Shanghai, Hangzhou & Eastern China

If Northern China is the nation’s political backbone, then Eastern China, historically known as Jiangnan (江南) or “South of the Yangtze River,” is its vibrant, artistic, and commercial heart. For centuries, this has been China’s wealthiest region, a fertile “land of fish and rice,” where great fortunes were made and a culture of profound elegance and sophistication flourished. This is the China of delicate silk, of contemplative scholars’ gardens, of ethereal water towns that seem to float on time itself. It is the landscape that has inspired poets and painters for millennia, yet it is also the undeniable engine of China’s 21st-century economic miracle.

At the center of this dynamism is Shanghai (上海), the “Dragon’s Head.” This is China’s largest city and its glittering face to the world. It is a hyper-modern metropolis that exudes confidence, style, and boundless ambition. Here, the legendary waterfront promenade, The Bund, showcases a stately parade of colonial-era European architecture, a relic of its past as the “Paris of the East.” Across the Huangpu River, the Pudong skyline tells a different story—a futuristic forest of glass and steel, crowned by some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers, that has risen from farmland in a single generation.

Yet, just a short, silent ride away on a high-speed train, you enter another world. You arrive in Hangzhou (杭州), a city Marco Polo once declared to be “without a doubt the finest and most splendid city in the world.” Hangzhou is the region’s poetic soul, a city built around the legendary West Lake (西湖), whose beauty has been the muse of countless artists. Here, the pace slows. You can drift on a wooden boat past mist-shrouded pagodas and causeways shaded by willow trees, experiencing a landscape that feels like a living scroll painting.

This classical ideal of beauty is woven throughout the entire Jiangnan region. It is found in the exquisite classical gardens of Suzhou (苏州), where master designers created miniature universes of rock, water, and bamboo, designed for quiet contemplation. It is felt in the ancient water towns like Wuzhen (乌镇) and Xitang (西塘), where life still revolves around a network of ancient canals, crossed by gracefully arching stone bridges.

To travel through Eastern China is to witness a nation’s past, present, and future all at once. It’s a journey that will dazzle you with its modernity, soothe you with its timeless beauty, and delight you with its world-class cuisine.