Guangzhou

Guangzhou is China's third-largest city and the capital of Guangdong Province — the engine room of China's economic miracle. It has been trading with the outside world for over 2,000 years, longer than almost any other Chinese city, and this mercantile heritage gives it a character distinct from both Beijing and Shanghai. Guangzhou is where Cantonese culture is at its most concentrated: the food, the dialect, the architecture, and the way of life.

The food is the primary reason to visit. Cantonese cuisine is considered by many the finest in China — and Guangzhou is where it reaches its apex. Dim sum here is an institution, taken daily at teahouses (茶楼, chálóu) by families and colleagues in a tradition that predates the Song Dynasty. The morning dim sum session — ordering from trolleys or paper slips, sharing bamboo steamers of har gow, siu mai, and char siu bao over weak oolong tea — is one of the great Chinese cultural experiences.

Shamian Island, a former colonial concession in the heart of the city, preserves a surprising streetscape of European colonial architecture in various states of dignified decay. The Chen Clan Ancestral Hall is one of the most ornate buildings in China — a Qing Dynasty complex of decorated halls built in 1894, now a museum of Guangdong folk art.