooled in summer by the northerly ocean currents. Whether or not you decide to join the Chinese masses and take the plunge, you’ll appreciate the chance to see them at ease — sunbathing, strolling, having their pictures taken, and eating ice cream or dumplings.
As you might deduce from the European architecture of the railway station and many other buildings here, Qingdao has an unusual history. Until the end of the 19th century, there was little here apart from fishermen’s houses and a minor Chinese naval base. When Germany entered the imperialist age under Kaiser Wilhelm, Qingdao was selected as a likely port for development. A 99-year lease was imposed on the Manchu government.
Soon a modern, German-style city was built, with villas, a deepwater port, a cathedral, and a main street called Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse. Business was not everything: the Germans used Qingdao as a missionary base, too. It remains one of China’s more Christian cities. The twin-spired Catholic cathedral (Tianzhu Jiaotong) and the Protestant church (Jidu Jiaotong), with its working clock tower, tend to be crowded with local people on Sundays and have become tourist attractions.
German Qingdao suffered a curious fate during World War I. Japan, which joined the Allied forces, invaded the city, imprisoned the survivors of the German garrison, and occupied Qingdao for the duration of the war. China wasn’t able to regain sovereignty until 1922. After the Communists came to power in 1949, industrial development went forward. However, even though the population now exceeds 4 million (including the outlying regions), Qingdao keeps its quiet allure.
As permanent as any of the German contributions to Qingdao is its brewing prowess. The local beer has become China’s national beer, exported worldwide in big green bottles or modern cans under the old spelling of the town’s name, “Tsingtao.” Brewery tours can be arranged, and the Qingdao International Beer Festival in mid-August has become China’s first attempt at an “Oktoberfest.”
Qingdao is a remarkably walkable city. Most of the German architecture is concentrated in the Badaguan District on Taiping Bay, near Beach No. 1. This is a lovely neighborhood of Western mansions, landscaped lawns, and tree-lined lanes, capped by what can only be described as a German castle by the sea — actually the German governor’s lodge during colonial days.
Not far from the old villas and castle is Qianhai Pier, once the main berth for German ships. Now the pier has been lengthened to an impressive 440 m (nearly a quarter of a mile), and an octagonal pavilion lies at the far end. Visitors and vendors alike crowd the promenade. Roving portrait photographers hustle vacationers, pitching the lighthouse as a background.
Above the beaches, with fine views of the city and the sea, are a number of parks atop steep green hills. In Xinhao Park there stands the opulent residence built for the German governor in 1903. Now a hotel, the Qingdao Welcome Guest House is also partly a period museum. The grand piano in its plush lobby, dated 1876, is German. But the suites off the lobby are decidedly Chinese, occupied for a month in 1957 by Chairman Mao and his wife and left today just as Mao left them decades ago, including his desk with its secret compartment. 
In addition to Qingdao’s stunning beaches, which attract 100,000 sunbathers every summer, the area is renowned for the mountain resort of Laoshan, 30 km (nearly 20 miles) to the east. Bordering the sea, Laoshan is a region rich in legends, waterfalls, and springs. Laoshan mineral water, of vaunted medicinal value, originates here and is sold throughout China; it is also a key ingredient of the tasty beer. Once the site of 72 temples, Laoshan still boasts an interesting temple at its foot on the sea, Xiaqinggong, a Daoist retreat that dates back to 14 b.c.
Shanghai
You couldn’t confuse Shanghai with any other Chinese city. It is bigger, more prosperous, and more dynamic than any other; its skyline boasts European-style towers; its shop windows and food stalls seize your attention. Through the late 1990s, Shanghai was the world’s boomtown, rebuilding itself and growing at a rate far beyond that of any other major city. 
Before war and revolution changed its face, Shanghai was dominated by foreign fortune-hunters, social climbers, and a glittering array of sinners. Its very name became a verb in English: “to shanghai” meant to abduct by trickery or force. Nowadays it is regaining some of its old glamour, albeit without the criminal edge.
With 14 million people (depending on how you count), Shanghai is also one of the most expensive cities in the world. A recent cost-of-living survey ranked Shanghai as the fifth most expensive city in the world, ahead of London, Geneva, and New York. Shanghai is not only expensive but extensive. The metropolitan area covers about 6,000 sq km (more than 2,300 sq miles), which is five times the size of the city of Los Angeles. Administered as a separate region, like Beijing, the Shanghai metropolis includes rich farmland as well as big-city housing complexes and heavy industry.
Shanghai’s present position as a great industrial and commercial center is part of an earlier 20th century colonial tradition. The city has retained a special appeal to visitors as a sophisticated, businesslike metropolis — made all the more colorful because of its nostalgic associations.
Shanghai in History
China’s prime port began unpromisingly a thousand years ago as a fishing village on mud flats near the Yangzi River’s outlet to the East China Sea. Shanghai didn’t officially become a town until the 13th century, but even then it was largely ignored by the rest of China and the world.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, domestic commerce increased the importance of the town as a port and marketplace. But the authorities firmly resisted foreign connections until British gunboats won an invitation. After the first Opium War, Shanghai became one of five Chinese ports open to foreign residence and trade. Over the next few years the influx of Europeans, Americans, and refugees from battles of the Taiping Rebellion turned Shanghai into a glamorous, if naughty, trading port. But little of the prosperity filtered down to the ordinary citizen, who was kept apart. Bitterness at the injustices and corruption of Shanghai society fired the city’s revolutionary movement: the Chinese Communist Party was founded here in 1921.
Between 1937 and 1945, Shanghai was occupied by Japanese troops; most of the foreign colony was interned. After the war the Guomindang Nationalists took power, but Communist troops seized Shanghai in 1949. The new regime wiped out organized crime and vice, expropriated factories and built new ones, setting the city on a new industrial course. In 1965 the Cultural Revolution was sparked off in Shanghai, as the political base of Jiangqing, the former Shanghai actress who was Mao’s wife. After the death of Mao and the arrest of the Gang of Four, Shanghai culture and art experienced a renaissance, and the new economic policies of the 1990s benefited Shanghai more than any other city. 
Sightseeing
As an essentially 19th-century phenomenon, Shanghai matured too late to contribute to classical Chinese art or culture. If historic monuments are relatively rare here, it doesn’t mean the city lacks for sights. In Shanghai the interest shifts to relics of uninhibited prewar capitalism and scenes of the city’s contemporary energy and flair.
The port of Shanghai sums up the strange, and often uncomfortable, meeting of East and West, of old and new. The muddy Huangpu River slices through the center of the city, after passing through the seemingly interminable industrial suburbs complete with their fuming smokestacks. Foghorns converse into the night, long after the sound of car horns and bike bells has ceased. The river traffic is a motley flotilla of modern container ships and ocean-going junks — their sails the color of grime — of packed ferries and convoys of barges, warships, rusty coasters, and bobbing sampans. Visitors can take a comfortable and endlessly fascinating riverboat tour of the Huangpu from downtown Shanghai to the mouth of the Yangzi River.
Returning to the city, in the almost inevitable haze, you see the astonishingly un-Chinese skyline of Shanghai, a mythical European metropolis transplanted to the Orient. The riverfront promenade on the left bank of the Huangpu used to be called the Bund (Waitan), from an Anglo-Indian word for an embankment on a muddy shore. It’s easy to imagine the elegance of the Bund in its heyday, when the gardens were barred to dogs and Chinese, in that order. This is the place for relaxed people-watching, from early morning when the shadow-boxers work out until the evening strolls of well-dressed courting couples. The promenade has been widened. There’s even a small port museum in an old brick tower. 
Facing the river along Zhongshan Road are some grandiose old buildings, a bit the worse for wear. These include the Peace Hotel; the Seamen’s Club, formerly the British consulate; and the massive 1923 headquarters of the old Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, recently renovated and transformed into a Chinese bank, with the separate entrances for Chinese and Europeans eliminated. And east across the river is new East Shanghai, known as Pudong, where construction is booming and where you can enjoy a view from the top of Asia’s tallest structure.
