Guangdong, Fujian & the Southeast Coast

The far south lay outside the early Chinese world. Its Baiyue peoples were conquered by the Qin, and after the Qin fell a general, Zhao Tuo, founded the kingdom of Nanyue with its capital at Panyu, modern Guangzhou, until the Han absorbed it in 111 BC. Guangzhou became the empire's great southern port, with Arab and Persian merchants settled there under the Tang, while Quanzhou in Fujian — the Zayton of Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta — rose under the Song and Yuan as China's major port for foreign traders. Hainan, long a place of exile for disgraced officials, stayed a frontier island of the Li people.

From 1757 the Qing confined Western trade to Guangzhou under the Canton System, and the tea and opium traffic of its Thirteen Factories led to the First Opium War after Lin Zexu destroyed opium at Humen in 1839. The 1842 treaty ceded Hong Kong and opened Guangzhou, Xiamen and Fuzhou. Earlier, Koxinga had made Xiamen his base before taking Taiwan from the Dutch in 1662.

The coast produced rebels and reformers: Hong Xiuquan of the Taiping and Sun Yat-sen were both Guangdong men, and Guangzhou was the Nationalists' base in the 1920s. Millions of Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew and Hakka emigrants built the Chinese communities of Southeast Asia and beyond. In 1980 Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou and Xiamen became the first Special Economic Zones of Deng's reforms, and Hainan was made a province in 1988. The Kinmen islands, a few kilometres off Xiamen, are administered by the Republic of China (Taiwan) and claimed by the People's Republic.

This is China's most linguistically varied coast. Cantonese is the language of Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta, heard on the street and in Cantonese opera, which is listed as UNESCO intangible heritage; Teochew is spoken around Chaozhou and Shantou, Hokkien (Minnan) around Xiamen and Quanzhou, Fuzhounese in the provincial capital, and Hakka in the hill country of both provinces. Hainan has its own Hainanese speech and the Li and Miao peoples of its mountains. Shenzhen, built by migrants, runs almost entirely in Mandarin.

Folk religion is more visible here than in most of China. The sea goddess Mazu, born according to legend on Meizhou Island in Fujian, is worshipped along the whole coast, and ancestral halls, clan temples and household shrines are everywhere. Lion dances open shops and weddings, dragon-boat races fill the rivers at the Duanwu festival, and Lunar New Year flower markets are a Guangzhou institution. Quanzhou keeps nanyin, an old ballad music, and Chaozhou is the home of gongfu tea, the small-pot brewing ritual.

The southern outlook is commercial and practical, shaped by trade and by relatives abroad. Cantonese take food more seriously than politics, and the region's ties to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia are close in family, language and taste.

Guangdong is China's most populous province, with about 127 million people, and its largest economy. Guangzhou and Shenzhen each have well over 15 million residents; Dongguan, Foshan and Zhuhai complete the Pearl River Delta conurbation now marketed as the Greater Bay Area with Hong Kong and Macau. Shenzhen is the headquarters of Huawei, Tencent and BYD, and the delta's factories make much of the world's electronics. Guangzhou remains a trading city, host to the twice-yearly Canton Fair.

Fujian, with about 40 million people, is greener and more hilly. Fuzhou is the capital and Xiamen, with around 5 million, the pleasantest city, while the Quanzhou–Jinjiang area is known for private manufacturing, especially shoes and sportswear. Hainan, with about 10 million, lives on tourism, tropical farming and a free-trade-port scheme with duty-free shopping, and hosts a space launch centre at Wenchang.

Days start with morning tea in Cantonese cities, and evenings are spent outdoors in the heat. Migrant workers from inland provinces make up a large share of the delta's population, and slowing factory work, high Shenzhen housing costs and typhoon damage are the region's daily concerns.

Cantonese cooking values freshness and restraint. Yum cha, morning tea, brings dim sum — har gow shrimp dumplings, siu mai, cheung fun rice rolls — and the roast-meat shops hang char siu barbecued pork and crisp siu mei goose. Wonton noodles, congee and slow-simmered soups are daily fare, and Shunde, south of Guangzhou, is known for fish dishes and shuang pi nai, a steamed double-skin milk pudding.

Teochew cooking around Chaozhou and Shantou favours braised goose in soy and spices, oyster omelette, and beef hotpot with springy hand-beaten beef balls. Hakka kitchens make salt-baked chicken and stuffed tofu. In Fujian, Fuzhou's fotiaoqiang, "Buddha jumps over the wall", is a rich stew of seafood and meats, while Xiamen has shacha noodles in a spicy shacha sauce, peanut soup and tusun dong, a jelly made from sea worms.

Hainan lists four famous dishes — Wenchang chicken, the ancestor of Hainanese chicken rice, Jiaji duck, Dongshan mutton and Hele crab — and coconut is in everything. Tea is the drink: Tieguanyin oolong from Anxi, Da Hong Pao from the Wuyi Mountains, and Phoenix dancong oolong from the hills near Chaozhou.

Guangzhou's sights mix trade and dynasty: the colonial mansions of Shamian Island, the carved Chen Clan Academy, the Nanyue King's tomb museum, the Canton Tower and a cruise on the Pearl River. Shenzhen offers skyline, museums and Dafen's painters' village; beyond the delta lie the diaolou watchtowers of Kaiping, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the red sandstone cliffs of Mount Danxia in the north of Guangdong. Chaozhou, near the Fujian border, has an old walled centre, the Guangji Bridge of boats and stone piers, Kaiyuan Temple and lanes of teahouses.

Xiamen's great draw is Gulangyu, a car-free island of consulates, villas and a piano museum reached by ferry, with Nanputuo Temple and the seafront on the mainland side. Inland, the Fujian tulou — the Tianluokeng, Chuxi and Hongkeng clusters in Nanjing and Yongding counties — house whole clans behind rammed-earth walls. Quanzhou's mosques, temples and Song-era port sites are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in the north of the province the Wuyi Mountains combine tea gardens, cliffs and bamboo-raft trips on the Nine-Bend River.

Hainan's south coast is the beach country: Sanya's Yalong, Dadonghai and Sanya bays, the Nanshan temple park with its sea-facing statue of Guanyin, and the rocks of Tianya Haijiao, while the island's forested interior rises to Wuzhishan, the Five Finger Mountain.