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.

One of my favorite spots in Guangzhou (and a place that’s unusually quiet in a city known for its loud, delicious restaurants) is The Temple of the Six Banyan Trees.

An ancient Buddhist holy site built in 537 AD, during the Liang Dynasty in Guangzhou, the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees (六榕寺) was originally called the Baozhuangyan Temple, which probably means means something like . During the Northern Song Dynasty, a writer called Su Shi wrote the inscription Liu Rong (Six Banyan Trees) because of the six banyan trees he saw there. (The Chinese for “Captain Obvious” has escaped me). Ever since, the place has since been called the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees.

Just as dynasties in China rise and fall, so did the Temple. One of the dynasties burned the temple down, and it was rebuilt in the Northern Song Dynasty (989 AD). The Flower Pagoda, the main structure of the temple, was built in 1097, and was named for its colorful exterior. Though its original base was square, it was given an octagonal base during the rebuild in 1097. It was rebuilt again in 1373 AD after another fire in the early Ming Dynasty period, and finally restored in 1900. In all, this temple has over 1,400 years of history.

After entering the main gate, Tianwang Hall is the first major area, and The Laughing Buddha is there to welcome visitors. Next comes Weituo Hall. An old Chinese legends tells of a general Weituo who recaptured the Buddhist relics which had been stolen. In contrast to the laughing Buddha, Weituo keeps a straight face–apparently getting the relics back didn’t do all that much for his mood.
The piece of architecture that most often catches a visitor’s eyes is the Six Banyan Pagoda, where the Buddhist relics are placed. Its roofs curve upward and appear to be dark red flower petals, while the tip of the pagoda is like stamens. The whole construction looks like a huge stigma high in the air. Therefore, people like to call it the Flower Pagoda. The pagoda not only is architecturally elegant, but also provides visitors a good place to overlook enchanting scenery around.

To the west of the Six Banyan Pagoda is Daxiong Baodian Hall – the main hall of the temple. The three biggest copper Buddhist statues placed there are among the biggest and most ancient Buddhist statues in Guangdong. In the center is Sakyamuni; to the left, the Amitabha; and to the right, the Apothecary. Together, they represent for present, past, and future.

Burning incense sticks is a major part of visiting the temple and paying respect. Thus, every year on the night before the Chinese traditional Spring Festival and Lantern Festival, the temple swarms with people. Masses queue to light and burn the first joss sticks so that they are blessed with good fortune in the coming year.

Nowadays, the temple’s proximity to foreign consulates in Guangzou has made it a regular destination for families participating in the international adoption of children from China. Typically families receive blessings for their newly adopted children at this temple in front of the statue of Kuan Yin.

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 or .
Read on »

Today’s photos of the day come from Guangdong and Yunnan Province.

今天的图片来自广东省和云南省

The first photo is from Colin and is called “A Long and Beautiful Sunset.” It was taken at Maofeng Mountain in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province:

这张来自Ｃｏｌｉｎ的图片叫“夕阳无限好”，拍摄于广东广州的帽风山。

The second photo is from a reader nicknamed March. The photo, named “Bus Station Waiting Room,” was taken in Huizhou City, Guangdong Province．　You can see more pictures here:

第二张图片来自一位呢称叫“只是三月”的朋友，这张相片名为“离开的候车室”，拍摄于广东省惠州市。

The third photo today, know as “Yunnan Sunflower,” is from a reader named Jade:

今天的第三张照片是来自一位名为Jａｄｅ的读者，相片名为“云南向日葵”

Again, we welcome you to vote today for your favorite photo:

还是老样子，我们继续欢迎你为你最喜欢的相片投上一票。

[poll=5]

Send your favorite to number 1. Keep watching us for more dreams and more photos coming soon. And send your photos to .

支持你最喜欢的相片夺冠。请继续关注我们，更多的梦想和图片即将登场。同时，你可以把你自己的图片发到这个邮箱

The Chinese province of Guangdong is located in the southernmost part of the country. With its location on the South China Sea(南中國海), it is a natural entry point to South China. It is bordered by Jiangxi (江西) and Hunan (湖南) provinces to the north, Fujian (福建) province to the east, and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region (广西壮族自治区) to the west. Guangdong province also claims 651 islands, many of which are located in the Pearl River Delta (珠江三角洲). Many of the rivers in the area feed into this delta and flow out into the South China Sea.

