What to Do in China
14 experiences that reveal the real China — not the checklist version. Eat, make, move, watch, and stay your way through a country that rewards curiosity over planning.
The best China stories do not start with "we saw the…" They start with "we tried…" or "we learned…" or "we got completely lost and then…"
Taste & Sip
China is a civilisation built on food. These are the meals that matter.
Master the Art of Hot Pot
Hot pot is not a meal — it is an event. A bubbling cauldron of chilli-laced broth (mala, 麻辣: numbing and spicy) in the centre of the table, plates of thinly sliced beef, handmade noodles, lotus root, tofu skin, and quail eggs arranged around it. You cook each mouthful yourself, dip it in sesame oil and garlic, and chase it with cold beer or sour-plum juice. The Chongqing version uses beef tallow; Chengdu leans towards clarified oil. Both are transcendent.
Learn a Tea Ceremony
Chinese tea culture is ancient, nuanced, and nothing like the tea bag you know. In Wuyishan (Fujian), you can sit with a tea master in a mountainside studio and learn to brew Dahongpao (大红袍) — a legendary rock oolong worth more than gold by weight — using the gongfu (功夫) method. In Hangzhou, it is Longjing (龙井) green tea by West Lake. In Chengdu, the ritual is simpler: a covered bowl (盖碗) of jasmine tea in a bamboo chair in a park, while the world slows down around you.
Cook Chinese Food in a Hutong Courtyard
Start at a wet market in the morning — your chef-guide navigates the chaos of live seafood, towering vegetable piles, and spice merchants who grind five-spice powder to order. Then retreat to a restored courtyard house (siheyuan, 四合院) in one of Beijing's remaining hutong lanes. You will fold dumplings (饺子), stir-fry kung pao chicken (宫保鸡丁), and master the wrist-flick of a proper wok on a jet-engine gas burner. Then you eat everything you made, at a table in the courtyard, with Tsingtao beer.
Move & Explore
China rewards movement. Here is where to point your feet — and sometimes your wheels.
Ride China's Bullet Train at 350 km/h
The world's largest high-speed rail network is a destination in its own right. Settle into a first-class seat (wider, quieter, ¥950 Beijing–Shanghai), watch the countryside blur past at 350 km/h — winter wheat fields giving way to mountains, then megacities — and arrive precisely on time. The Fuxing (复兴号) trains have English signage, spotless toilets, and a dining car serving hot meals. It is the most civilised way to cross a vast country, and it makes everything on this page accessible.
Cycle the Xi'an City Wall at Dusk
Xi'an's Ming-dynasty city wall is the most complete ancient fortification in China — 14 kilometres around, 12 metres high, wide enough to ride a bike on top. Rent a bicycle at the South Gate (¥45 for 2 hours), start pedalling about 90 minutes before sunset, and watch the old city glow gold as the sun drops behind the Bell Tower. Below you, drum performances echo from the Muslim Quarter. Above you, kites drift lazily. It is the single best thing to do in Xi'an that is not the Terracotta Warriors.
Bamboo Raft Down the Yulong River
Forget the motorised Li River cruise — the Yulong River (遇龙河) is a quieter tributary where bamboo rafts are still poled by hand by local boatmen. You lie back on a reclining chair as the raft glides past karst peaks reflected perfectly in the jade-green water, dragonflies skimming the surface, water buffalo grazing on the banks. It takes about 90 minutes from Jinlong Bridge to Gongnong Bridge, and it is so peaceful you will forget to take photos.
Trek Tiger Leaping Gorge Moderate
One of the deepest river canyons on Earth — the Jinsha River (upper Yangtze) thunders through a gorge 3,790 metres from river to peak, with Jade Dragon Snow Mountain on one side and Haba Snow Mountain on the other. The high trail is a 2-day walk through Tibetan villages, walnut groves, and guesthouses where you sleep in view of the peaks. It is accessible to anyone with moderate fitness, no technical climbing required, and the Naxi Family Guesthouse at halfway serves the best fried rice you will ever eat at altitude.
Make & Create
The best souvenirs are the ones you made yourself — or were measured for.