Around Nanjing Road
One of the pleasures of Shanghai is to stroll Nanjing Road, long the most famous shopping avenue in China, to see what’s new and what’s old. Ending up at the Peace Hotel (now the Heping Hotel) on the Bund, don’t fail to visit the Art-Deco lobby. This is where Noel Coward holed up to write Private Lives and where Steven Spielberg filmed scenes for Empire of the Sun. The Peace Hotel’s jazz band, performing here since the 1930s, still swings every evening in the north wing.
North from the Bund is the Ohel Moshe Synagogue (Moxihuitang), built in 1927 to serve Shanghai’s resident and refugee Jewish population, which once reached 20,000.
On the south side of Nanjing Road is People’s Park (Renmin Gongyuan), which used to feature a racecourse, but gambling is sternly condemned in the People’s Republic. Now the only runners are the local children, who play among the park’s trees, ponds, and lawns, and the kite-fliers, who occupy the large People’s Square in front of the new Shanghai Museum. 
Unequivocally, the Shanghai Museum (Shanghai Bowuguan) is the best in China, especially in terms of its state-of-the-art displays and presentation. There are four floors of exhibits with stalls on each floor selling gifts and museum reproductions. Bronzes and stone sculptures are on the first floor, ceramics are on the second floor, paintings and calligraphy are on the third floor, and coins, jade, and furniture are on the fourth floor. Not all of the museum’s 120,000 artifacts can be displayed here at one time, but many visitors savor these displays and insist upon a return visit. For a break during museum browsing, there’s a lovely tearoom on the second floor. 
Old Town
Just southwest of the Bund is a district known today as “Old Town,” within the circle formed by Renminlu and Zhonghualu. On Fuyoulu, the Yuyuan Garden was commissioned by a Ming Dynasty mandarin. As the main classical Chinese garden in Shanghai, it is an absolute gem of landscaping and architecture, the perfect place for the local people to seek tranquillity, so conveniently offered in the heart of old Shanghai. If you visit only one classic garden in China, this is the best single choice. 
Just inside the main gate is a rockery, an artificial hill of inherently interesting stones, held together with glutinous rice powder and lime. From the pavilion atop this hill, the Ming official could watch all the excitements of river life, though tall buildings now intervene. In front of the Hall of Ten Thousand Flowers grows a 400-year-old gingko tree. Another carefully created rockery is reflected in a pond teeming with giant goldfish. All the corridors and pavilions, bridges and walls, sculptures and trees are so artfully arranged that the garden seems many times larger than its actual, compact size.
Outside the garden walls, a large rectangular pond is bisected by the Nine Turnings Bridge, so shaped to deflect evil spirits. The bridge is the only link to the 400-year-old Huxinting Teahouse (257 Yuyuanlu), which lies in the center of an illuminated pond. With its upswept roofs, this is an irresistible stop for tea and snacks. There’s no prettier teahouse in all of China.
The teahouse pond marks one corner of the Old Chinese City (Nanshi), once deemed a danger zone for European visitors. You might still get lost in this maze of backstreets, reminiscent of a North African souk, but much of it has been renovated, tastefully, into the Yuyuan Shopping Center. There are still shops from the old bazaar days selling chopsticks, medicines, bamboo fans, silk, and incense.
Also redeveloped nicely is the Temple to the Town Gods (Chenghuangmiao), which dates back to the 15th century and now hosts street fairs within sight of the teahouse and Yuyuan Garden, as it did in previous centuries.
The French Quarter
West of the riverside and old Chinese section is a landmark of modern history: the low brick building at 76 Xingyelu, where the Chinese Communist Party was founded in July 1921. This was in the French concession, and when the French police learned of the clandestine meeting, they raided the two-story corner house. But they arrived too late to find the 12 conspirators, including Mao Zedong. The Communist founding fathers continued their congress aboard a hired excursion boat on a lake. The house is today a museum with documents and displays.
Today, much of the finest European architecture in Shanghai is most visible in and around the French Quarter. Art-Deco and Tudor villas, neo-Gothic offices, and large elegant mansions line many of the small streets. The modern Garden Hotel (58 Maominglu) preserves the original lobby area of the Cercle Sportif Français from the 1920s. The Shanghai Arts and Crafts Research Institute is housed in a wonderful old French mansion (79 Fenyanglu) and allows visitors to view artisans at work on embroidery, paper cutting, and other crafts.
Nearby at 1555 Huaihaizhinglu, the New Shanghai Library (Shanghai Tushuguan), one of the world’s largest with over 13 million volumes, has rare books dating back 1,400 years and a reading room for foreign-language books. 
Other old buildings open to view include Soong Ching-ling’s Former Residence (Songqingling Guju), where the wife of Sun Yat-sen lived until 1963, and Sun Yat-sen’s Former Residence (Sunzhongshan Guju), where the founder of the Chinese Republic lived until 1924. The Xujiahui Cathedral, a Gothic church erected in 1848, now holds masses in Chinese. 
”New” Shanghai: Pudong
Immediately across the river from the Bund and old Shanghai is the future — the Pudong New Development Zone. Shanghai has over 300 skyscrapers, and most of them are in Pudong, in the new East Shanghai. With its 88 stories, China’s tallest building is here: the 427-m (1,400-ft) Jinmao Plaza. So is an even bolder monument, the Pearl of the Orient TV Tower, presently Asia’s tallest structure at 468 m (1,535 ft) and a symbol of the mighty new China. The observation deck atop the TV tower is one of Shanghai’s top tourist draws. Pudong even has its own burgeoning version of the Bund. And although it lacks history, Binjiang Road has modern shops, cafés, and performing troupes, making the east bank an up-and-coming rival to the west bank.
Outlying Sights
The Jade Buddha Temple (Yufosi), in northwest Shanghai, is not old, but it is Shanghai’s leading Buddhist site and quite active with resident monks. Its Song Dynasty-style grounds house a priceless white jade Buddha statue in the seated position of enlightenment, brought from Burma. Most statues in Buddhist temples are molded of clay with a thin overlay of gold, so these giant jade works attract curiosity seekers as well as worshippers. Around the back of the altar is a flamboyant three-dimensional mural. As an extra attraction for tourists, there’s an antiques shop in the compound with some unusual items at interesting prices.
Shanghai’s only ancient pagoda, part of the Longhua Temple (Longhuagusi) complex in the southwest suburbs, was rebuilt more than a thousand years ago. The seven-level octagonal structure was restored in the 1950s. But no one tried to correct its appealing tilt, insignificant when compared to the Tower of Pisa but notable nonetheless. Tiny bells, suspended from the corners of the upswept eaves, tinkle in the breeze.
Shanghai Entertainment and Cuisine
Two popular venues for the performing arts are the Shanghai Center Theatre and the new Grand Theatre (Dajuyuan), Shanghai’s answer to the Sydney Opera House. 
Finally, there’s Shanghai cuisine. While popular local dishes are based on beancurd, together with mushrooms and bamboo shoots, the best-known Shanghai recipes capitalize on the city’s proximity to the sea. Steamed freshwater crabs, in season from October through to December, and river eel are the highlights for many gourmets.
Shaolin
The fighting monks in a thousand kung fu films can trace their origin to the Shaolin Monastery in Henan Province. In fact, the Chinese martial arts and such offshoots as the gentler exercise forms known as taiqi have their symbolic, if not literal, birthplace at this monastery. The branch of Buddhism known as Chan (“Zen” in Japan and the West) also looks to Shaolin as its source.
With so many traditional arts centered at one historic site, it’s no wonder the Shaolin Monastery has become one of China’s more popular tourist attractions. Shaolin now provides movie sets for film crews as well as schools for domestic and foreign classes in self-defense. As an excursion, it is close to Zhengzhou (80 km/50 miles to the east) and Luoyang (70 km/43 miles west).
