Traveling China’s ancient Silk Road in Xinjiang just became much easier thanks to the opening of a new passenger train that connects Hotan (in Southern Xinjiang), Kashgar (located near the borders of Kyrgyzstan & Tajikistan), and Urumqi (the capital of the region). Covering railway spanning 2,073 km, the journey from Hotan to Urumqi takes approximately 35 hours. The rail is expected to expand tourism, agriculture, and mining in the region.

Explore the Xinjiang’s natural and cultural beauty this October. Join WildChina and leading British photography, Sean Gallagher, in our Xinjiang Photography Expedition Trip as we traverse the sandy regions, snow covered mountains, and discover the colorful Uigher costumes of China’s wild west.  Sean will lead his group through the old town of Kashgar and century old bazaars where you’ll see the area’s unique Uighur culture and geographical diversity using your photographer’s eye. The journey starts and ends in Urumqi.

To begin planning your journey to Xinjiang, please submit an inquiry here or e-mail us at info@wildchina.com.

Source: Travel + Leisure

Shaanxi is a region packed with history and culture. In fact, in Xi’an and the surrounding region sometimes even the ground seems to be overflowing with it. Tombs, most notably of the Qin and Ming, dot the countryside while the sheer amount of artifacts under Xi’an has raised concerns about building a subway system.

Outside the world of ancient relics lies another underground treasure: the Yaodong (窰洞). A type of dwelling little known outside of China, they are particularly common in Shaanxi due to the number of loess hills in the region and a natural lack of other building materials.

Yaodongs also hold a special place in Chinese history: when the Long March concluded in Yan’an, in northern Shaanxi. Here, Mao and his other compatriots built and lived in Yaodongs due to their simplicity during the well-known Yan’an period.

However the Yaodong, much like the hutong, seems to be on its way out in today’s China. Younger people are trending towards more technologically-based life in cities and apartments, and the Yaodong is used less and less.

The front door, where we will be greeted by the inhabitants

WildChina offers an opportunity on our Xi’an tours to experience a piece of this history by visiting a Yaodong. While the Yan’an complex has much been converted into hotels, there is still an opportunity to experience the authentic Yaodong about 30km outside of Xi’an.

In a small 4-cave complex, largely forgotten by time, live an octogenarian couple. Their four children have all moved to growing towns, and the eldest lives 700km away. Man and wife are both veterans of the revolutionary era, one fighting in the Korean War while the other struggled to maintain their rural existence. When visitors come to their cave, they welcome them as substitutes for absent family, excitedly providing generous hospitality and laying open their fascinating lives for all to hear.

On a tour of the Yaodong, we are shown to the storage area.

WildChina is pleased ask you to join us at this home soon, a unique experience to add to any trip to Xi’an and just one more way to Experience China Differently.

When searching for contemporary art in Beijing, a tourist is generally told to look no further than the 798 art district. Composed of popular galleries and flashy displays of outdoor statuary, 798 is indeed worth a visit. However Beijing has numerous other art offerings, including the Caochangdi art district.

Caochangdi is just a short cab ride from 798 (or a walk for the more adventurous), but the expansive area merits at least an afternoon dedicated to it. It’s a little hard to find, and there are too few westerners in the area to follow to the art, but any local is completely willing to point you in the right direction of a gallery. These are scattered through a district otherwise home to a variety of apartments, local stores, and hole-in-the-wall restaurants.

Touristy it is not, but this given the district a distinct advantage. Renowned artist Ai Weiwei was one of the first to move his gallery outside of the area, moving into a new massive compound with a few friends. Soon other artists began to follow his lead, favoring the relative quiet of the area over the notoriety of the 798.

A bare corridor is bordered by gallery buildings on both sides

Anyone visiting the area should be able to find a surprisingly wide and high-quality variety of galleries. The outsides are decorated minimally, with generally only a small sign indicating the gallery. The architecture in itself is worth a visit: Spartan buildings can invoke a modern take on the soviet style, combining itself with the communal feel of a hutong (a traditional neighborhood composed of narrow alleys). The insides reflect the same feel: often no place is safe from art, which hangs from ceilings, emerges from the floor, and the like. In one exhibit, “The Way of Chopsticks,” a giant pair of chopsticks was laid across two roofs.

