It doesn't have Shanghai's skyline or Beijing's history. What it has is 1,000 years of unbroken craft tradition, some of the best food in the country, and almost no foreign tourists.
Guizhou is not on most people's China itinerary. It should be.
The province sits in China's southwest - landlocked, mountainous, historically difficult to reach. Those geographical barriers are exactly why Miao, Dong, Buyi, and a dozen other ethnic groups have maintained distinct cultures, languages, and craft traditions for centuries. The isolation that kept Guizhou economically underdeveloped also kept it culturally intact.
The food alone is worth the trip. Sour fish soup, wild mushroom hot pot, rice wine served in bamboo cups. Guizhou cuisine is sharp and fermented and complex in ways that bear no resemblance to the Chinese food most Westerners have encountered.
The craft traditions are extraordinary. Natural indigo batik that takes three weeks to complete a single length of fabric. Silverwork hammered by hand using techniques passed from parent to child. Paper made from bark fibres in caves where the process has been unchanged for a millennium.
And almost no foreign tourists. That will change, eventually. Go now.
More from the journal
Back to all posts