Make Porcelain in Jingdezhen
Sit at a potter's wheel in the city that invented porcelain. Under the guidance of a master ceramicist, you will throw your own bowl or cup using clay from the same deposits that supplied the imperial kilns for centuries. Most workshops run 2–3 hours — you learn centring, pulling, shaping, and basic glazing. Your piece is fired and shipped to you (or picked up a few days later). Jingdezhen's Taoxichuan Art District is full of studios, galleries, and cafes in repurposed factory buildings — worth a full day of wandering.
Get a Custom Qipao / Cheongsam Made
The Shanghai fabric market is legendary for a reason: you can walk in, choose a bolt of silk, get measured by a tailor who has been doing this for 30 years, and collect a perfectly fitted qipao (cheongsam) two days later — for ¥300–800. It is the closest thing to Chinese haute couture at high-street prices. The same tailors can make suits, dresses, and coats. This is the Xiaohongshu "贵替游" trend made physical: luxury craftsmanship at prices that feel like a mistake.
Watch & Learn
Performances and practices that have been refined over centuries — and still stun today.
Watch Sichuan Opera Face-Changing
Bian Lian (变脸 — "face-changing") is a Sichuan opera technique where performers switch vividly painted silk masks in a fraction of a second — a flick of the head, a wave of the hand, and the face transforms. Nobody outside the tradition knows exactly how it is done. The best place to see it is in a traditional Chengdu teahouse: Shufeng Yayun (蜀风雅韵) on Qintai Road is the classic choice, where you sit at wooden tables sipping jasmine tea while masked dancers, shadow puppeteers, and fire-spitters take the stage. It is pure theatre, utterly unpolished, and unforgettable.
Join a Tai Chi Session at Dawn
Every morning at 6:30, the parks of China fill with people moving in slow, deliberate synchronisation — arms tracing arcs, knees bending gently, bodies flowing like water. This is tai chi (太极拳), an ancient martial art practised as moving meditation. At the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, you can join a small group led by a local master who will teach you the first eight forms of the Yang style in 60 minutes. No fitness required, no special clothes. Just show up and let someone who has been doing this for 40 years show you how to breathe.
Stay & Immerse
Sleep somewhere you will remember for the rest of your life.
Sleep Inside a Tulou Earthen Building
The Fujian Tulou are massive circular earthen fortresses built by the Hakka people between the 12th and 20th centuries — entire villages under one roof, with walls up to 1.8 metres thick. Several have been converted into guesthouses: you sleep in a wooden room looking down into the central courtyard, eat home-cooked Hakka meals with the family that still lives there, and wake up to roosters and mist in the tea terraces. Tianluokeng (田螺坑), with its "four dishes and a soup" layout of five clustered buildings, is the most photographed. Stay in the less-visited Chuxi (初溪) for a quieter experience.
Camp Under Desert Stars near Dunhuang
The Gobi Desert at night is a revelation: zero light pollution, the Milky Way so bright it casts shadows, and absolute silence broken only by the whisper of sand shifting in the wind. Desert camps near Dunhuang offer glamping tents with proper mattresses, local dinners of lamb skewers and flatbread cooked over a fire, and late-night dune walks under a sky that looks like a planetarium. Wake at 6:00 to climb the highest dune and watch the sun rise over a landscape that has not changed since the Silk Road caravans passed through.
Do the "Cashless Day Challenge"
One of the most-posted Xiaohongshu trends among foreign travellers: spend an entire day in a Chinese city without touching cash. Link your international bank card to Alipay or WeChat Pay, and see how far you get — morning coffee (scanned), subway (scanned), lunch (scanned), street vendor snack (scanned), museum ticket (scanned), evening drinks (scanned). The challenge works because China's mobile payment infrastructure is genuinely ahead of anywhere else: QR codes on every market stall, even at remote temples. The video of a traveller buying roasted sweet potatoes from a cart vendor in a Chengdu alley using just their phone has racked up millions of views.
The Trends Move Fast. We Track Them.
These 14 experiences were selected from thousands of Xiaohongshu posts, local insider knowledge, and direct traveller feedback. China's travel culture evolves monthly — what was niche in January is mainstream by June. EVENTURUS updates this guide each season based on real-time ground intelligence.
Where to go for these experiences → Where to Go in China