The provincial capital, Guangzhou (广州), was known in the West as Canton. The word “guang” (广) means “expanse,” and “Guangdong” refers to “expanse east.” Guangond, together with Guangxi, are known as the “dual guangs” (两广). While Guangdong province got its name during the Ming Dynasty (明朝), the area had been a coastal trade area long before then. When the West began trading with China (via Portugese, Dutch, and British traders), Guangzhou and Guangdong province was a center of trade and the comprador (买办) system. The Opium Wars, begun as a result of the opium trade, flourished at Guangzhou and resulted in the loss of Hong Kong to British control. Guangzhou today retains its status as an important center for China’s international business and trade, and many of its famous businesses and areas, like the White Swan Hotel (白天鹅宾馆) and Shamian Island (沙面岛), highlight this internationalism.

Many Chinese immigrants who came to the United States and Canada in the 1800s left China from Guangdong province. While the majority of people who live in Guangdong are ethnically Han (汉), the largest single ethnic group worldwide, Guangdong does have a diverse multi-cultural makeup, with people from forty-two different ethnic groups all living in the province. Many Chinese dialects are spoken, though most people speak Mandarin or Cantonese.

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Guangdong features a subtropical climate of high humidity and hot weather in the summer, so it is best to visit during the spring and fall months. Due to its geography and weather, Guangdong produces most of the area’s 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.

Light industry has brought an economic boom to Guangdong that has given the province the highest GDP of any province (over 12% of China’s total GDP, and reported by some sources as high as 33% percent of China’s GDP). Guangdong is also responsible for a total third of all the imports and exports occurring in China. Food processing, including sugar refining, as well as textile manufacturing and weaving, are all major industries here. Heavy industrial pursuits include shipbuilding and repair and machine manufacturing, among others.

Guangdong is famous for its Cantonese cuisine, and many of the foods that Americans and Canadians have come to think of as “Chinese food”—dim sum, fried rice, lo mein noodles, chop suey, bok choi, and wontons, for example—are based on foods and dishes that originated in Guangdong. While Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is quoted as saying, “If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it,” Guangdong food (广东菜) is truly one of the most enjoyable parts of south China. Because Guangzhou was a major trading port, international visitors through the years have introduced a wide variety of foods to the city, adding to the diversity within the cuisine. The freshest ingredients, mildly spiced, are favored, and the flavors are brought to their greatest impact with steaming, stir- and deep frying. Seafood is also often featured.

Visitors to Guangdong province can enjoy the scenic beauty of the Danxia(丹霞山), Luofu(羅浮山), and Dinghu(鼎湖山) mountains. Traveling to Guangzhou allows for scenic visits to Yuexiu Park (越秀公园), as well as the ancient Buddhist Temple of the Six Banyan Trees (刘榕寺). Many other beautiful temples are in Guangdong, including the Nanhua Temple (南华寺) located in Shaoguan(韶关). And for history and culture, the Guangdong Provincial Museum in Guangzhou offers examples of Chaozhou(潮州) wood carving, ceramic figures, old Chinese pottery and traditional Chinese calligraphy posters. A trip here means you can enjoy the best of Guangdong culture, ancient and modern.

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:

1. Take this list of 8 blogs and put them in a post on your blog. The first three blogs, Onemanbandwidth, The China Dreamblogue, and Sinotrading, remain on the list.
2. At the top of the moveable list, put a link to your blog.
3. Remove the link from the bottom of blog.
4. Send your updated list to at least five other people.
5. If you want, create a new moveable list of five blogs you think deserve some links. Be kind and include the permanent list as well.

Perma-List:

• Onemanbandwidth
• The China Dreamblogue
• Sinotrading

The Moveable list:

• The Hao Hao Report
• East South North West
• The Cal Poly MBA Trip
• China Law Blog
• The Opposite End of China

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：

1. 按照以下的说明列两组博客的目录然后放到您的博客上。第一组名单是三个固定的博客：Onemanbandwidth, The China Dreamblogue, 和Sinotrading。这三个博客的连接必须永远的保留和不可改变。
2. 在第二组上，把您自己的博客连接放在目录的第一位上。
3. 把所有在第二组目录上的连接排名依次向下移动一位。即排第一的移到第二位，排第二的移到第三位等等（第五位的移到第一位）。
4. 这就是说排第五的应该要完成一个循坏回到第五的位置上。
5. 将你的更新了的列表发给至少5个其他博客。您发的越多，您就能获得更多的链接。如果您有一百个人，那就快点去做吧。
6. 如果您想的话，还可以另外创建一个您认为有价值的列表。请也同样包括那个不变名单（即onemanbandwidth, china dreamblogue 和 sinotrading）

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）：

Onemanbandwidth

The China Dreamblogue

Sinotrading

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！