Discover China

The Shenzhen Daily article World Heritage tour in China profiles a three-day train trip from Shenzhen to Fujian Province to experience Hakka culture including the ancient Hakka Tulou community houses.

Fuzhou, capital of East China’s Fujian province, is carrying out an ambitious plan to renovate its 163-kilometer-long urban canal system. The project is expected to re-establish the city’s waterway transport in the next few years, and in the long term its charm as the “Oriental Venice”. Read more in the China Daily article Fuzhou plans to restore the romance of its waterways.

Did you know that the Shenzhen district of Longgang has about 100 historic walled Hakka villages? These fortified towns were built mainly in the mid-to-late Qing Dynasty, and unlike the more famous round “tulou” of Fujian, the villages in Longgang are all built to square plans. To find out more read James Baquet’s Shenzhen Daily article Hakka Houses in Longgang.

Heavy rain has been battering China’s Yunnan, Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong Provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Large numbers of people have been impacted with 379 killed and many more evacuated from their flooded homes and direct economic losses of 82.4 billion yuan, as shown in this CCTV9 Special Report. I send my condolences and thoughts to everyone who has been affected.