Thanksgiving is one of the few times in the year when Americans can celebrate family and tradition over a hearty, home-cooked meal. So what happens when you’re traveling in China, far away from home, during the holiday?

(Source: www.bargainblessings.com)

Even in Beijing, visitors can come quite close to the real Thanksgiving experience. After polling a few colleagues and reflecting on personal holiday experiences in China, I’ve come up with a list of a few options for visitors looking for an (almost) authentic Thanksgiving experience in China.

If you are looking for a large Thanksgiving spread… colleague Taylor recommends buffet-style feasts such as The Raffles Hotel Beijing. With a fine array of turkey, stuffing, and other holiday favorites, and the distinct setting of a top luxury hotel, the scene is set for a classic Thanksgiving meal.

She says, “Though stepping into the marble floored lobby at Raffles Beijing Hotel for Thanksgiving Dinner was far from the packed house of family and friends I’m used to, the excitement of Thanksgiving crushed the formalities and shyness that come with meeting new people. Surrounded by a group of Americans starved for family and tradition as much as we were starved for Turkey, I had a great time making new friends over delicious food.”

If you are traveling with a family and children… colleague Nellie suggests the Westin, either in Liangmaqiao or on Financial Street. With a delectable spread for the parents, and a spacious play area for the children, the Westin does family dinner right with options for all ages.

If you would like a meal specially prepared for you… I cast my vote for Culinary Capers, a Beijing-based catering company located in the capital’s 798 art district. I can attest from my own Thanksgiving dinner at Switch!, their new restaurant in the UCCA gallery, that the food is incredibly fresh, delicious, and provides the classics with a unique twist. If you stay somewhere such as the China World serviced apartments, Culinary Capers can deliver your ideal Thanksgiving meal right to your door.

Have you had a memorable Thanksgiving experience in Beijing, or in other Chinese cities? Let us know at info[at]wildchina[dot]com.



Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan is one of the few places in China that stays warm and pleasant while the rest of the country is blanketed by chilly winter weather. Last week we were in the area, also known locally as ’Banna, for two of our favorite ways to travel China: trail hiking and a village homestay.

We returned to the small village of Nongyang, where the local Bulang people recently showed us how to prepare an edible kind of tea known as suancha. This time our destination was the small village of Mangang, on the other side of the mountains that lie behind Nongyang.

After passing through Nongyang we found the trailhead for the roughly seven-mile (10-kilometer) dirt path to Mangang, which is home to the Aini people, a subgroup of the Hani ethnicity that is also known as the Akha – the name by which they refer to themselves. We came across an older Aini woman who had been collecting bamboo, chatted for a moment and headed toward Mangang.

Padding along the trail, we encountered few people as we ascended. Both sides of the path were mountain slopes covered with tea bushes and towering bamboo. As we continued to ascend, the tea plants gave way to large patches of yellow wildflowers.

Once beyond the tea, there is little evidence of human presence other than the trail itself. We enjoyed plenty of beautiful vistas of the fertile valley below before entering a mountain forest for the last hour of our three-hour walk. Other than a couple of men harvesting bamboo and a family escorting water buffalo to Nongyang, we didn’t encounter anyone else on the path.

Upon our arrival in Mangang, we descended into the small village on a slightly steep dirt road. Just off of the road there was a girl in her early teens standing in the branches of a guava tree. She offered us guava she had just picked from the tree, then answered her ringing mobile phone while still in the tree.

We thanked her in the Aini language (“Nei mu ma”) and munched on the delicious fruit as we continued into Mangang. Entering the town, curious villagers said hello to us as chickens scurried and dogs looked curiously at the strange visitors who had just arrived.

We finally reached the home of Yu San, a local Aini man who would be our host. Mr. Yu and his wife provided us with tea, which we sipped on their simple concrete balcony that was the roof of a garage added on to his traditional wooden home. We sipped on the fresh tea and munched on locally grown macadamia nuts as we watched the sunset.

Meanwhile Mr. Yu and his wife were hard at work preparing us a simple, tasty and healthy meal of fresh local vegetables and meats. As the meal was being prepared, several neighbors from around the village stopped by the Yu household to say hello and check out their visitors from afar.

