Guilin, Customs and Culture

Guilin City is located in the southwestern part of the Nanling Mountain System, with an average elevation of 150 meters above sea level, is a typical "karst" karst landforms, the limestone throughout the city after hundreds of millions of years of weathering and erosion, forming a thousand peaks around the standing, a water embracing the city, the cave strange stone beauty of the unique landscape, is known as "Guilin landscape The landscape of Guilin is known as "the most beautiful in the world". The most representative attractions are: Elephant Trunk Hill, Fubo Hill, Nanxi Hill, Yao Hill, Duxiu Peak, Seven Star Rock, Ludi Rock, Caipi Rock, Guanyan Rock, Ming Dynasty King City, Banyan Lake, Cedar Lake, etc. The Lijiang River, as we call it, has a unique landscape with thousands of peaks surrounded by water, caves and rocks. While the most wonderful section of the Li River landscape we are talking about is within the territory of Yangshuo, there are countless beautiful scenery in other counties of Guilin waiting for us to go and browse, Longji Terraces, Xing'an Spirit Drainage Canal, and Zijiang River Rafting will all bring you more surprises.

Guilin is an ancient city of culture. More than 2,000 years of history have given it a rich cultural heritage. After the Qin Shi Huang unified the country of thought, he set up Guilin County and dug the Lingqu River to communicate Xiangjiang and Li River. Since then, Guilin has become an important town connecting the sea in the south and the Central Plains in the north. After the Song Dynasty, it has been the center of Guangxi's politics, economy and culture, and was called "the capital of Southwest China" until the establishment of New China. In the long years, Guilin's marvelous mountains and beautiful water attracted countless literati, making them write many popular poems and articles, carved more than 2,000 pieces of stone carvings and wall books, in addition, history has left many monuments and sites here. These unique humanistic landscapes have made Guilin praised as "visiting mountains is like reading history, and seeing mountains is like watching paintings". During the Anti-Japanese War, Guilin became a famous cultural city in China, where many patriotic writers and artists gathered to write a new chapter of anti-Japanese culture. The long history has bred a rich culture for this ancient and beautiful land.

For thousands of years, Guilin has been a treasure place for people to travel and sightsee. Now, a scenic area centered on Guilin City and encompassing 12 surrounding counties has been formed. There are vast and verdant virgin forests, majestic and precipitous peaks and valleys, torrential streams and waterfalls, and the world's most wondrous alpine terraces ...... More than ten ethnic minorities, including Zhuang, Yao, Miao, Dong, Mulao and Maonan, live in this marvelous land. The natural scenery, ethnic customs, history and culture of Da Guilin y attract Chinese and foreign tourists as well as heads of state to come and go.

Best Time to Visit

Guilin is at a relatively low latitude and has a humid monsoon climate in the central subtropics. Overall, Guilin has a mild climate with four distinct seasons and favorable climatic conditions. The average annual temperature is 19.3 ℃, "three winters with little snow, four seasons with flowers". The best season to travel to Guilin is from April to October every year, during which there will be two golden weeks, "May Day" and "November", which is also the peak period of tourism, and there will be a lot of tourists in Guilin with a suitable climate, and the booking of rooms and transportation will also enter into a climax, and the price will be higher than usual. Prices are higher than usual, so it is best to avoid this time, choose an off-season trip, and savor the beauty of the world.

Specialty food and drink

Guilin's food is well known in the country, the local flavor is unique, set of hot and sour Hunan cuisine and light Cantonese cuisine flavors in one, Guilin people's home cooking is influenced by Hunan cuisine is relatively large, almost meals can not be separated from the hot and sour, the restaurant naturally to adapt to the taste of the people of Guilin as the first choice. Of course, with the continuous development of tourism, the types of food and beverage is also more and more, Huaiyang Cuisine, Minnan Cuisine, Chaozhou Cuisine, Northwest Local Cuisine, Guangxi Minority Cuisine and so on have also formed a climate in Guilin. Fashionable catering is also quietly emerging in Guilin, with authentic Western and Chinese simple food, loved by young people.

Guilin's street food is even better, with the aroma of lotus leaves emanating from glutinous rice chicken wafting through the streets. Guilin rice noodles must not be tasted, there are lettuce noodles, beef brisket noodles, three fresh noodles, original soup noodles, brine noodles, hot and sour noodles, horse meat rice noodles, etc., the city's hundreds of rice noodle stores, each with different tastes, and some are even open all night. Its bone broth base is boiled at the crack of dawn and has a mellow flavor. The chef will cut up the marinated meat for you, serve it with fragrant peanuts and scallions, and then drizzle it with the broth, which tastes really good.

Food Streets

Guilin has six main food streets: the Binjiang Road Food Street (from the Fubo Mountain section to the Elephant Trunk Hill), the Jiefang West Road Food Street, the Putuo Road Food Street (at the Chaoyang intersection), the Guilin Gourmet City (200 meters to the left of the bus station), the Pheasant Hill Road Food Street (across from the Gourmet City), and, the most famous, the Guiliners' Mongkok Food Street (near the clock tower in Central Square).