You don’t have to be a kung fu practitioner to enjoy Shaolin. While crowded and commercialized, Shaolin is still one of China’s most interesting historical and religious monuments, dating back to the end of the fifth century a.d. In 625 it was expanded by a Tang Dynasty emperor in gratitude for wartime services rendered by the Shaolin monks, who used their fighting skills to send off some usurpers. In the early sixth century, a monk from India named Da Mo arrived at Shaolin, where he founded Chan Buddhism. Da Mo, who was probably a legendary rather than actual figure, is also heralded as the founder of kung fu (wushu), a system of hand-to-hand combat that was later modified to produce the immensely popular form of exercise that millions practice every morning throughout China — taiqi (tai chi), sometimes called “shadow boxing” in the West.
The Shaolin monks do seem to have been well-versed in self-defense over the centuries. In the 16th century they were called upon to rid China’s coast of Japanese pirates. In 1928, when warlords carved up sections of the faltering Chinese Republic, one general laid siege to the monastery and set it ablaze.
Today, Shaolin has a number of interesting relics and remains. Of the many halls, pavilions, and temples linked by broad courtyards, the most important is the Thousand Buddha Hall (dating back to 1588), with its fresco of monks engaging in battle. In the rear of the hall is a sacred stone floor, heavily dented, where generations of leaping monks are said to have left the imprint of their training. Nearby is the Shadow Stone, a slab with the outlines of a figure in meditation, said to be from the cave where Da Mo meditated so steadfastly for nine years that he left his shadow on the wall. A ten-minute hike up the northern hill behind the Shaolin complex leads to the cave, now a shrine for the faithful.
The outer courtyards of Shaolin contain other unusual treasures. The Forest of Stupas (Shaolin Talin) is of historic note. Stupas (or dagobas) are small sealed pagodas that hold holy relics and remains of important monks. The forest of 227 stupas at Shaolin covers over 1,000 years of Buddhist funerals, beginning with that of a Tang Dynasty abbot who was buried here in the year 746. Adjacent to the Forest of Stupas is the most popular display at Shaolin, a courtyard of open-air pavilions containing scores of wooden statues��— monks in all the classic poses of a feverish kung fu battle.
Shaolin offers one more treat for the more adventurous. It is located at the foot of the western range of the Songshan mountains, part of the mountain cluster that was traditionally regarded as the Central Mountain at the center of the Chinese empire. A gondola now whisks visitors to the top, where hiking trails are abundant and views of the Shaolin complex and the vast desert plains of Henan are impressive. On the far side of the range, sheer walls of stone 300 m (1,000 ft) high tower over the plains, where a series of catwalks and carved footpaths wander through old temples and pavilions into the silence and emptiness beyond.
Suzhou (Soochow)
For centuries Suzhou has been famous for its canals and gardens, its beautiful women, and the musical cadences of the local dialect. An old Chinese proverb, referring to the area’s linguistic charms, claims that even an argument in Suzhou sounds sweeter than flattery in Guangzhon. Marco Polo found the inhabitants better traders than warriors, and he described the city as large and magnificent. So much silk was produced, he reported, that every citizen was clothed in it and the surplus was exported. Even today, silk still retains its significance in the local economy.
Whether you go to Suzhou from Shanghai or Nanjing, you will be moved by the wayside scenery, typical of China’s “land of fish and rice.” Sampans and scows ply the canals that divide the farmlands, where barefoot peasants in straw coolie hats squelch through the muddy rice fields. The Grand Canal is crowded with strings of barges laden with fruit and vegetables, construction materials, or coal. Suzhou in fact means “Plentiful Water.”
The Grand Canal, second only to the Great Wall as a Chinese engineering achievement, was started 2,400 years ago. By the sixth century it linked Suzhou and other rich farming areas of the south with the consumers of the north — most notably the emperor and his court, who appreciated receiving fresh food regardless of the season. Canal excursions by tourist boat often begin in Suzhou, continuing to another enchanted city, Wuxi (see page 173).
But Suzhou is best known for its perfectly landscaped, classical Chinese gardens. More than 150 were laid out, the first over a thousand years ago. Largest of all is the Humble Administrator’s Garden (Zhuozhengyuan), built by a Ming Dynasty mandarin not otherwise remembered for humility. As befits the City of Plentiful Water, ponds make up the better part of the terrain. And where there are ponds there are almost bound to be artificial islands, winding bridges, gazebos, and weeping willows.
To the west, the Lingering Garden (Liuyuan) is a refuge of flowers, trees, courtyards, and halls. This one, too, was built by a Ming civil servant as a place for meditation. While you linger, contemplate the five-ton rock shipped here 400 years ago from Lake Tai because of its inspiring shape. Nearby West Garden (Xiyuan) was given to a Buddhist monastery. The temple was destroyed in the Taiping Rebellion, then rebuilt. The Forest of Lions Garden (Shizilin) dates back to 1336, its rocks from Lake Tai evoking the form and power of lions. The Qing Dynasty Emperors modeled the rockeries in the Old Summer Palace in Beijing after those they saw in Suzhou’s Forest of Lions.
Probably the smallest of all the Suzhou gardens, situated right in the center of town, is the Garden of the Master of the Nets (Wangshiyuan), covering half a hectare (barely more than an acre). The garden’s founder, a retired politician, claimed he had given up public life to become a fisherman. Whatever his interests, he could hardly fail to be inspired by the view from his simple study. This gem is considered the masterpiece of Chinese classical garden design and served as the inspiration for the Astor Chinese Garden Court in New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. 
Among Suzhou’s tourist highlights, the highest is Tiger Hill (Huqiu), a man-made hill built 2,500 years ago. It is rich in contrived rock formations, vegetation, and waterfalls. From the summit rises a seven-level brick pagoda (Yunyanta). Like the one in Shanghai, it leans a bit from the vertical, although modern reinforcements should relieve your anxiety. Other sights worth lingering over in the old inner city include the 14th-century Panmen Gate, where a magnificent arched bridge crosses a canal linking Suzhou to the Grand Canal. 
Suzhou is also famous for its silk production. The Suzhou Silk Museum exhibits the 5,000 years of silk history in the region, and the Museum of Suzhou Embroidery is a working factory and sales outlet featured on many city tours.
There is one religious site of special note, the Temple of Mystery (Xuanmiaoguan), in the heart of a modernizing downtown shopping area. It includes the largest early Daoist hall in China (built in 1179) and is today surrounded by Suzhou’s biggest and liveliest outdoor market.
Taishan
Although not well known in the West, Taishan is China’s most celebrated peak. Everyone who was anyone in Chinese history, from Confucius to Chairman Mao, has stood on its summit. Because it was long regarded as the Sacred Mountain of the East by followers of Daoism, Taishan served as the supreme altar of worship for millions of pilgrims for over 2,000 years. It undoubtedly ranks as one of the most climbed mountains in the world. Even today it attracts large numbers of visitors, most of them from China.
Situated in Shandong Province on the rail line between Beijing and Shanghai, Taishan is only 1,545 m (5,069 ft) in elevation, but it is a steep climb as it rises for views of the East China Sea. Today there are over 20 active temples on its slopes, over 800 carved tablets, and some 1,000 cliff-face inscriptions. It is a library of Chinese culture that is carved into the body of nature.
Tai’an, the village at Taishan’s base that is 64 km (40 miles) south of Jinan, is home to the Dai Temple (Daimiao), a walled complex filled with its own historic treasures. These include a stone tablet recording the mountain’s promotion to the position of “Emperor of China,” as Taishan was designated in 1011 by a Song Dynasty emperor. Rarest of all is the Qin Tablet, carved in 209 b.c. to commemorate the ascent of Taishan by China’s first emperor, Qinshi Huangdi. The main temple also contains a statue of the God of the Mountain, Taishanwang, the Judge of the Dead.
North of the Dai Temple, the Pilgrim’s Road (Panlu) leads to the First Gate of Heaven, the entrance to the mountain. Beyond this point it is mostly massive granite steps. From the First Gate to the Middle Gate of Heaven is about 5 km (3 miles), and from the Middle Gate to the top less than 3 km (2 miles), but the final mile is the steepest, as the elevation rise is 1,370 m (4,500 ft). Those in a hurry can catch a bus or hire a taxi to the Middle Gate and from there take the cable car to the top.