Once the food was ready, the dishes were set out on a short wicker table that is typical of dinner tables in Mangang and around Xishuangbanna. We sat on stools and devoured the small feast of stir-fried broccoli, corn and peas, local beef, a crispy local vegetable with a spicy dipping sauce and a soup made of wild greens and chili peppers.

As is customary in villages in the area, Mr. Yu offered us cigarettes and a bowl of potent alcohol to share with him as his guest. We declined the cigarettes but took him up on one bowl of corn alcohol, which we sipped very slowly.

Two other men from the village who had stopped by to join us for dinner had several bowls of the firewater, which loosened them up a bit and led to a wide-ranging conversation in which they answered our questions about life and customs in their village and we answered their questions about the outside world which seemed so far away.

As we finished off our last sips, Mr. Yu’s wife was busy preparing our bedding for the evening, which consisted of simple cushioning on the floor with heavy cotton blanketing. We tucked in and enjoyed the silence of a night in the countryside.

There was no need to set an alarm – there were plenty of roosters in the village ready to welcome the new day with hearty cock-a-doodle-doos, beginning around five. By seven, the roosters had coaxed us out of bed and we sipped on hot tea in the cold, crisp morning.

As the sun rose and warmed us up, we munched on a simple breakfast of fried eggs, toast and fruit, which we washed down with coffee and more tea.

We told Mr. Yu that we’d had a great time at his home and were very appreciative of his hospitality.

“I was worried that you wouldn’t like it here,” he replied, shaking our hand and smiling. “If you’re happy then I’m happy too.”

WildChina offers clients world-class boutique hotel and international-standard hotel options throughout China, but village home stays are probably our most unique – and for some travelers, challenging – lodging options.

The village homes we use for homestays are simple – but not squalid – and all have been previously scouted out by WildChina staff.

For some of our clients, the bathroom is where the biggest challenge in a village homestay lies. It’s understandable that squatty toilets can be daunting for people who are used to sitting down, but they are also part of the authentic village experience.

That said, even the authentic village experience is becoming increasingly modern. We were able to take a hot shower in the morning thanks to Mr. Yu’s solar water heater. We still had to walk half a minute down the road to the village outhouse for the “big convenience” as it is known in Chinese, but this was one of the little things that enabled us to better experience village life in Mangang.

As we prepared to leave the village and head off to our next adventure, tractors full of local women in traditional Aini dress chugged past us, with the women smiling and waving to us as they headed toward a day of hard work in the fields. We hopped into our 4×4, feeling a bit richer inside for having a better understanding of the village they would come home to at dusk.

Huanghuacheng, or the “Yellow Flower” Great Wall, has long been a lesser-known section to visitors.  Often been referred to as the “Wild Wall,” Huanghuacheng‘s remote location and disrepair made it  mysterious to those looking to visit China’s architectural wonder.

This will all change when local government approves access to the Wild Wall that, the Global Times reports, recently underwent a (now complete) five-month repair project.

Huanghuacheng‘s appeal lies in its unique “lake and mountain scenery,” and of course, scores of yellow flora. However, the section has historically been plagued with issues ranging from “landslide-induced collapses, earthquakes and cracks,” which prompted its closure to the public from 2004 onward.

The impending re-opening of the section makes us contemplate the fate of the Wall’s wilder side. With increasing damage and commercialization of the other sections, it would be in the best interest of cultural preservation to limit the traffic and development in the area. (After all, the government allegedly took drastic measures to ensure historical authenticity.)

But, with the prevalence of mass / “fast” tourism in the area, and across China in general, this may not be an immediate concern. We hope that for the sake of the wall’s cultural integrity, and the preservation of Huanghuacheng‘s “wild” nature, local officials carefully and thoughtfully plan the re-introduction of the Wild Wall to the public.

Hi all! My name is Wayne, and I’m an Australian currently working for Shaanxi Changqing National Nature Reserve in Huayang Village, about 5 hours south-west of Xi’an.  My series of posts, as well as my work assisting Changqing staff manage the impacts of tourism on the reserve, follows on from Heather Graham, who was here in 2009.