A selection from Song Chen's "Dust to Dust" exhibit

Artists in Caochangdi feel in their element, often working in a back room to create art that will later appear in the adjacent gallery. A feeling of authenticity is augmented by advertisements in most galleries for new exhibitions coming soon. Conceptual art abounds, and the artists are engaged in everything from social work (we noticed a gallery supporting a women’s collective in Xinjiang, and employing them to help create work) to employing very experimental mediums (one exhibit, entitled “Dust to Dust” only used dirt.)

Caochangdi is, all in all, a destination for serious art aficianados. If the 798 District is isn’t enough, or feels too kitschy, find an expert, and go on a tour of this art district.

A disk of compressed Pu-erh tea for sale at a tea market in Yunnan

It’s not often that one encounters a tourist souvenir that lowers cholesterol, promotes weight loss and protects against cancer, vascular disease, cognitive degeneration and aging – not to mention providing important nutrients like amino acids.

But tea is believed to have these virtues and recent research shows that certain types of Pu-erh tea from China’s Yunnan province have particularly potent levels of beneficial chemical compounds.

WildChina visits Pu-erh production areas in Yunnan on its trip ‘The Ancient Tea & Horse Caravan Road: An Expedition with Jeff Fuchs.’ Learning about the fascinating history of the ancient trade routes along which Pu-erh tea once traveled by horseback to Tibet is a highlight of many clients’ trips.

Another highlight is trekking in Yunnan through tea agro-forests and wild tea gardens where members of exotic ethnic minorities like the Bulang, Lahu and Akha have tended organic tea gardens for generations in the general area from which tea is believed to have first emerged.

In fact, it is believed to be these small-scale, natural growing practices which impart the best Pu-erh tea with heightened health benefits. Most tea in the world these days is produced in sprawling plantations, planted in neat rows in direct sunlight and often treated with chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other agricultural chemicals.

Not so with the finest Yunnan Pu-erh tea. To start with, it is not all produced from a genetically uniform crop. As we learned recently from the excellent book Tea Horse Road, Pu-erh is produced from a dozen wild cousins and hundreds of landraces of the Camellia sinensis plant – each particularly adapted to the climate of the particular hillside, or even grove, where it has traditionally been grown.

And instead of being grown in a tea monoculture, these trees (many reach an age of a few hundred years and a height of 50 or more feet) grow shaded from harsh sunlight in a natural ecosystem with hundreds of other plant, animal and insect species.

Thriving in their natural environment, agro-forest and tea garden trees produce higher levels of the beneficial compounds that first drew humans to start drinking tea, likely as a medical elixir, some three thousand or more years ago.

A study published last year in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology¹ compared Pu-erh from both terrace plantations and ecologically friendly agro-forests, measuring levels of tea catechins, flavonoid compounds that are thought to be beneficial to human health and are present to varying degrees in most non-herbal tea. The authors found that tea from the agro-forests had average catechin levels several times higher than the plantation tea.

So if you find yourself in southern Yunnan, relaxing after a day of trekking through ancient tea gardens and sipping on a cup of Pu-erh, you can feel good about the fact that a hike isn’t the only good thing you’re doing for your health that day. And don’t forget that a compressed cake packs great for the trip home.

1: See: Ahmed, et al “Pu-erh tea tasting in Yunnan, China: Correlation of drinkers’ perceptions to phytochemistry“, Journal of Ethnopharmacology 132 (2010) 176–185

Unfortunate travel news out of Tibet: foreign travelers are not being allowed into Tibet this month and no clear timetable for when they will be allowed back into the region has been given.

The AFP received this news from the Xizang Tourist General Company as shown here. The most recent block on foreign travelers comes on the third anniversary of the pre-Olympic anti-government riots that took place in Lhasa and other Tibetan regions in March 2008. Foreign travelers were kept out of Tibet for a year after the riots.

