Nanjing

Lying on the south bank of the Yangtze River, Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, is one of the most delightful destinations in China. Known as the capital city of six or ten dynasties in ancient Chinese history, it has a brilliant cultural heritage. Yuecheng, the first recorded military defense constructed in early 472 B.C., opened the long history o…

Wuzhen – Venice of the East

Chinese people say that unless you visit the Great Wall then you haven’t been to China. For any visit south of the Yangtze River; one place not to be missed is the town of Wuzhen. Located in the centre of the six ancient towns south of Yangtze River, 17 kilometres (10.56 miles) north of the city of Tongxiang, the Water Town displays its two-thousand-year h…

What is “Xujiahui”

Xujiahui literally means “Xu’s junction” – or, more precisely, “property of Xu family at the junction of two rivers” in Mandarin. The “Xu family” refers to the family of Xu Guangqi (1562–1633), China’s most notable Catholic convert. Most of what is now Xujiahui was once the ancestral home of th…

Chinese new year

Chinese New Year celebrations, also known as the Spring Festival, in China start on the 23rd day of the 12th lunar month of the Chinese calendar. The festival lasts for about 23 days, ending on the 15th day of the first lunar month in the following year in the Chinese calendar.   What do people do? Many people clean their homes to welcome the Spring Festival…

Is Shanghainese Different Than Mandarin?

Shanghai is the largest city in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), with a population of more than 23 million people. It is a major cultural and financial center and is an important port for container shipments. The Chinese characters for this city are 上海, which is pronounced Shànghǎi. The first character 上 (shàng) means “on”, and the s…

Pingjiang Road | Pingjiang Historic Street

With the length of 1,606 meters, Pingjiang Road parallels with Pingjiang River. The typical houses of ancient Suzhou with white walls and black tiles are standing by the street, simple and unsophisticated. Today, the old town of Suzhou centred around Pingjiang Road in the northeast, remains little changed since Song Dynasty, some 800 years ago. For many c…

Shanghai Shikumen Residence

Shikumen Residence, literally meaning ‘Stone Warehouse Gate’, is regarded as the most representative house style of Shanghai as the Hutongs and Courtyards are representative of Beijing. It is so named due to the stone door frame. This sort of residence combines the architecture styles of southern China and western countries. These residences can date b…

Simplified or Traditional; which dialect is for you?

The Chinese languages are spoken by over a billion people. China is one of the world’s fastest growing economies. The vast majority of the Chinese-speaking population is in China (over 980 million), Hong Kong, and Taiwan (19 million), but substantial numbers are also found throughout the whole of Southeast Asia, especially in Singapore, Indonesia, Mala…
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