Discover China

Travelers come to China for many things—ancient palaces, the Great Wall, cups of tea, mountains, deserts, and musing Buddhas. To say that they find what they were looking for would be an understatement. China has a thousand faces, from the extravagantly in-your-face new to the hauntingly old, and guessing what you’ll see next is like trying to predict the latest fashions in Shanghai. The country won’t simply meet your expectations of narrow cobblestoned hútòng, old men smoking a pipe over a game of mahjong, or even rice paddies dotted with water buffalo and workers wearing straw hats. The mahjong games are still there, of course, and the water buffalo still wallow, but as often as not the ivory (and plastic) chips are played out to the beat of synthesized pop, the tiny alleys have grown up to become broad paved avenues humming with traffic, and the peasant whips out a cell phone to call up her sister in the city.

Five thousand years of history haven’t slowed this vast breadth of peoples and landscapes down one whit. The same fervor that led the country through revolution after revolution now propels China irrevocably into the future. Nor has China forgotten to look back: its millennia of history and tradition are as much a source of pride as the latest growth reports and gleaming new highrises. But China is not without growing pains, and part of its fascination is the neverending balancing act of past and present, with one sometimes shoved aside for the other. The twang of er hu strings jangles against the buzz of construction, proud red walls that once gazed out upon imperial processions now watch over neon-lit streets, and the brief respite of tranquility on a mountain top is suddenly broken by an eager crowd. No matter what you think China is, you won’t find it in one place or in one single moment. China has a thousand faces, and it's going to show you all of them.