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First Time China · Culture
Beliefs, festivals and languages, then the places where they show: temples, grottoes, tombs, museums, performances and the everyday life of markets, bathhouses and old towns.
18 guides
The religious China a visitor sees is a map, not a slogan. Three schools of Buddhism, each with its own region.
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China keeps two calendars at once: the Gregorian one runs the state and the lunisolar one runs the family and the crowd.
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Fifty-six peoples, ninety-one per cent Han, and the other nine per cent living along the edges, where the law puts their script on the road signs.
Read the guide →The well-known temples of China are root houses: a school of thought or practice began in each, and in many it is still taught.
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Almost every well-known building in China has been rebuilt; the few that have not are in Shanxi.
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China's cave temples are the footprints Buddhism left on its way in, and they can be read like a book from Kizil to Dazu.
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China has walls at four scales: the empire's, the city's, the coast's and the family's, each built against one enemy.
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A Chinese ruin is a shape in the ground and a museum next to it. Sixteen sites from Peking Man to Xanadu, which are worth seeing for the shape.
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At a Chinese tomb the tomb itself is almost never what is seen. The sight is the road that leads to it, the room they opened, the museum over the pit.
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Many Chinese museums are free and the ones that charge are a category defined in 2008.
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Some Chinese festivals are staged for a public audience; others are run by a village or a temple for itself, with outsiders at the edge.
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In China a good show belongs to the town and is on tonight: a fixed venue, a fixed hour, many nights of the year.
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A craft lesson in China is a side door into an industry that is still working.
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Chinese leisure happens in public and anyone may watch; joining takes a skill or a friend, not a paid place.
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In China the price depends on where one stands: printed at the mall, spoken at the factory gate.
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A major kind of market in China is shut on many days. Country markets that run on a number, morning and night markets, the two clocks inside one market.
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An old Chinese town is not the same as a living one. The main street is for visitors and the second lane is for the residents.
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The Chinese bathhouse outlived the reason it was built. What it became, how north and south differ, what the scrub is, what is inside.
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The guides above explain the background. For a place to go, browse the destination finder. For the practical steps, see how it works. When you are ready to plan, send PreeChina a message.
From the blog
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Plan a tripReviewed October 2026.