Those who keep to the old pilgrim’s path are in for a long but fascinating walk. Among the celebrated sights are the Valley of the Stone Sutra, where sixth-century Buddhists carved the text of the Diamond Sutra into a smooth stream bed; the pine tree that sheltered the first emperor on his climb; and a final ladder of 2,000 stone steps leading to the Pavilion That Touches the Sky.
On the summit there are even more treasures. The Tang Dynasty Rock Inscriptions (Moyabei) were struck in large gold-foil characters to record Emperor Xuanzong’s imperial pilgrimage in the year 726. The Stele Without Inscription (Wuzibei) is blank, thought to have been placed here by the First Emperor over 2,000 years earlier; everyone who reaches it must touch it for good luck. The Temple of the Purple Dawn (Bixiaci) is the most revered of the shrines on the summit of Taishan. Here presides the Jade Goddess, daughter of the mountain god, who cures blindness and answers the prayers of the childless. And there are hundreds of earnest petitioners and pilgrims even today on the summit of Taishan.
At dawn, the thousands who spend the night in inns on the summit await the sunrise. It is precisely here that Confucius observed that the world is small and that Chairman Mao proclaimed “the East is Red.”
Turpan (Turfan, Tulufan)
The sidewalks of Turpan would turn to mud if it ever rained, but it almost never does. Here in the middle of the great desert in Xinjiang (Sinkiang) Autonomous Region, only 16 mm (just over half an inch) of rain ever reaches the ground in an average year. Most evaporates on the way down.
Because of Turpan’s location in the Tarim Basin — at 79 m (260 ft) below sea level, this is the second-deepest continental basin in the world — it’s startling to discover here a sizeable city where houses are supplied with electricity and running water and shady trees line the streets. It’s an amazing oasis, a bastion of civilization in a climate as cruel as any on Earth.
Turpan’s secret is underground water, utilized today as it has been for thousands of years by a system of interconnecting wells (karez) that relay water from the Heavenly Mountains (Tianshan) underground to the oasis. (If the aqueduct were above ground, the water would almost all be lost through evaporation.) Over the whole region, these tunnels, all dug by hand, stretch for perhaps 3,000 km (more than 1,800 miles), with some singular water tunnels running as far as 40 km (25 miles). Thanks to the wells, Turpan grows cotton, melons, and grapes of great sweetness and renown. And the surrounding desert is kept at bay by bountifully irrigated stands of elm, poplar, and palm trees. The karez is an engineering feat on par with that of the Grand Canal, and an exhibition center at one well site allows visitors to enter several of these hand-dug wells for a close-up view. 
The climatic conditions of China’s “oven” are nevertheless hostile to humans. In the summer, when the temperature exceeds 40°C (104°F) for days at a time, the locals take refuge in cellars until the night breeze comes up. In the springtime, when the mercury is merely in the 30s (close to 90°F), the people dress for a chill — the men in their long underwear and the women in thick brown stockings and gaily colored headscarves.
Turpan is about 200 km (125 miles) southeast of Urumqi, the regional capital. It’s so dry and (except for winter) hot in the oasis that tourists are advised to drink as much tea or juice as possible to forestall dehydration. Laundry on the line dries in a matter of minutes rather than hours or days.
Two thousand years ago, the Silk Road traders stopped in Turpan to find water and rest. The bazaar of today might give you the impression that little has changed. There are outdoor butcher shops, cobblers, dentists, and a shooting gallery, plus merchants selling medicinal herbs, embroidered skullcaps, and tobacco by the pocketful. Makeshift restaurants dish up spicy kebabs and the bread called nang. The customers, mostly of the Uighur nationality — Uighurs make up 80 percent of Turpan’s residents — give this Silk Road oasis a most un-Chinese atmosphere. Minarets outnumber pagodas. Just east of the city is Emin Minaret, a stunning 44-m (144-ft) tower of blue brick erected in 1778. The attached white stone mosque with its plain interior is the largest in the region.
The most remarkable sites in the area are the ruins of two ancient desert capitals. The city of Jiaohe, 10 km (6 miles) west of Turpan, was founded in the second century b.c. and laid out in a grid. Destroyed at the end of the 14th century, its sand and brick still preserve the haunting outlines of a great city that stretched for a mile, with a Buddhist temple and headless statues at the center.
Gaochang, a second ancient city 46 km (29 miles) east of Turpan, has an imposing city wall with a perimeter of 5 km (3 miles). Gaochang reached its prime during the Tang Dynasty, when it became a capital of China’s western territories. When Islam overtook Buddhism here in the 13th century, Gaochang was abandoned. Visitors today usually hire a Uighur donkey cart for a tour of the earthen remains.
A few miles from Gaochang is the royal Astana Cemetery, discovered by accident in 1972. Its oldest grave dates from a.d. 273. Because of the almost total lack of moisture, the murals in the tombs have retained their original lively colors — and many of the corpses haven’t aged much either. Visitors can enter several of the underground burial chambers, including one where a couple buried together 12 centuries ago lie side by side, their hair and fingernails grown long in death.
Northeast of Turpan, the road skirts the Flaming Mountains (“Kizilatak” in Uighur, “Huoyanshan” in Chinese). Facing south, the slopes attract and store the sun’s heat; temperatures have been recorded as high as 75°C (167°F). On a sheer cliff in a gorge in these mountains, the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves are perched, with carvings and frescoes dating from the fifth century. Unfortunately, these beautiful grottoes have been largely emptied by rival religious groups and by archaeological adventurers from the West. The 40 painted walls and ceilings that remain have almost faded into the gray dust of the engulfing desert.
Urumqi (Wulumuqi)
In Mongolian, Urumqi means “Fine Pasture.” In Uighur, it’s spelled with umlauts: Ürümqi. The Chinese make four syllables of it. However you read or write it, Urumqi sounds remote and exotic. Remote it is — the most distant major city in the world from any ocean or saltwater sea. Exotic? In fact, Urumqi has an exotic population of minority and nomadic peoples, but it has been developed by the Han Chinese into a modern industrial city. And the Chinese (mostly recent “economic” migrants) make up 75 percent of its 1.5 million residents.
Urumqi is the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, which covers one-sixth of the total area of China. It borders Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia on the old Silk Road route through Central Asia, and more than half the province’s population belongs to minority groups, led by the Uighurs. The greatest attractions lie well outside the city, in scenic highlands where nomads still reign.
Urumqi is the most modern and most Chinese city on the Silk Road. Downtown avenues are tree-lined, there are dozens of mosques, and the street markets provide splashes of color. At the largest covered market, the Erdaoqiao Bazaar, vendors sell handmade goods from boots to carpets and herds of sheep and donkey carts ply the alleyways. The most irresistible items are edible: kebabs, homemade noodles, and round flatbreads, cooked on the spot over coal fires.
The Xinjiang Museum (Xinjiang Bowuguan), with explanatory cards in English, Chinese, and Uighur, contains Silk Road coins, earrings, tiles, silks, and a handful of mummies, embalmed as long ago as the 13th century b.c. The museum stores carry the main local products: Persian-style carpets, ornate skullcaps, deadly looking knives in bronze scabbards (which many of the local people carry), stringed instruments, and white jade.
Two sites with Chinese characteristics on the Urumqi River, Red Hill (Hongshan) — topped by the 18th-century Zhenglong Pagoda — and Hongshan Park, on the west bank, are favorite leisure and picnic grounds for the locals. 
In the Southern Mountains (Nanshan), 74 km (46 miles) south of Urumqi, the Kazakhs move their families on horseback and set up their yurts on the high pastures to graze their sheep. At the end of the road, near an alpine waterfall, the Kazakhs, who once rode with Genghis and Kublai Khan across these grasslands, open their village to visitors and in July stage a six-day summer fair (nadam) with horse races and wrestling.
A more famous scenic spot is Heavenly Lake (Tianchi), 120 km (75 miles) east of Urumqi, one of the prettiest mountain lakes in the world. It is surrounded by yurts, grazing sheep, and snowy peaks, capped by Mt. Bogda, with an elevation of 5,444 m (17,864 ft). In this alluring high-country Shangri-La, the Kazakhs are happy to share their food, shelter, and horses with paying guests who want to ride the lake rim or spend the night in a yurt. 