Shopping

In , tour guides often take tourists to buy Guilin tourist souvenirs. The Guilin Municipal Tourism Bureau has a licensed national appraisal office at the jewelry on sale, so you can complain and claim compensation if you are selling fake goods. Since Guilin produces gemstones, inexpensive jewelry is available for sale at places like Mopan Mountain Pier. When buying these souvenirs, be sure to bargain, usually up to 50 percent or less of the list price.

Guilin has many famous local specialties, such as Shatian pomelo, summer oranges, luohan fruit, white fruits, Lipu taro and so on, in addition to Gui embroidery, comb, paper umbrellas, hand-painted screens and so on to choose from. But in any case, to Guilin, at least to buy some of the "three treasures of Guilin" in the same bring back.

Marble products Guihua tea Guihua wine kumquats Gold and silver jewelry Metal crafts Chili sauce Lipu taro Lohan fruit Horseshoe Mango handicrafts Mao Jian tea Nan sugar Sanshua wine Watermelon cream Yangshuo chestnuts Yangshuo fans Ginkgo jade carving Round bamboo bamboo bamboo carving artwork emerald curd Shatian pomelo persimmon flower Wutong sugar cane Porcelain carving

Featured activities

Guilin has a lot of ethnic minorities and a large number of folk festivals. Activities are also particularly rich in flavorful customs, has become a major tourist attraction in the region. Folk festivals of various ethnic groups, such as the Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, etc., will be celebrated here, bustling with activity. But the most wonderful is undoubtedly the unique festivals of various ethnic groups.

Guilin Landscape Tourism Festival October-December

Guilin Municipal People's Government in order to improve the visibility of tourism in Guilin, enhance tourism in Guilin, to attract tourists, in order to organize an annual tourism festival in the off-season of the year (October ~ December minutes). 1992 began to hold the Landscape Tourism Festival, the festival not only enriches the tourist life of the tourists, and more and more popular with tourists from home and abroad. The festival has become more and more popular among Chinese and foreign tourists.

March 3, the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar

March 3 is a traditional song festival of the Zhuang people, also known as the "Song Wei Festival", "songwoman festival", divided into day song Wei and night song Wei. Now the government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has designated the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar every year as the Zhuang Song Festival, which is gradually developing into the "March 3" cultural and arts festival.

Miao Nian

Miao Nian is a traditional festival of the Miao people. On the morning of the festival, firecrackers are set off, three in a row, in order to celebrate. During the festival, people visit friends and relatives to congratulate each other. Some places hold grand bullfights and horse races. Among them, the Lusheng Stomping Hall activity is the most wonderful, at that time, the young man Lusheng loud and clear, pleasant to the ear, the girls dressed in festive costumes, wearing dragon and phoenix silver horns, silver hairpins, silver combs, stepping on the sheng song beat, dancing. By stepping on the hall, young men and women are free to choose their couples. The time of the Miao New Year varies from place to place, basically after the end of the fall harvest.

Flower Cannon Festival

The traditional folk festival of the Dong ethnic group, on this day, flower cannons are set off, with the first one signifying prosperity of the people, the second congratulations for wealth, and the third one for a good harvest. After the firecrackers, young men and women get together to play the lusheng and dance. At night, bonfires are lit, and there are singing Dong opera and free songs, a lot of laughter. The date of the Flower Cannon Festival varies from place to place, from the first month to October. Sanjiang Dong Autonomous County is on the third day of the first month (in the lunar calendar, the same below), Meilin is on the second day of February, Fulu is on the third day of March, and Linxi is on the 26th day of October, so it depends on your luck whether or not you can stumble upon it.

Ban Wind Festival 20th day of the first month of the lunar calendar

The traditional festival of Yaoxuan in Miaoping, Lingui County, Guilin City. Legend has it that in ancient times, the wind god was angry and the villages were affected. A fairy instructed the people to ban the sound and wind on the 20th day of the first month, and sacrificed to the wind god, which was really effective, and this day became the festival of banning the wind. Before the festival, people used straw to tie some crosses, pressed them to the corners of the fields and hung them on the eaves of the houses. During the festival, all sound is prohibited, even drying clothes can only be laid on the grass, in order to avoid the noise made by people coming and going, the whole village are away from home to the temple ping Wei to celebrate the festival. Festival activities are colorful, banging gongs and drums, lion dance and opera, nightfall, singing songs. The original is forbidden sound and wind of the day, into the Temple Ping Wei a joyful event.

Local Travel Notes

Dining Tips: There are five major food streets in Guilin, namely, the Binjiang Road Food Street (the section from Fubo Mountain to Elephant Trunk Hill), the West Jiefang Road Food Street, the Putuo Road Food Street (Chaoyang Intersection), the Gourmet City (200 meters to the left of the bus station), and the Pheasant Hill Road Food Street (across from the Gourmet City). The most famous food street is near the clock tower in the center square.