Changqing was established as a nature reserve in 1995, with an upgrade to ‘national’ status in 1997 for the purposes of conserving the habitat of the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), of which there are 100 or so that call Changqing home.  Not surprisingly then, the panda is what the reserve is best known for, with many tourists heading to these parts for the opportunity to catch a glimpse of these special animals in the wild.  The best chances of this, I have been informed, is in the winter months when pandas descend to the valleys to escape the cold.  Tracking and spotting pandas is also easier with the abundance of snow and lack of foliage.

However, if you happen to time your visit to China and/or Shaanxi Province during autumn, I have discovered that it’s still a fantastic time to visit Changqing, offering the opportunity to hike among the beautiful fall colours of the Qinling region.  Having only arrived in early November, I have just managed to catch the tail end of autumn.  While the majority of my time so far has been spent settling into life in Huayang, I was fortunate enough to tag along on a couple of guided tours of Changqing conducted by our reserve staff as part of my orientation.

The main road into Changqing follows the river valley and so we make stops along the way to view a few waterfalls.  For me, it’s an opportunity to test out the settings of my new camera, something I made sure I had before I arrived.

At the lower elevations, the mountains are awash with the yellows, oranges and reds of China’s own species of oaks, maples and aspens.  There are also larch trees displaying a vibrant yellow, but after being informed that it is an introduced species (a remnant of Changqing’s past as a forestry reserve) I don’t allow myself to be impressed by their show.

One of the days we spend hiking high up in the mountains in the core summer habitat of the panda, where short thickets of bamboo grow underneath towering pines.  There are no pandas to see on this day, but I’m amazed by the number of scats (animal poo) along the track, indicating healthy populations of golden takin (Budorcas taxicolor bedfordi) and himalayan goral (Naemorhedus goral caudatus) are present in the area.  We even see a few scats of a carnivore, possibly from a leopard (Panthera pardus fusca)!!

While we left the fall colours a few hundred metres below, there are plenty of leafless birch trees which I find beautiful, particularly when the peeling bark is backlit by the sun, giving it striking red glow.

There are also some breathtaking views during the hike, in more ways than one.  At over 2700m, it is not high by Chinese standards, but coming from Australia where I live by the ocean, I struggle a little bit for breath.  I’ll use it as an excuse, anyway, as it’s better than giving off the impression that I’m simply unfit (I do notice, though, that my water bottle compresses on the descent down).

For one of the groups, wildlife is more their passion, and so we spend the majority of our time on the lookout for anything that moves.  These guys really know their stuff, and they certainly looked the part as well, with large DSLR cameras and telescopes being carried from place to place.  The group isn’t disappointed as we spot golden takin, Himalayan goral and wild boar (Sus scrofa moupinensis).  I learn a little trick in wildlife photography along the way, placing the lens of my compact digital up to the telescope to capture this close-up of our takin.

So, that’s about it for my first post.  From what I’ve already seen, Changqing has lots to offer, not just pandas.  If you’ve got time, I think it’s well worth making the effort to call in for a few days on your way between Xi’an and Chengdu, if only for some fresh mountain air and as respite from the hustle and bustle of China’s cities.

Over the following 11 months, I hope to provide a few more of the happenings here in Huayang and Changqing and also include some stories of my travels around this vast country of China.  Please feel free to leave comments or suggestions on what you may want me to cover.

Our journeys are great ways to enjoy the beauty of China’s countryside as well as the dynamism and history of its cities, but they are also unique opportunities to meet inspiring and unforgettable people.

During a recent visit to Shangri-la, we were honored to meet Lobsang Khedup, a Tibetan monk who is not only working to help impoverished youth from the Tibetan regions of Yunnan, but who is also helping preserve the 1,800-year-old tradition of thangka painting.

Thangka painting is the traditional Tibetan style of painting deities using paint made from local minerals. Deeply imbued with the ethos of Tibetan Buddhism, this painting style focuses on the facial expression of the subject. Ideally, the longer one looks at a thangka painting, the more subtleties emerge from the deity’s facial expression.