Wuhan
A lively industrial and intellectual center, Wuhan is nearly equidistant from Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Chongqing. Its setting at the confluence of the Yangzi and Han rivers has made it an important traffic junction. Here, the wail of riverboat foghorns mingles with train whistles on the nation’s main north-south railway.
The story of Wuhan has always been anchored in the vital, muddy Yangzi. So wide and treacherous is the river that, before the construction of the great concrete-and-steel bridge of Wuhan (the first to cross the Yangzi) in 1957, all communications depended on the ferries, which were often hampered by fog or flood. Now the two-tiered Yangzi River Bridge (Changjiang Daqiao) is proudly shown to tourists as a triumph of the new China. So are the dikes, so tall they cut off the view of the river from the embankment. But the Yangzi’s rages can’t always be contained. In 1983 Wuhan was flooded in spite of monumental preparations for the worst, and the great floods of 1998 (the worst in 54 years) again pushed Wuhan to the brink.
Wuhan is actually a modern, composite name for three historic, contiguous cities: Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang. Wuchang, the oldest, is bountifully supplied with parklands. Hankou, on the opposite bank of the Yangzi, was opened to foreign development in the 19th century as a Treaty Port; at high tide 10,000-ton ships can reach Hankou’s harbor from the sea, some 1,500 km (1,000 miles) away. Hanyang, separated from Hankou by the Han River (requiring another, less heroic bridge), is more typically Chinese.
After the Opium Wars, Hankou was carved up into British, French, German, Japanese, and Russian zones of influence. Along Zhongshan Avenue, near the Yangzi ferry terminals, some of the old buildings in European style are left. The municipal office buildings on the embankment, administering a city which has now grown well beyond 4 million, are cast in the German mold.
But Wuhan, the capital of Hubei (Hupeh) Province, also has a significant revolutionary history. The rebellion of October 1911, which was inspired by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, began in Wuchang, and Hankou suffered heavy damage in the fighting. The Central Peasant Movement Institute, where Communist activists were trained in the 1920s, was established in Wuchang. Mao Zedong taught here, and his legacy is strong at several tourist attractions, including a villa (Mao Zedong Bieshu) where he often vacationed and several displays at the provincial museum.
The Hubei Provincial Museum (Hubeisheng Bowuguan) owes its excellence to the chance discovery in 1978 of the tomb of the Marquis Yi of the State of Zeng. Located 108 km (67 miles) northwest of Wuhan, the grave yielded treasure enough to furnish several museums. About 1,000 items — a mere 15 percent of the total hoard — are now on display here. Yi, who lived during the fifth century b.c., died at the age of 25 and was greatly mourned. He was buried with his dog and 21 female sacrifices, as well as tributes ranging from bronze wine vessels to enough musical instruments for an orchestra. The finest musical exhibit in the collection is a set of 65 intricately decorated bronze bells, now restored to their original resonance. Visitors can hear a tape recording of the bells interpreting both Chinese and Western music; they sound like a cross between a glockenspiel and a modern carillon.
The museum looks out on East Lake (Dong Hu), vaunted as the largest lake in any municipal park in China, with 33 sq km (nearly 13 sq miles) of invitingly clear water. Boating, swimming, and fishing are popular here. Of course, no Chinese lake would be complete without its artificial islands, causeways, and pavilions, several of which serve as teahouses festooned with peach and plum blossoms, orchids or osmanthus, depending on the season.
Hanyang’s main religious landmark, Gui Yuan Temple (Guiyuan Chansi), sprawls among pines and cypress. Built in the 17th century, it was the only one of Wuhan’s 20 or more Buddhist temples spared by rampaging Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). The Hall of Five Hundred Disciples is a fascinating gallery of statues. Grinning, yawning, frowning, meditating, and leering, each one is different.
The Northern Song Dynasty Ancient Lute Terrace (Guqintai) commemorates a 2,500-year-old legend of the deep friendship between a lute-playing mandarin and a music-loving woodcutter. Amateur musicians hold forth in the teahouse here, a favorite meeting place of local pensioners.
Across the 11⁄2-km (1-mile) Yangzi River Bridge in Wuchang is the Yellow Crane Tower (Huanghelou), based on another legend. First built in a.d. 223, the wooden structure burned down and was reconstructed several times. In 1981 the latest rebuilding project got under way about 1 km (1⁄2 mile) from the original site. The design and decor of the new tower are based on paintings from the Yuan and Ming dynasties and a model of the bridge as it existed in the Qing Dynasty.
Wuxi (Wuhsi)
This appealing town really does deserve a more poetic name. Wuxi means “no more tin,” a reference to the depletion, a couple of thousand years ago, of the local mines. Wuxi is an industrial and marketing center with a population of more than one million in the “land of fish and rice,” a fertile semitropical region. It lies 128 km (80 miles) northwest of Shanghai, close enough for a day trip by train. Canals and rivers crisscross the city, and the Grand Canal, Wuxi’s prime historic attraction, flows right through the center of town from Lake Tai, Wuxi’s prime scenic attraction.
Even a short boat ride through the city on the Grand Canal produces unforgettable sights and photos. Many people line the bridges (each of a different design) to wave. Human-propelled ferryboats scurry out of the way as long trains of barges, their decks heaped up with onions, reeds, or bricks, labor past. The riverside dwellers, who live in quaint whitewashed houses, wash their clothes in the canal. You might see a fisherman assigning his captive cormorants to dive, their gullets collared to stop them from eating the catch.
The Grand Canal project, begun 2,400 years ago, created an inland waterway stretching 1,794 km (1,113 miles) from Beijing to Hangzhou. Canal excursions organized for foreign tourists range from a half-day tour to a seven-day cruise that takes in Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, and Zhenjiang, in addition to the Yangzi River port of Yangzhou. The tourist authorities of Jiangsu Province also promote bicycle tours through the flat green countryside.
Lake Tai (Taihu), a vast freshwater expanse boasting 72 islets, is the most celebrated lake in Chinese legend. Turtle Head Island (Yuantouzhu) is actually a peninsula at the edge of Lake Tai, a sanctuary of trees, flowers, bridges, and lake-viewing pavilions that began as a garden in 1918. But more than any specific landfall, the lake is a spectacle on its own, with its fleet of fishing junks and roving sampans. Visitors can easily take to the waters aboard the public ferries to Three Hills Island (Sanshandao). Largely an amusement park in the middle of the lake, Three Hills (known locally as “Fairy Island”) contains a new four-tiered temple with the statue of an ancient emperor, providing an enchanting view of Lake Tai from the top. 
To underline the monumental character of Lake Tai in legend and in nature, the world’s largest standing statue of Buddha was unveiled in 1997 at Lingshan on the lake shore 18 km (11 miles) west of Wuxi. Fashioned from bronze plates, the Lake Tai Buddha weighs 700 tons and stands 73 m (240 ft) tall.
Wuxi is also home to two classic gardens. Li Garden (Liyuan) is composed of arched bridges, gaudy pavilions, open walkways, fish ponds, a miniature pagoda, and a covered walkway with 89 view-framing windows. Jichang Garden (Jichangyuan), established in 1520, is a Suzhou-style private garden much admired by Emperor Qianlong, who constructed a similar garden in Beijing’s Summer Palace in 1750.
Jichang Park is contained within Xihui Park on the Grand Canal, site of the seven-tiered Ming Dynasty Dragon Light Pagoda (Longguang) and a spring tulip festival with flowers imported from Holland. The park also contains Erquan Spring, source of the some of the world’s best water for tea brewing, according to the Classic of Tea (Chajing), written by the scholar Luyu. 
Xiamen (Amoy)
China’s cleanest major city (according to an official poll) and one of its most charming, Xiamen is a port city located in Fujian Province, hardly a heartbeat from Taiwan across the East China Sea. A prosperous place owing to its close connections with overseas Chinese investors (many of whom emigrated from the area), Xiamen has wisely spared much of its downtown and harbor from the bulldozers of progress.