Given the already substantial logistical challenges of planning a journey to Tibet, unclear government policies are enough to make some travelers give up on their dreams of traveling to the ‘roof of the world’ to experience its breathtaking landscapes and understand its people.

But there is more to “Tibet” than what is contained by the autonomous region called Tibet. Northwest Yunnan, western Sichuan and much of Qinghai are historically, physically and culturally part of what was once the kingdom of Tibet and is now occasionally referred to as ‘Greater Tibet’.

Traditional Tibetan lifestyles can still be viewed in destinations such as Shangri-la, Kangding and Yushu, and the sacred snow-capped peaks of Meili and Minya Gongga rival all but a handful of the mountains found within Tibet proper in terms of altitude or awe-inspiring size. Yunnan – especially our award-winning Songtsam Circuit – and Sichuan not only have beautiful and authentic Tibetan regions, they are also home to a mindblowing variety of topography, climate and cultures.

If you are planning a China trip and want to include a Tibetan experience, keep in mind that what is commonly thought of as “Tibet” extends well beyond the borders of the area that is currently off-limits. For more information about how to visit genuinely Tibetan destinations not covered by the ban, contact us today.

WildChina Expert Spotlight is a new program for the Year of the Rabbit. WildChina will invite one of our experts to join us for dumpling lunch in the office every other Wednesday and give a short talk. The visit provides our entire staff with an inside scoop on the latest trends in local architecture, journalism, history, art, and countless other fields of interest. And not only do we get to hear some great stories and find out what our experts have been up to with their work, we also get to pass the information on to you.

This time, we welcomed David Spindler, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the history of the Great Wall. After relaying a gory story to the staff about greedy and overzealous soldiers hunting for Mongol heads, David sat down with me to talk Wall.

WildChina Travel: David, despite all your expertise, you still operate outside of academia. Why is that?

David Spindler: It’s never been a conscious choice; I just did it.

It has its advantages; I don’t think academia really lets you go out to the field for 50-80 days a year and spend a similar time in libraries every year, whether you’re a grad student or a professor.

WCT: What does a day in the field look like?

DS: I’m looking for sections of wall or signal towers, then – if and when I find them – recording them with field notes and photography. Another thing I do is locate place names in Ming dynasty texts in the field. That’s really the only time in my research when local knowledge is very, very helpful, because often the name for a place in the Ming dynasty is still the name they use now; or it’s so similar that you can be sure it’s the same.

WCT: I read in Peter Hessler’s Country Driving that you don’t like to see the Great Wall used as a national symbol, and prefer to see it portrayed as what it is: a defensive structure. Can you elaborate?

DS: It’s used as a symbol by Chinese governments. Starting with the Nationalist government and then the current Communist government who use it as a symbol of the Chinese nation; or more specifically, the Chinese people.

Basically, when China went from being an empire to trying to be a nation state, they needed all the things that nation-states need: symbols, things to rally around, and the Great Wall was chosen as one of them.

From my own personal perspective – as someone who focuses on the subject – it just adds a lot of noise if it’s politicized in that way. I wouldn’t say it causes a lot of problems for me, it just adds a little bit of potential political and cultural sensitivity.

WCT: And when it comes to tourism? Do you agree with the Wall’s “top dog” status?

DS: For sure. I think it deserves the place it has.

WCT: In 2011, what is the dream itinerary for a first-time Wall visitor?

DS: The dream itinerary is to go to Jinshanling, and for three reasons. Number one, it’s historic; a lot of important battles happened there. Number two, it’s scenic; it has a great long vista of the Wall. Number three, there aren’t many tourists.

WCT: What have you been up to lately?

DS: Since 2007, I’ve been working with the Oakland-based photographer Jonathan Ball, photographing significant battle sites along the Great Wall.

There’s a lot of pretty Great Wall photography out there. But that’s all it is, just pretty. You don’t learn anything, and it’s not historically relevant. What you’re looking at might not be a historically significant site. What we’ve tried to do is put people in the place of a participant in the battle, whether as a raider or as a defender.

