For the seasoned China traveler, visiting Chinese cities can start to feel all too much like visiting temples. Each may be beautiful and stimulating in its way, but eventually one begins to feel just like another. Take my adopted hometown of Guilin: When it comes to architecture, cuisine and culture, most of the city falls into the generic Chinese urban pattern. But its amazing natural scenery and serene pace of life keep the corners of the mouth raised and have kept me—and a shifting core group of about 15 foreigners—in Guilin for years.
I came to Guilin in 2001 as a foreign student, enjoyed the semester so much that I stayed another term, and returned 2004 to live. What is it about this quiet place that brought me back? The answer: The surroundings foster the imagination, you learn to make your own fun, and Guilin may be the best place in China to enjoy the slower side of life. Fireworks burst on random weekday evenings. There is still a daily naptime from noon to 2:30 when you apologize if you call. Traffic moves in slow motion and lane-by-lane frogger is the standard way to cross the street. You expect to be cut off and merging seems preordained. You are always within a five-minute walk of a little xiaomaibu that contains every item Wal-Mart stocks squeezed into the bed of a pickup
truck. You can live comfortably on 2000 RMB per month and a 5 kuai motorcycle taxi gets you anywhere. The art of daily life is found in the country roads, clean air, limpid rivers, quilted farmland, hundred-year-old banyan trees and undulating dragon's back karsts.
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