Here are three more photos from our friends at the China Photo Contest:
This photo from Ricardo Duarte comes from Xian in Shaanxi Province.
This photo from Robert DaBoss was taken in Guangzhou.
And this photo from Joew Huang was taken in Guangdong Province.
We’ll announce more photos and contest winners in the next couple of days.
Travel China: Qi Xing Yan in Guangdong Province
We woke up at 6am, climbed on a bus packed with people, and traveled to the border of Guangdong province to find a place somewhere between the spectral karsts of Guangxi and the. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect: Ms. Yue and the interns eyes brightened every time they mentioned the place. I knew that Guangdong was located in the western part of the province and was famous for its beauty and for its supposed healing properties of the mind and soul. I had to check it out.
Located in the western area of Guangdong, Qi Xing Yan 七星岩 (known in English as the “Seven Star Peaks”), the park was only recently established, though the place has a history hundreds of years old. Despite its notoriety among the Chinese, there is relatively little literature about the place in English. However, it was enjoyable to just take in the beauty of the place. In fact, the lack of information made it more possible for me to feel the calming, reassuring presence here. Akin the sense of eerie mystery that I had felt in Guangxi, Qi Xing Yan seemed to have some kind of strange power.
As we continued on the trip, I could see Miss Yue’s attitude transform. In the morning, as we had first arrived and got lost making our way there–like any good journey in China, you have to get completely lost at least once–Ms. Yue was understandably upset. She hadn’t slept well the night before, and the taxi driver seemed to have difficulty understanding where we wanted to go, despite Ms. Yue’s explanations in both sharp Mandarin and cutting Cantonese. But as we walked around the bridges and trees, Ms. Yue’s manner changed. She shifted from grumpy to pleasantly amused by the young children to a sense of wonderment as we saw a duck on the lake startle and fly away.
I didn’t fully understand Qi Xing Yan until I met Buddha pictured here. Carved from three large pieces of limestone several hundred years ago, this Buddha may not be the biggest stone sitting Buddha in the world, but it is a happy Buddha, and seemed to have the power to share its mirth with anyone who took time to watch him for a moment.
China Travel: Guangdong Province
Andy Lai is the photographer behind this photo. This is a mosaic photo from a Cantonese Opera.
Guangdong Province lies in the southernmost part of China. With its location on the South China Sea, the province is a natural entry point to south China and has long served as a gateway for Westerners interested in China. Bordered by Jiangxi and Hunan provinces to the north, Fujian province to the east, and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region to the west, Guangdong has easy access to many other key parts of south China. Guangdong province also claims 651 islands, many of which are located in the Pearl River Delta, which has recently become a center of great economic development in the region. It is estimated that Guangdong Province generates as much as a quarter of the GDP in China.
(This photo of Guangzhou’s skyline and all the photos below were taken by Shenxy.)
The provincial capital of Guangzhou has a long history of international trade and cooperated. Originally transcribed by Portugese traders as “Canton,” who took the name of the region for the name of the city, the name Guangzhou literally means “wide state.” The name Canton is still used informally for events such as the Canton Trade Fair, the world’s largest trade and outsourcing fair. Guangdong was named during the Ming Dynasty, and it was at this time that it began to serve as a major trade hub for China and Europe, with Portugal and England contributing much to the region’s multiculturalism and international fame (see our posts on Macau and Hong Kong for more information). Guangdong was famous for its hongs (trading houses) and its traders known compradors, (which comes from the Portugese word for “to purchase,” comprar). Perhaps because of the powerful international influence and centuries of contact with foreigners, Guangdong people have a long history of immigration and worldwide travel, with large groups of them moving to the US and Canada in the 1800s. To this day, Cantonese is the dominant language in many Chinatowns and Chinese communities across North America (as well as other parts of the world).
(This is a photo of Hua Nan Xin Cheng 华南新城, one of the areas of Guangzhou in Panyu District)
Though Guangzhou has a complex and interesting relationship with the outside world that has lasted for centuries, it also has a fascinating internal history of diversity. Many people who live in Guangdong are of the Han Chinese nationality, which comprises the largest single ethnic group worldwide. Still, Guangdong has a diverse, multi-cultural population, with members of forty-two different ethnic groups making their home here. In addition to Mandarin, Cantonese, the local dialect, is the most common tongue and one of the most important dialects of Chinese spoken inside and outside of the PRC. Other languages spoken include Hakka, Kejiahua, Min Nan, Xiang, Dzao Min, Zhuang, and many others.
In addition to rich environment of culture and language, Guangdong’s physical environment features a subtropical climate, with high humidity and hot weather in the summer and brisk and humid winters. Be careful about visiting during the rainy season in March and April! Due to its favorable geography and mild weather, Guangdong is the area’s major producer of rice, tea and tropical crops. Less than a quarter of all the land in Guangdong is used to produce food, so the areas that are set aside for agricultural purposes are farmed intensively.
(This is a photo of Shenzhen’s Dapeng Bay, 深圳大鹏湾).
In terms of its economy, light industry has brought an economic boom to Guangdong, and Guangzhou, not Beijing or Shanghai, boasts the highest GDP per capita in mainland China. Food processing, including sugar refining, as well as textile manufacturing and weaving are major industries here, as well as heavy industrial pursuits such as shipbuilding and repair and machine manufacturing, among others.