We started the actual shooting in 2007, finished up in late 2008, and started showing it during the fall of 2009 in San Francisco and New York exhibitions. The New York show was actually at a WildChina client, Rockefeller Brothers Fund; they hosted a year-long show in their office. Most recently, we showed in Palo Alto, at the gallery of the Global Heritage Fund. We’re looking to show it in more places, including China, and anywhere.

WCT: We often hear about developers buying land and initiating projects that threaten historical relics; this has happened just recently at Simatai, a popular section of the Wall that closed last year. Do you see this as a broad threat?

DS: The thing that’s too bad about [the Simatai project] is that they’ve moved out all the local people. If the local people are gone, their geographic memory goes with them. If you have someone like me, who goes out into the field, and is trying to learn local place names…that knowledge is just gone, unfortunately. Unless someone has preserved it.

It’s definitely a broad threat. It’s happening all over; developers come in and lease large plots of land, residents are moved out, and with them goes that local knowledge.

It’s not just development that does that. There’s also a lot of natural migration that is taking people out of really remote villages with the same effect.

WCT: Let’s talk about personal milestones; you’ve got a couple coming up. How goes the quest to see every section of Ming Dynasty Wall?

DS: Well, it’s not actually all the Ming Wall; I don’t think anyone could ever get there. It’s actually a quest to see all of the Wall in the greater Beijing area. I thought I’d finished that early last year…but I still have probably 8 to 10 days go.

WCT: And you just told us that your 1000^th day on the Great Wall is fast approaching.

DS: It’s going to happen after 2-3 days on the Wall…we’re between 995 and 1000. That’ll happen within a month.

WCT: Sounds good. Keep us updated, we’ll get the word out!

DS: [Laughs] Sure.

You can read more about David in our Experts section.

Image by Caroline Zhong

Chris Taylor knows China travel. He first came to the country three decades ago and spent years as a contributor to and editor of Lonely Planet’s China guidebook.

Taylor’s debut novel Harvest Season was published last year by Earnshaw Books and has created a buzz with its description of what happens when an idyllic mountain town called Shuangshan strains to adapt to a backpacker invasion.

WildChina is proud to sponsor this year’s Bookworm International Literary Festival, which will take place March 4-18 at Bookworm locations in Beijing, Chengdu and Suzhou. Taylor will be one of dozens of authors participating in the festival. He will be the featured author in Chengdu at 7:30pm on March 5 and in Beijing at 3pm on March 10.

We sat down with Taylor to learn more about the changes he’s seen in China over the years and what he sees happening in the future.

WildChina: How did you first end up coming to China?

Chris Taylor: In 1982 when I was in Kashmir I met a Canadian guy who had just come out of China, which was incredible for me because China had been closed for so long. He told me that I could get an individual travel visa in Hong Kong. I was young at the time and it took three years, one of them teaching English in Tokyo before I made it to China.

WildChina: What was different about traveling in China back then compared to today?

Taylor: (Laughs.) It was almost impossible. You could do it – but it was tough.

Few hotels accepted foreigners, so the hardest thing was often just trying to find a place to stay. There was no infrastructure for foreign tourists… in those days there was just CITS, but their only function was to try to get people to join their tours. They didn’t understand that individual travelers coming into China either were opposed to this kind of tourism or couldn’t afford it.

There was no coffee. It was hard to get where you wanted to go or to find a restaurant open after seven or eight at night. And bear in mind there was no internet and it was very difficult to call home. It was a totally different China from what we know now. Once you entered, there was no news of the outside world.

WildChina: So what was it that hooked you on China?

Taylor: The one thing that was clear back then was that everyone had been enough of political movements and mass collectivization. There was a saying back then: “wang qian kan” (往前看, “look forward), but the word for money is also qian, so people made the joke “look to money”.

China was going to change unlike anywhere else on the planet had, and that was what struck me. Japan was the big Asian country at the time and everyone was studying Japanese but it was obvious that China wanted to catch up. I thought it was a fascinating story and decided to start studying Chinese. That’s how I ended up staying. It’s one of the biggest stories of human history and I’m still enthralled by it.