A native of Shangri-la, Lobsang is a thangka painting master. An average painting takes him around a year to complete. The high degree of detail and difficulty of thangka painting combined with advancements in printing and copying over the last century have resulted in a dwindling number of thangka masters.

Lobsang started the Tibetan Thangka Academy in 2008 and now has 16 students from the countryside who are studying under him and another master.

Students at the academy not only study the art of thangka painting, they also take classes in Buddhism and English. Their education is provided free of charge, with funds provided by the Shangrila Association.

“When painting, your feelings are the most important,” Lobsang told us in his study. “But you also need knowledge and wisdom – without education you cannot paint.”

In addition to teaching its Tibetan students the art of thangka painting, the academy offers classes to the general public in both thangka and traditional Chinese painting styles.

Lobsang has done such a good job of preserving the dying thangka art that the Shangri-la government has commended and supported the academy. We admire Lobsang not just as an amazing painter and socially minded individual, but as someone savvy enough to navigate the difficult political landscape in his home.

Teeming with geographical, ethnic and biological diversity – plus some of the best food in China - Yunnan has always been one of our most popular destinations.

The charming small towns of Lijiang, Dali, Jinghong and Shangri-la and the Naxi, Bai, Yi, Dai, Hani and Tibetans who live there have provided our clients with unforgettable travel experiences and new insights into China.

These popular places aside, Yunnan is brimming with countless lesser-known destinations that are also well worth a visit. One of our favorites is the former trading outpost of Shaxi in Yunnan’s northwest.

Blessed with blue skies, sunshine and cool breezes year-round and located in a verdant mountain valley with no airport, tall buildings, car traffic or noticeable pollution, Shaxi is almost too good to be true.

For centuries Shaxi was a busy trade hub linking the Yunnan and Tibet portions of the Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan route. Traders coming up from the south on the route would bring tea, cloth, alkali and daily necessities, while Tibetans would bring yak furs and traditional medicines.

In addition to being a convenient halfway point for Yunnanese and Tibetan traders, Shaxi also had an important commodity of its own: salt from the nearby Misha salt wells.

The majority of Shaxi’s residents belong to the Bai ethnic group, who are known for their hospitality and their green thumbs. When the caravans were passing through town, it was not uncommon to see the different faces and costumes of the Yi, Lisu, Han, Naxi, Hui and Tibetan ethnic groups, especially in Shaxi’s main square, where goods were sold.

The caravans could have as many as 40 or 50 animals, mostly mules with some horses. Just as important were the muleteers, who were usually responsible for 10 animals.

The caravan routes died out around 60 years ago, eliminating the main source of revenue for the economy that had thrived in Shaxi. The town reverted to reliance upon agrarianism and has passed the decades quietly, missing out on benefits – and drawbacks – that other Chinese cities have experienced since the late 1970s.

Now, just as quietly, Shaxi is experiencing a renaissance of sorts through tourism. The local government has spent quite a bit of funds on cleaning up the old town for visitors and has done a surprisingly good job of it.

Without any advertisements, few shops and no cars, plus several dozen well-preserved old Bai homes, in many ways Shaxi feels frozen in time.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing in the old town, there is a small handful of cafes and restaurants there, as well as one of our favorite new boutique hotels in Yunnan, Laomadian.

Laomadian is a compound of several old Bai homes that has been tastefully renovated by A Fang, an extremely welcoming Taiwanese woman who has long been interested in the history and cultures of northwest Yunnan.

Just a few doors up from Laomadian is the courtyard home of Ouyang Shengxian, a 70-year-old Bai man whose father and grandfather were some of the last of the muleteers.

We spoke with Ouyang on a recent sunny Shaxi morning in his 100-year-old home, where he recalled the days of visiting caravans for us. As he told us stories of the old days, with visitors from afar and banditry, we felt extremely fortunate to be able to sit down with a man who is truly a link to a bygone era.

The history and people of Shaxi alone make a visit worthwhile, but there are also plenty of natural attractions.