From the busy harbor square, overlooked by the balconies of the venerable Lujiang Hotel, you can stroll into old-town areas along Zhongshan Road, past dozens of antique shophouses and cafés. Or you can head south along Minzu Road and take in the life of the fishing boats and warehouses on the quays.
If you walk long enough (or hail a taxi), you end up at Nanputuo Temple, nestled in the hillside on the east shore of the harbor. This Buddhist complex is in immaculate condition, its marble a gleaming white. Locals are always on hand, burning incense and praying for good fortune. The rocky cliffs behind the temple make for fine hiking and picnicking.
South of the temple and past Xiamen University (founded in 1921 by a local who made good in Singapore) is the Huli Mountain Cannon Platform. In 1921 the Germans placed their artillery here to defend the colonial port of Amoy, as Xiamen was known to Westerners. From here, if you look across the Formosa Strait on a sunny day, you can make out the disputed islands of Mazu and Jinmen. Once known to Western politicians as “Quemoy” and “Matsu,” these islands figured in the Nixon-Kennedy presidential debates of 1960. Today, the “cold war” between China and Taiwan, often waged with loudspeakers and leaflet bombardments across the Formosa Strait, appears to be over, and the two islands have been opened to tourism by Taiwan.
Xiamen’s chief pleasure for any visitor is Gulangyu, a small island in the harbor that was once the home to foreign colonials. Passenger ferries connect downtown Xiamen to the island. Gulangyu has banned automotive vehicles and is a pedestrians island — not even bicycles are allowed here. The terrain is hilly, with twisting cobblestone streets (forming a compact maze), but you’re always within sight of a shoreline. The lanes are full of villas and grand European buildings. Beginning in 1842, Western traders allowed in after the Opium Wars built Gulangyu into a virtual European town, with their own schools, churches, and hospitals. The British Embassy still stands on a hill above the ferry landing, and beyond it the Roman Catholic Church, completed in 1882 and still in use. The Sanyi Protestant Church, built by the British in 1904, is also active. These days, the colonial villas are occupied by local Chinese. The ripe gardens give Gulangyu a lazy, tropical atmosphere reminiscent of Macau or Malacca.
A statue of the patron saint of Xiamen, Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), stands on the tip of the island. A warrior in flowing robes, he expelled the Dutch from Taiwan in the 17th century. Not far from Koxinga’s heroic image are the guesthouse villas and sandy beaches where locals relax and sometimes even take a dip. Above the beaches is the island’s most famous garden, Shuzhuang, built in 1913 by a wealthy Taiwanese merchant and admired for its pond and rock design (“a garden in the sea, a sea in the garden”).
Best views are from the towering Sunlight Rock (Riguangyan) in Yanping Park, the highest point on Gulangyu and well worth the climb. From here, you can see across the long harbor to downtown Xiamen. And of course you can see Gulangyu itself, a dense sea garden of flowers, red-tiled villas, and tiny seafood cafés, a bright home to just 12,000 residents. (By comparison, the city of Xiamen has over 600,000 residents and is a rampaging metropolis.)
The Xiamen Museum, housed in Gulangyu’s most striking red-domed building, contains a sprinkling of odd exhibits on its four floors, including printing presses, Tang Dynasty porcelains, wooden rifles, assorted gifts from sister cities around the world, and photographs of the island’s dazzling colonial architecture.
Xi’an (Sian)
When ancient Peking was just a remote trading post, Xi’an was the capital of the Middle Kingdom and the largest city in the world. Palaces, pavilions, and pagodas crowned the skyline. Artists and poets (and, of course, cooks) catered to the most demanding imperial tastes. And since this was the starting point of the Silk Road, the most adventurous of foreigners congregated here.
Having made history over several thousand years, the city of today is more populous than ever (at 2 million residents) and proud of its leafy new avenues, modern factories, and housing projects. But there’s no avoiding the past in this treasure trove of Chinese civilization. Xi’an and its surrounding countryside preserve the glories of eleven dynasties, and it is as a storehouse of China’s Qin, Han, and Tang Dynasty treasures that Xi’an has reached the top ranks of international tourism.
On the way to any of Xi’an’s archaeological sites, you get a good look at the wind-whipped landscape of the Wei River valley. Militarily and economically strategic since prehistoric times, the area comprises fertile cotton and wheat fields, fallow plains, and bizarre terraces of loess dotted with caves that provide housing even to this day.
As the rapidly modernizing capital of Shaanxi Province, Xi’an can look back almost with detachment on its regal past. During the first Zhou Dynasty (which ended in 770 b.c.), several places in the Xi’an district served as capitals. In the third century b.c., the Qin settled just northwest of Xi’an, in Xianyang. When the Han took over, in 206 b.c., a grandiose new capital called Chang’an (“Everlasting Peace”) rose just north of Xi’an. Imperial splendor returned under the Sui (a.d. 581–618) when a capital known as Daxing (“Great Prosperity”) was established on the site of Xi’an. The Tang emperors who followed greatly enlarged and beautified the city, again naming it Chang’an.
The golden age of Xi’an (as Chang’an) ended more than a thousand years ago, when the Tang succumbed to rebellion and anarchy. The city sank into provinciality, even though impressive new city walls and official buildings were constructed in the 14th century. These features of the Ming era — almost modern by Xi’an standards — are the first to catch the eye.
Sightseeing within City Walls
The rectangular Ming Dynasty city wall of Xi’an is 141⁄2 km (almost 9 miles) around and so thick that two-way chariot traffic could travel the roadway on top. Major renovations have restored the ramparts, guard towers, and city moat. Gardens and parks complement these massive fortifications, the last major city walls standing intact in China.
In the center of the walled city are several monuments from the Ming Dynasty. The Bell Tower (Zhonglou) is another of those lofty wooden buildings ingeniously constructed without the use of nails. Three tiers of elegant roofs rise from a solid brick pedestal at the center of the city, forming one of the emblems of Xi’an. The Drum Tower (Gulou), a similar building across a new public square and shopping mall, dates from 1370 and is also open to tourists. One of the most popular new tourist treats are the bell-striking and drum-beating ceremonies carried out daily by “warriors” to the sound of re-creations of Tang Dynasty music. The drum is sounded in its tower 21 times at sunrise; the bell is sounded in its tower 21 times at sunset.
Religious Sites
Just around the corner and up a curving alleyway of vendors, the Great Mosque (Qingzhensi) traces its history to a.d. 742. The serene and spacious complex consists of gardens, temples, and pavilions, largely in the Chinese style. The side galleries contain beautifully carved furniture and screens. The triple-eaved Introspection Tower (Shengxin) is a minaret from which many of Xi’an’s sizeable Muslim minority, including descendants of Silk Road travelers, are called to prayer. The prayer hall holds over 1,000.
Xi’an’s once-glorious temples were devastated during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), but restorations have led to the reopening of the Lama Temple (Guangrensi), founded in 1705; Woolongsi, an ancient Zen Buddhist temple; Dongyuemiao, a Daoist temple to the mountain god of Taishan; and the Temple of the Eight Immortals (Baxianguan), which is the most active of the city’s religious shrines at present and has an open-air market.
Museums
Xi’an has two fine museums. The Shaanxi Provincial Museum (Shaanxi Shengbowuguan), occupying the 14th-century grounds of the Temple to Confucius, holds a rich store of art works and rare artifacts: funerary figurines, traditional paintings, ancient household equipment, and huge bronzes masterfully cast 3,000 years ago. But the chief focus must be on the museum’s famous Forest of Steles (Beilin). This library of inscribed stone slabs, including a complete edition of the Confucian classics (carved in a.d. 837), documents the history of Chinese culture and calligraphy. The Nestorian Stele records another history altogether, that of Christianity in China from 635 to 781. The art of calligraphy is exalted in this museum as nowhere else. The street leading to the old museum along the southern city wall, Shuyuanmen, has been restored and offers a fine collection of traditional art and calligraphy shops. 
The Shaanxi History Museum (Shaanxi Lishibowuguan), south of the city wall, houses a thoroughly modern collection of prehistoric and imperial treasures that is comparable to those in Beijing and Shanghai — and far superior in terms of its Han, Qin, and Tang Dynasty holdings.