WildChina: As a Lonely Planet writer did you “discover” a new place that nobody knew about?

Taylor: I almost never went anywhere that I didn’t have to visit, so I didn’t discover much that wasn’t already on the radar.But there was one time in 1991.

I was in parts of southeast Guizhou and boarded the wrong bus purely by accident. I traveled through areas around Kaili and Longsheng in Guangxi before they appeared in any guidebooks, places that hadn’t seen foreigners since before the founding of the People’s Republic.

I didn’t write about it extensively because none of those places were on the trail at the time and they would have been near impossible to travel through without Chinese, which very few backpackers spoke in those days.

WildChina: What was it that made you decide to write a novel?

Taylor: I was writing fiction when I first came to Asia twentysomething years ago but I didn’t think it was any good. I did my time at Lonely Planet and then got caught up in journalism and making money. But fiction was already the plan.

I took a sabbatical in Dali in 2005 and became increasingly annoyed with myself for not writing a novel. I took a two-year break and out of that came Harvest Season. The whole point for me with fiction is that you can write about things that you can’t touch upon in day-to-day journalism. You can address issues on a scale that you can’t even in magazines. It’s a very liberating format, if somewhat intimidating.

WildChina: Why did you pick a small mountain town as the setting for Harvest Season?

Taylor: Even though I didn’t mention specifically where Harvest Season is set, it is set in Yunnan.

A couple of years ago, Yunnan was in a specific development stage. It had been “discovered” but not in the ways that other places in the backpacker trail like Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, even Cambodia had been discovered. The numbers of people who came here tended to be smaller and they were more adventurous – that kind of reminded me of my early days of traveling in China.

I first came to Yunnan in 1991 when I was a Lonely Planet researcher. I didn’t return until 2005. The reason for that was that a lot of the places that I had gone back to had changed so much that I became afraid of returning to places that had had an impact on me. It surprised me that a place as beautiful as Yunnan had survived the years.

WildChina: What lies at the core of the conflict in Harvest Season?

Taylor: One of the themes is that you can be an agent of destruction of something that you covet when you travel. This isn’t about Yunnan, it could have been set anywhere. It is about what happens when a place reaches a critical mass in terms of tourism and commercial interests change things.

I imagined a place like Dali or Shaxi being invaded by the same people who invaded the beaches of southern Thailand in The Beach. But it is a work of fiction, and that is not about to happen to Yunnan. That is what makes Yunnan a special place.

WildChina: What is the current state of English-language writing about China?

Taylor: One of things you hear is: China is hot! I don’t think it is. Generally stuff written about China is confirming the preconceptions of people back home. If you don’t do that, you run the risk of putting yourself in very niche territory in which the only readers you’ll have are China insiders.

There are two prevailing themes now: “the coming China century” and “the coming collapse of China”. It’s rather difficult to write about China as it is lived, which is a far more complex story. I wish that more foreigners based in China were writing fiction, because when you look back on last century, much of the best fiction was written by nomads in voluntary exile, Greene, Evelyn Waugh, W. Somerset Maugham, Paul Bowles, Hemingway, the list goes on.

We’re living in very interesting times in which more people than ever are living in voluntary exile… I’d like to see more fiction that takes this on.

WildChina: How do you see travel in China changing in the coming five years?

Taylor: I see a combination of two things. A lot of people haven’t been to China yet, and they will want to come see the Terracotta Warriors, Great Wall, etcetera. But there will also be a proliferation of niche markets… more trekking, kayaking, adventure travel. What happens in most undeveloped travel destinations is that backpackers find places, locals set things up, tour companies come in and develop and eventually: Club Med.

China won’t follow that path because of the explosion in Chinese tourism. Yangshuo was discovered by backpackers but the Chinese tourism boom has transformed the place to the point that it has little appeal as a backpacker destination. Given the size of domestic tourism in China, foreign travelers will be marginal. I think southwest China is primed to become a destination for niche travel and adventure travel.