The crystal-clear Heihui River flows just outside the old town, with paths on both sides that are ideal for strolls in the sunshine. There are several photogenic bridges along the river and several small towns dotting the valley.

Up in the hills surrounding the valley, there are plentiful hiking options. If you have the time, we highly recommend any of the two- or three-day treks in the hills, which will take you through several Yi villages.

If you’re shorter on time, Shibao Mountain is a great place to spend a morning or afternoon before hiking back downhill to Shaxi. The mountain is home to Buddhist grottoes that miraculously survived the destruction of the Cultural Revolution and are some of the most important artifacts connected to the spread of Buddhism into China from India via Tibet. These grottoes are highly treasured – visitors are not allowed to take any photos of them.

Interestingly, there is also a large indentation in the stone near the grottoes that locals say resembles a human vagina. It is a tradition for pregnant women from around the valley to pray to it with the hope that they have a smooth delivery.

After checking out the grottoes on Shibao Mountain, we hit one of the trails that leads back down to Shaxi and the surrounding valley. We scanned from one end of the valley to the other and were unable to see a crane or any other construction – this is nearly impossible in today’s China.

Work is underway on a new highway that will make Shaxi more accessible to the outside world – all the reason to visit Shaxi sooner rather than later. The local government has declared its dedication to sustainable development and is working with international NGOs to that end. We hope that for their sake, and the world’s, they can manage to preserve Shaxi’s pristine beauty for generations to come.

Hiking in tea tree forests, watching rare local festivals, and meeting locals of the fabled Ancient Tea Horse Road: our press trip participants have been on the road in Guizhou and Yunnan for 9 days in a whirlwind of adventure.

(Photo: Kathy Dragon)

Wish you were here? The next best thing is following our journey. Here’s how:

– Read the WildChina blog for first-hand accounts of the trip

– Follow us on Twitter @WildChina to read to-the-minute tales from our adventure

– Check out our Guizhou and Yunnan Flickr albums with photos from the road

If you are interested in a future press trip, please send us an email to info [at] wildchina [dot] com with the subject line “Press Trips.”

“There are so many natural and beautiful, but backward villages here. It is my dream to help my people.”

There is something really touching about the simplicity with which our WildChina guide, Jacky Xu, explains to me his reason for working on rural education projects in Guizhou.

Villages in Guizhou, while beautiful, often lack infrastructure and educational facilities needed to foster learning communities.

Since 2008, Jacky has worked on various community service projects in his native Guizhou, where he grew up in a rural village. Fully aware of the challenges that children in these communities face, Jacky has focused on education projects to create a brighter future for them, both by leading student groups to work on rural infrastructure projects, and by being a community volunteer.

While he’s collaborated with students and villagers alike to improve countryside roads (giving children access to schools), and volunteers as an English teacher during the low season months of November and December, his biggest current project is to rebuild the elementary school in Nandao Village.

In Nandao, which is separated into Upper and Lower sections, a good education is challenging to obtain. Each day, children as young as 5 years old must all make the long walk to a decrepit school – essentially just an old house – that lacks heating and proper school equipment.

“I see so many children in school shivering all day,” Jacky says, “and I want to help them.”

This coming spring, the children of Nanduo will get a better schoolhouse – and hopefully, a better future with it. With the aid of Hong Kong charities, Jacky will coordinate the school’s reconstruction with generous donations of  materials and helping hands.

“This is my biggest wish,” Jacky says. He hopes that Nandao, and other rural villages in Guizhou, can become nurturing learning communities for the young children who inhabit them.

We can’t wait to see how Nandao transforms.

One of our favorite things about getting off the beaten path in China is that no matter how well you think you may understand the country, there’s always a surprise waiting to prove you wrong.

This was illustrated when we visited the small village of Nongyang, several miles outside of Menghai, in southern Yunnan. We were in search of suancha, a fermented tea that is eaten rather than drunk.

Nongyang is primarily inhabited by the Bulang ethnic group, who along with the Hani and Dai are considered one of the main stewards of some of the region’s finest tea plantations.