Pagodas
When the Big Wild Goose Pagoda (Dayanta) was built in a.d. 652 during the Tang Dynasty, it stood well within the walled city. But Xi’an has since shrunk in size, and now the seven-tiered brick pagoda rises in the middle of farming country to the south of the urban area. Grass grows from the pagoda’s roofs. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda was built to house precious Buddhist texts brought back from India by Xi’an’s most celebrated pilgrim, an intrepid scholar named Xuanzang. Having survived years of sandstorms and blizzards, demons and dragons, Xuanzang was feted on his return to the capital in 645. He spent the next two decades translating his stack of holy books from Sanskrit to Chinese.
Though it’s shorter, slimmer, and slightly newer than the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, the Small Wild Goose Pagoda (Xiaoyanta), built in a.d. 707, has more tiers: 13 at the moment. When it was built, it had 15 tiers, but the top came tumbling down in a Ming-era earthquake. Both these exquisite Tang Dynasty towers (the finest of their kind in China) can be climbed, yielding interesting views of the walled city and beyond. 
Excursions from Xi’an
The oldest of the region’s archaeological wonders are found in a museum erected on the very site where they were discovered. This is at the Stone Age site of Banpo, 10 km (6 miles) east of Xi’an. Six thousand years ago a village, evidently thriving, occupied this farmland, but traces of habitation came to light only in the 1950s, when workmen were digging the foundations for a new factory.
You have to climb a flight of stairs to reach the covered excavation. From a series of walkways you look down on the outlines of houses, ovens, storage areas, and graves. You can follow the evolution of dwellings in China from round structures to rectangular houses with slanting roofs, the prototypes for today’s typical Chinese abode. Also on display in the Banpo Museum (Banpo Bowuguan) are some of the objects found in the course of excavations: axes, fishhooks, and utilitarian pots, as well as artistically decorated ceramics and, most dramatically, the skeletons of these ancient villagers.
Qin Dynasty Warriors
China’s greatest archaeological attraction, the terra cotta warriors of the Qin Dynasty Army, stand in battle formation about 30 km (nearly 20 miles) east of Xi’an in the complex known as the Museum of the Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses (Qinshihuang Bingmayong Bowuguan). The life-sized (and slightly larger) infantrymen, archers, officers, and their horses symbolically guard the tomb of the first Qin emperor.
Well before his death in 210 b.c., Qinshihuangdi conscripted hundreds of thousands of his subjects to construct a suitably impressive tomb. That tomb, beneath an artificial hill nearby, has yet to be excavated. But the novel idea of guarding it with thousands of pottery soldiers was revealed by accident in 1974, when local peasants digging a well created a world-wide sensation.
An arched structure resembling an aircraft hangar has since been built to protect the exposed soldiers and horses in Vault 1 from the weather. Walkways permit tourists a bird’s-eye survey of the site, revealing the deployment of the troops, 6,000 of them reassembled and back in their original ranks. Each warrior is an individual, with his own headdress, moustache or beard, and unique expression. The eager, graceful horses also have distinctive traits. The small museum in the courtyard entrance to Vault 1 contains warriors, their steeds, and one of the two half-life-sized solid bronze chariots found near the First Emperor’s burial mound.
Vault 2, opened in 1994, is an excavation in progress. It contains the imperial cavalry: 900 soldiers, 116 saddled horses, and 356 horses hitched to 89 chariots. Vault 3, the smallest so far opened to the public, is a command post with 68 officers in war robes. Other vaults await official openings. One of the most recent, one kilometer from the vaults now open to the public, contains stone armor, the oldest ever found in China. 
Huaqing Hot Springs
History and natural beauty mingle easily at Huaqing Hot Springs (Huaqingchi), a popular side trip for tourists on the way to or from the Qin terra cotta warriors excavations. The spa’s hot, mineral-rich waters and its situation on Black Horse Mountain (Lishan) attracted a series of royal patrons as far back as the eighth century b.c. The emperors and their retinue required suitable accommodation, so the place was provided with delightful pavilions, pools, and gardens.
There is one attraction in particular that draws crowds of eager Chinese tourists: the large, mosaic-bottomed Oval Tub used by Lady Yangguifei, favorite concubine of the Tang Emperor Xuanzong (who reigned a.d. 712–756). Lady Yang was known as a famous beauty, and her portrait, hanging in her former dressing room, attests to that. It is said that women who wash their face in the basin will look ten years younger. Although she was dear to the emperor, Lady Yang’s extravagances and intrigues angered courtiers. When mutinous troops demanded her head, the intimidated emperor acceded to save his throne. After she was taken away and strangled, the emperor wept and then abdicated. The sad story is the subject of many classic poems.
Qianling Tombs
Xi’an is surrounded by hundreds of huge earthen mounds — the largely unopened tombs of emperors and their courts. The tombs of notables of the Tang Dynasty, dug into a mountainside (Liangshan) about 80 km (50 miles) northwest of Xi’an, provide an intriguing look at what lies buried around the old capital and at the level of art and culture reached in China during the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries.
Several tombs here contain exquisite murals. The famous set of frescoes in the tomb of Prince Zhanghuai depicts an animated polo match, a hunting expedition, a reception for foreign diplomats, and (most movingly) a scene in a court cloister with a young concubine looking longingly at a bird in flight. A tomb with a steeply inclined entrance, that of Princess Yong Tai, has a mural which is full of intriguing details depicting the court maidens attending the princess (who was to die at the age of 17). These tombs have also yielded brightly colored ceramic figurines, fine stone carvings, and large memorial tablets.
The principal tomb belongs to the third Tang emperor, Gaozong, and to his ambitious widow, Wuzetian, who had herself promoted to the rank of empress in a.d. 691 — the only woman to hold such power in all Chinese history. Gigantic stone sculptures of animals, birds, generals, and (now headless) ambassadors line the Royal Way to this tomb, but its entrance remains sealed. The ostentation of the exterior hints at what might lie within.
What’s still buried at Xi’an seems likely to outweigh all the great treasures that have been brought to light, from a Stone Age village to the First Emperor’s vast City of the Dead, from the silks and ceramics of the Tang to the walls and pagodas of the Ming.
Briefings
The following cities and sights are among the additional attractions that might be included on tours and itineraries.
Anyang, Henan Province. Capital of the Shang Dynasty 3,000 years ago, Anyang has fascinated and rewarded archaeologists for the past half-century. Excavations of the ancient city of Yin have revealed priceless bronzes, pottery and “oracle bones” inscribed with early Chinese writing; examples are on view in a museum near the dig. Anyang is also home to a thousand-year-old pagoda.
Baotou, Inner Mongolia. Founded in the fifth century, this “steel city on the prairie” has become the biggest industrial center of Inner Mongolia. Two Tibetan-style pagodas figure prominently on the sparse sightseeing agenda.
Beidaihe (Peitaihe), Hebei Province. A summer resort on the Bohai Gulf developed in the 1890s by foreigners, it is still popular with the foreign diplomatic and business community from Beijing as well as with Chinese officials. Parks, beaches, and good food are the resort’s top attractions.
Conghua Hot Springs, Guangdong Province. Local warlords and Kuomintang officials were among the early patrons of this spa, surrounded by hills covered with bamboo, plum, magnolia, and cypress trees. Situated 80 km (50 miles) from Guangzhou (Canton), the springs are popular with Chinese and foreign tourists alike. The mineral water flowing from 11 different springs is colorless, odorless, and tasteless — but very good for you.
Dalian (Dairen), Liaoning Province. Ice-free port, summer resort, and industrial city of one million, also known as Luda. Because of a history of foreign occupation, the city is an eclectic medley of architectural styles: China seasoned with a dash of Japan, a pinch of old Russia, and a forcible hint of Soviet socialist realism. Across the peninsula from the port are green parks, cozy coves, and sandy beaches.