Chris Taylor image: Yereth Jansen

Even for experienced China travelers, the vast region of Xinjiang in the country’s northwest is full of surprises. One of the bigger surprises is the mystery of the dried corpses known as the Tarim mummies, which are on display in museums throughout Xinjiang.

Two of the mummies have traveled to the US as part of an exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, where their Caucasian features are making museumgoers look at China’s history from a different angle.

The mummies – a 3,800-year-old woman with auburn hair and a 2,800-year-old infant – have Caucasian characteristics that are considered by experts to be proof that western peoples migrated eastward along the ancient Silk Road that connected China and Europe via Central Asia and Middle East.

The woman, nicknamed “the Beauty of Xiaohe” (pictured above) is wearing a felt hat that resembles those traditionally found in alpine Europe. The baby is wrapped in a blanket reminiscent of ancient northern European burial shrouds.

Mummies preserved by Xinjiang’s extremely arid conditions first began to be discovered by explorers in the early 1900s. It is unclear exactly where these people came from, due to a lack of DNA testing.

Today Xinjiang is one of China’s most remote and least understood regions. It is believed that the Uighur ethnic group that now calls Xinjiang home migrated to the area after the arrival of the Caucasians who eventually became the Tarim mummies.

Nowadays Xinjiang is known by travelers for its stunning desert and mountain landscapes plus the fascinating culture – and delicious food – of the Uighurs. But, as the Tarim mummies illustrate, this is only part of the picture. Xinjiang is steeped in a forgotten history that the world is only beginning to wake up to.

The exhibition “Secrets of the Silk Road” runs at the University of Pennsylvania through March 15. For more information about WildChina journeys to Xinjiang, click here or contact us directly.

As noted earlier, China is already the world’s number-three destination for international travel. Many travelers nowadays have already made one or two trips to China, but more often than not, they’re visiting the coast, possibly venturing inward to check out the Terracotta Army in Xi’an.

But China is more than just a handful of sites in the country’s east. In fact, China’s west has just as much – if not more – to offer travelers who are looking for unforgettable experiences.

If you’re planning a China trip this year, we encourage you to look beyond the traditional travel destinations to China’s wild west. Here are some of our picks for places to visit in China’s west in 2011:

Yunnan: Land of diversity

Few places in the world pack as much variety into one area as the province of Yunnan, which offers a mind-boggling variety of landscapes ranging from jungle lowlands in the south to Tibetan highlands in the northwest.

Yunnan’s ubiquitous mountains have historically isolated groups of people from one another, which is one of the main reasons that the province has China’s highest number of ethnic groups. With 26 ethnic groups including Han, Tibetan, Dai, Bai, Yi, Hani, Hui, Mongol, Naxi, Lisu, Yao, Lahu and countless subgroups, Yunnan is a rainbow of different ethnic traditions, clothing and cuisine.

The mountain towns of Dali, Lijiang and Shangri-la are home to unique cultures whose lives are still steeped in ancient traditions. Down south in Xishuangbanna, tropical weather, tea plantations, spicy food and the lazy Mekong River await.

Guizhou: Still undiscovered

Guizhou Province may not attract as many visitors as its neighbors Sichuan, Yunnan and Guangxi, but it certainly deserves consideration when making plans to travel to western China. Beautiful mountain scenery and a distinctive spicy and sour cuisine are some of the highlights of a trip to Guizhou. But as in many other parts of China, the big draw for us is the people.

The Miao, Gejia, Dong and Yao villages in Guizhou’s mountains are home to some of Asia’s most unique cultures and friendliest, most welcoming communities. Many of our clients rank our Guizhou village immersions among their top China travel experiences.

Sichuan: More than pandas

Sichuan is one of China’s most distinctive provinces, known for its spicy food, stunning mountain scenery, beautiful women and China’s ‘national treasure’ – the giant panda.

Sichuan’s capital Chengdu is a modern metropolis set on the west end of the fertile Sichuan Basin, a region that kingdoms battled for in ancient times. Chengdu is considered the capital of Sichuan cuisine, one of the most famous and flavorful of China’s culinary traditions.