Often referred to as ‘pickled tea’, suancha is probably better translated as ‘sour tea’. The ever-hospitable Bulang serve suancha at weddings and celebrations. As our hosts in Nongyang noted, if you don’t have suancha, you can’t get married.

The production of suancha is surprisingly complex. First the tea is cooked for around 10 minutes, after which it is drained, then packed into a section of bamboo, which is then sealed with red clay.

The bamboo tube is buried for six months to two years, and is frequently watered while underground to aid the fermentation process.

We were lucky enough to visit our hosts on a day when they were digging up a bamboo tube of suancha that had been buried for more than a year. The flavor was a sour but clean variation on the classic green tea experience.

When eating suancha, Bulang people either eat it straight or they may mix in salt, garlic and chili and serve with rice. We ate several pinches of suancha straight from the bowl and found it to stimulate our hunger. Taking our cue from our stomachs, we headed back to Menghai for a local feast.

There’s no better way to understand tea than to see where it comes from and how the locals who understand it best enjoy it – that’s exactly what we did in Menghai, a sleepy but charming town in southern Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna region.

Menghai is best known for being home to some of the oldest – and best – tea plants in the world. With tea expert Jeff Fuchs as our guide, we visited the Tianlong Tea Shop, which is run by Yang Zhibiao, a Yunnan native who is as knowledgeable about tea as he is hospitable.

The tea that grows around Menghai comes from an assamica varietal of camellia sinensis, which is generally referred to as pu’er tea. There are three kinds of pu’er tea:

Shengcha: dried green tea leaves that brew an aromatic yellow liquor with a slight bitterness

Shoucha: leaves that have aged and fermented naturally over time, ideally at least fifteen years, that brew a reddish-brown liquor with an earthy flavor – this kind of tea can also be called chencha

Cooked pu’er: a tea made by a technique in which a process is used to essentially cut corners and quickly create a product that resembles shoucha, but is inferior in both taste and health benefits

As you might be able to guess, Yang and others who take tea seriously in Menghai only drink the first two varieties of pu’er tea. As for cooked pu’er, he says the production process ruins the tea by destroying many of the healthy properties found in the leaves and reducing the antioxidant content.

Yang selected two varieties of shoucha for us to sample, both of which were grown in the area. The first was laobanzhang pu’er, which he broke off from a 400-gram flat round cake. He prepared a small pot with eight grams of dried leaves, which he said could be steeped 15 times.

Not every steeping of tea is the same – the first steeping opens up the leaves for what is essentially a parabolic flavor curve, with the third and fourth steepings the best. As Yang busily steeped and poured the tea, we sipped away, appreciate the subtle change in each steeping.

The laobanzhang began quite subtly, with a mild, almost nutty quality to it. Over several steepings it began to open up to the palate revealing new layers of complexity. By the tenth steeping, we were noticing a distinct tea buzz that wasn’t just caffeine – tea contains around 450 different stimulant compounds.

Yang encouraged us to smell our small tea cups after emptying them. We did so, noticing a light but lingering aroma. Jeff explained that the smell of good tea should remain in the cup afterward, indicating a superior vegetal complex. He added that this was one of the tricks of the trade used by professional tea tasters.

Next Yang prepared a pot of ziye, or purple leaf, tea for us to taste. The darker leaves produced a slightly more flavorful liquor with a pleasant hint of sweetness. These leaves have a slightly higher sugar content than other teas.

After the gentle crescendo and decrescendo of the pot of ziye, we were all feeling slightly wired, but not in the uncomfortable way that is associated with excessive coffee consumption. This is normal for people who don’t slurp the vast quantities of tea that Yang and Jeff do each day.

Jeff offered us some basic tea drinking tips: don’t drink tea on an empty stomach, and have a small snack such as chocolate on hand if you plan on having more than just a cup or two.

Before we left Yang’s shop with a few cakes in tow, Jeff explained to us that in addition to his shop, Yang is working with local growers to create a growing collective that will focus on giving local growers a larger slice of the economic pie, while also focusing on the quality of the leaves rather than quantity. We raised our teacups to the future of his endeavors.