Fuzhou (Foochow), Fujian Province. Halfway down the coast between Shanghai and Guangzhou, Fuzhou is the sentimental home where the graves of forefathers of millions of overseas Chinese are found. It was one of the Treaty Ports open to foreign settlement in the 19th century. The city is still famous for traditional handicrafts, especially the lacquerware with as many as 80 coats of lacquer. Thousand-year-old temples stand on nearby hillsides.
Hainan Island. This tropical island off the southernmost tip of China, nearly four times the size of Corsica, provides China with coffee, coconuts, sugar, and rubber. It’s also destined for promotion as one of those paradise islands Western tourists dream about. The original inhabitants, members of the Li and Miao minorities, live in the rainforests of the interior, preserving a rich folklore; Han Chinese make up most of the coastal population. The island’s biggest city, Haikou (on the north shore), has a bustling street life. The beautiful, palm-shaded beaches are on the southern shore — big enough, the Chinese reckon, for 100,000 sunbathers.
Jingdezhen (Chingtehchen), Jiangxi Province. Jingdezhen has been producing famous pottery since the Han Dynasty. White clay from a nearby mountain made possible the very thin, durable, translucent porcelain. The mountain, Gaoling, gave its name to kaolin, the clay used to make porcelain. Tourists visit an ancient kiln as well as modern ceramics factories that turn out copies of classic designs.
Lhasa, Tibet. Only tourists in good physical condition should venture to the capital of the Tibet (Xizang) Autonomous Region, for the altitude of 3,600 m (nearly 12,000 ft) taxes heart and lungs. (Oxygen is provided in the guesthouse and on the sightseeing buses.) In any event, determined travelers find accommodation rather scarce and very expensive. Apart from the majestic Himalayan scenery, the top attraction in Lhasa is the Potala — a fabulous 13-story building combining the functions of palace, fortress, monastery, and dungeon. Other temples, reopened since Beijing granted the Tibetans greater religious freedom in 1980, are now on the itinerary as well.
Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Founded in the Han Dynasty, Nanchang is the provincial capital and main industrial center of the subtropical Jiangxi Province. In 1927 it was the setting for the first Communist-led armed uprising against the Nationalist forces. A number of relics of Zhou Enlai and other leaders of the Nanchang Uprising have been preserved in the city’s museum, which is devoted to the insurrection.
Ningbo (Ningpo), Zhejiang Province. Situated down the coast from Shanghai, this port town has a long history of overseas connections. First it was involved in trade with Japan. Then the Portuguese arrived and settled here. Finally, a British consulate was established in the town after the end of the Opium Wars. The sights include a thousand-year-old wooden temple and a Ming Dynasty library in a pretty garden.
Qufu (Chufu), Shandong Province. The birthplace of Confucius has been turned into an architectural ensemble on the scale of the Forbidden City in Beijing. The memorial temple was begun in 478 b.c., the year after the philosopher’s death, and improvements and expansions went on for another 2,000 years. The compound itself contains ceremonial gateways, palaces, pavilions, and shrines. The tombs of Confucius and most of his descendants are set among ancient pines and cypress to the north of the town.
Shanhaiguan (Shanhaikuan), Hebei Province. This walled town’s strategic location made it the site of many important battles over thousands of years. But it is best known as the eastern terminus of the Great Wall. Five huge Chinese characters meaning “The First Pass Under Heaven” mark the two-tiered gate-tower as the starting point of the Wall. Just south of Shanhaiguan is the Bohai Gulf port of Qinhuangdao.
Shenyang, Liaoning Province. In 1625 Shenyang (better known abroad as “Mukden”) became the Manchu capital. The Imperial Palace they built was intended to rival the Forbidden City of Beijing; some 70 buildings contain 300 rooms. It now serves as a museum of history and archaeology. In the 1930s the “Mukden Incident” (a bomb explosion on the railway here) precipitated the Japanese occupation of Manchuria.
Shenzhen (Shumchun), Guangdong Province. Veteran travelers remember Shumchun merely as an undistinguished border town on the Hong Kong–Canton railway line. However, it is now the center of a Special Economic Zone for joint industrial ventures with capitalists from Hong Kong and Macau. With beaches and hot springs, its tourist potential is also rapidly being developed. Day tours from Hong Kong offer Shenzhen as a glimpse of life in China, but its position in an economic buffer zone makes it atypical.
Shijiazhuang (Shihchiachuang), Hebei Province. This railway junction has grown into a provincial capital of 600,000 people. Foreign tourists are taken to a local hospital dedicated to Dr. Norman Bethune, a Canadian surgeon who worked in China during the Sino-Japanese War and whom the Chinese consider to be a national hero. The doctor’s tomb may be found in the Mausoleum of Martyrs.
Taiyuan, Shanxi Province. With a long history of more than 2,000 years, this provincial capital now makes iron, steel, heavy machinery, and fertilizer. Its Shanxi Provincial Museum contains revolutionary displays and historic bronzes, ceramics, sculptures, and paintings. A group of temples called Jinci, 25 km (16 miles) southwest of the city at the foot of Xuanweng Mountain, is thought to be more than one thousand years old, consisting of nearly a hundred pavilions, halls, terraces, and bridges. Most impressive is the ancient wooden Temple of the Holy Mother (Shengmudian), with life-sized statues reflecting a real humanity, rather than the customarily formal Buddhist imagery.
Tianjin (Tientsin). The largest port in northern China, just 120 km (74 miles) from Beijing, Tianjin is one of China’s most important transportation and industrial centers. There are few sites of historical interest in this municipality of over 9 million people, yet over a thousand European-style buildings survived the 1976 earthquake, many of them on the riverside (Taierzhanglu). Tianjin has restored two areas for visitors, a Culture Street (Guwenhuajie) of traditional shops selling crafts and antiques and a Food Street (Shipinjie) with a hundred outlets offering everything from French fries to Tianjin’s native specialty, baozi, a steamed bun filled with meat and vegetables. 
Weifang, Shandong Province. An international kite festival held here every April 20–21 attracts over 300,000 guests, nearly doubling the town’s population. Weifang maintains an extensive kite museum, and the local village of Yangjiabu offers kite-making demonstrations at its factory outlet complex.
Xishuang Banna, Yunnan Province. Tourism is new to this Autonomous Prefecture (capital: Jinghong) on the border of Burma and Laos. Its population is mostly of the Dai nationality (closely related to the people of Thailand). In the humid subtropical climate, thousands of species of trees and plants flourish, as do rare animals, birds, and insects. Wild elephants and a curious variety of primitive monkey are among the protected species. Popular tourist excursions include visits to Dai stilt villages.
Yan’an (Yenan), Shaanxi Province. This small town in the loess hills north of Xi’an is one of contemporary China’s most celebrated historical sites. The 10,000-km (6,000-mile) odyssey of the Long March ended in the vicinity of Yan’an. Revolutionary landmarks, including the caves in which Mao Zedong lived, are the attractions here.
Yantai (Yentai), Shandong Province. Fishing craft enliven the port of Yantai (once known as “Chefoo”), and a sandy beach down the coast is popular with Chinese tourists. Nearby farming country supports cherry and apple orchards as well as vineyards producing well-known wines and brandies. The Municipal Museum, behind a traditional Chinese gateway, displays both archaeological finds and classical art.
Yixing (Yihsing), Jiangsu Province. The province’s biggest producer of both bamboo and tea, Yixing is better known for its pottery. “Purple Sand” teapots in original, graceful designs are highly prized. The region’s green hills conceal caves as grand as Shanjuan Cave, which can be viewed from one of the small tourist boats navigating its underground streams.
Yueyang (Yoyang), Hunan Province. Flamboyant upswept roofs surmount Yueyang Tower, a Tang landmark that has been rebuilt in Song Dynasty style. This three-tiered tower overlooks Lake Dongting, one of China’s biggest lakes. In summer months huge lotus flowers rise above the surface of the water. Junshan, an island in the lake endowed with many hills (and numerous legends), produces the rare and fragrant “silver needle” tea.
Zhengzhou (Chengchow), Henan Province. It was first settled more than 3,000 years ago, and traces of the Shang Dynasty city wall can still be seen beyond the present city limits. Better preserved ancient relics can be viewed in the Henan Provincial Museum.