The historical importance of Buddhism to Sichuan is evident in Chengdu at the Wenshu Monastery, located in the city’s center. Not far from Chengdu lie the Buddhist holy mountain of Emei Shan and the world’s largest seated Buddha at Leshan.

Sichuan has fantastic natural beauty as well, with the mountain forests and fantastic aquamarine lakes of Jiuzhaigou in the north and gorgeous mountain scenery at Minya Gongga in the province’s west.

Xinjiang: Silk Road echoes

Xinjiang is simply massive. It comprises roughly one-sixth of China’s total territory and boasts some of the country’s most stunning mountains and deserts.

At the crossroads of Asia, Xinjiang has been home to many different ethnic groups, from the caucasoid peoples whose mummies date back to more than 3,800 years ago to the Turkic Uighurs who moved into the region from present-day Mongolia 1,100 years ago to today’s growing Han population.

Islam is the dominant religion in Xinjiang, where extremism is rare and moderation is the norm. Due to its location on the old Silk Road, Xinjiang has also been influenced by Buddhism.

For visitors to Xinjiang, the local cuisine is often one of most pleasant surprises. Featuring rich stews, tasty breads, a large variety of noodles from flat and wide to easily spoonable diced noodles and even salads, Xinjiang cuisine is a delicious world away from typical Chinese fare.

Alexandra “Alex” Pearson knows a few things about China and a few things about books.

Fluent in Chinese, she first moved to Beijing in 1982, when her father was here on a diplomatic post. After spending her university years in her native England, she returned to China in the 90s to eventually became founder of a literary venture known as The Bookworm.

It’s not easy to pigeonhole The Bookworm, which Pearson started as a one-woman restaurant and small library of 2,000 titles tucked into a Beijing courtyard.

In its current incarnation, The Bookworm might be described as a café, restaurant, library, bookshop, literary festival and social club rolled into one. In addition to the original Beijing Bookworm, there are now also branches in Chengdu and Suzhou.

In each of these cities it’s a popular gathering place for anything from lectures by internationally renowned authors to afternoon coffee and snacks—as well as a go-to spot to buy the latest books. Last year, Lonely Planet named The Bookworm Beijing one of the top ten bookshops in the world.

Given her breadth of experience with both China and the literary world, we thought we would help people preparing for a trip to China by asking Pearson to make some recommendations of English-language books about the country. Here are some of her favorites, along with some of her thoughts about each:

Favorite novels about China:
Change, by Mo Yan
“This novella/autobiography details the social and political changes in China over the past few decades, all through a personal lens. Mo Yan depicts his own experiences and the tales of those around him in yet another great book by this master storyteller.”

Three Sisters, by Bi Feiyu
“Three Sisters is a family epic; a tragic comedy that follows the lives of three sisters in late 20th century China. Bi Feiyu’s keen and satirical observations of domestic and rural life is what makes this book brilliant.”

Favorite historical non-fiction book about China:
The Penguin History of Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power by Jonathan Fenby
“A comprehensive coverage of 150 years of Chinese history,  Fenby has compiled a really good introduction to modern Chinese history. His content and style are thoroughly interesting and gripping all the way through.”

Favorite contemporary non-fiction books about China:
Factory Girls, by Leslie T Chang
“A truly compassionate portrayal of the lives of two young women who leave their rural home to become part of the migrant population of factory workers in southern China, Factory Girls is the story of a million such women of modern China. It’s an essential read.”

China: Museums, by Miriam Clifford, Cathy Giangrande and Antony White
“This volume also deserves a mention, as it is a fantastic guide on more than 200 museums, small to large, all across China.”

Favorite Chinese cookbook:
Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province , by Fuchsia Dunlop
“More than a cookbook, Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook brings the cuisine and legends of Mao’s homeland, Hunan province, to life. It’s full of great authentic recipes.”

Note: If you’re planning on being in Beijing, Suzhou or Chengdu during March 4 through March 18, don’t forget to check out  The Bookworm International Literary Festival 2011—of which WildChina Travel is a proud sponsor. There will also be a prologue to the festival in Beijing January 26 through 29 featuring Dave Eggers and David Sedaris.