(This is a photo taken near Hailing Island in Guangdong Province.)
Perhaps more than anything, Guangdong is famous for its Cantonese cuisine. Because Guangzhou was a major trading port, its access to trade from all over the planet brought a wide variety of foods to the city, creating a huge amount of diversity within the cuisine. Someone once said, “the Cantonese eat every thing that flies except planes, every thing on the ground except cars, and every thing that is in water except boats,” and the saying has stuck. Fresh ingredients, mildly spiced, are favored, and the flavors are brought out with steaming, stir and deep frying. Because Guangdong is on a sea coast, seafood is often featured. Choice dishes include dim sum, hot pot, steamed eggplant, wonton noodles, fish balls, and beef brisket.
Visitors to the Guangdong province enjoy the scenic beauty of the Danxia, Zijiao, Luofu, and Dinghu mountains. In Guangzhou you will also want to visit Yuexiu Hill and Park, as well as the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees, an ancient Buddhist temple. There are many beautiful temples to see in Guangdong, including the Nanhua Temple located in Shaoguan. You will also find the informative Guangdong Provincial Museum in Guangzhou. Offering examples of Chaozhou wood carving, ceramic figures, old Chinese pottery and traditional Chinese calligraphy posters, you can enjoy the best of Guangdong’s culture, past and present.
Guangdong is also the home of Coffee, Yue Ying, and the League of Extraordinary Chinese Women.
Look for posts here soon about Yanzhi and Dawei’s adventures in Baiyun Mountain and Qi Xin Yan, two of the most scenic areas in Guangdong Province.
中文
I wanted share some photos sent to us by a local student interested in the blog and in food. This student graciously sent us some photos of some delicious Chinese food from his home city of Zhanjiang. Hope this makes your mouth water. These foods come from the traditional Cantonese or Yue style of food, one of the eight great cuisines of China.
To see your photos here, send them to 
Read on »
Because we are kicking off our trip in Guangdong province, today’s feature photos all come from Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong province. Credit goes to one of our loyal readers, Jade, for providing us with this pictures of everyday campus life. The first picture today is called “Campus Life Florist:”
The second picture featured today is called “Campus Life Basketball。” See the pictures after the jump.
One of the many goals of the China Dreamblogue is to create a strong, pro-China internet presence in the blogosphere. To do this, we need your help. And as we create our pro-China network, we would also like to help the people who want to be part of this network by giving them a way to increase their SEO power and their ability to monetize their site. Sound complicated and difficult? The process is deceptively simple and powerful.
We’ve created an idea called link it forward. Similar to the internet memes and the Thinking Blog tag that recently moved through a number of English-language blogs about China, our idea will travel rapidly through pro-China blogs. In addition, this idea will help to create links–as many as four thousand–to your site through a trickle-down method.
There are five simple steps:
Perma-List:
The Moveable list:
The numbers work out well for you. You will have approximately five rounds on the list. On the first round, you’ll get five links. On the second, you’ll get 25 (each of the five people you sent the list to will get five more people to put your link on their site). The third round nets you 125, the fourth 525, and the fifth 2,625. Your grand total (should everyone follow Link it Forward) will be 3,305 links. And if you get linked to again by another blog, you can start the process all over again to earn another 3,000 links.
To monetize your blog or site please click on the links found on the front page of this blog.
China Dreamblogue的其中一个目标是在因特网上创建一个强大的，支持中国的互联网。实现这个目标，我们需要你的帮助。在我们建造我们中国的友好互联网的同时，我们将会帮助那些支持我们的人，把他们的博客推到网络排名的最前列。这个过程既简单又有效。
我们已经有一个构想，称为“链接在一起”（Link it Forward），与“网络媒母”（internet memes）相类似。“Link it Forward”（ 链接在一起）会以很快的速度在支持中国的博客上移动。另外，这个构想可以使你的网站的链接数量增加几千个以上。
以下是六个简单的步骤：
请记住，不要改动或者改变第一组名单和不要在第二组名单上加上第六个链接。同样，通过第一组名单所得到的广告收益将用作慈善用途。而从第二组“link it forward”上所得的收益将有您自己支配。我们会为您列举一些能够推算您自己网站价值的地方。
第一组（长期不变得目录）：
第二组（可更新的目录）：
您的博客
您朋友的博客
如果理想的话，您大约会有比从前翻5倍的链接量。
第一个循环，您会得到5个链接。
第二个循环您会得到25个链接（跟您建立链接的那5个人每人会给您带来5个新的链接）
第三个循环您会有125个链接，第四个有625，第五个有3，125个。
如果每个人都按照Link it Forward的方法，您最后会得到3，905个链接。如果您同时又跟其他博客建立同种方法的链接，您将会得到另外3，000多个的链接。有了这上千个的 连接，您就能从Google Adwords（Google搜索引擎营销）那里得到相应的收益了。现在就请按本页底部的Google Adwords按钮来看一下您的网站的价值吧。
这是为了兴趣；这是为了提高中国博客在西方搜索引擎的排名；这更是为了中国的慈善事业出一分力（因为限定组中的3个博客将会把全部广告收益捐献给中国的慈善机构）；同样也能增加中国博客在互联网上的知名度。
让我们一起link it forward(链接在一起)吧！
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