Chaoshan Travel Guide: Porcelain Mosaic Temples, Overseas Letters, and the Yingge Dance — A Lunar New Year Cultural Experience

Chaoshan Isn't a City — It's a Way of Life

Like many people, I assumed "Chaoshan" was a single city before I visited. In reality, it's a cultural region comprising three cities — Chaozhou, Shantou, and Jieyang — covering roughly 10,600 square kilometers. That's smaller than Hangzhou, yet home to approximately 14 million people.

Located in eastern Guangdong Province, Chaoshan faces the Taiwan Strait to the east and backs up against the Lianhua Mountains to the north. It's one of the most densely populated areas in China, with around 1,300 people per square kilometer — far above the national average. Although the three cities are administratively independent, they share a remarkably unified culture in language (Chaoshan dialect, a branch of the Southern Min language family), cuisine, folk customs, and clan traditions, forming a unique cultural community. Historically, limited farmland, overpopulation, and frequent natural disasters drove massive emigration overseas, creating a vast global diaspora — an estimated 15 million overseas Chaoshan Chinese, roughly equal to the local population.

When most people think of Chaoshan, they picture beef hotpot, rice noodle rolls, and an overwhelming array of street snacks. But when you actually set foot here, the first thing that hits you isn't a flavor — it's an overwhelming sense of unhurried calm.

Shops open at five in the morning and close by three in the afternoon. Gongfu tea setups are everywhere on the streets, always with three cups arranged to form the Chinese character "品" (pǐn, meaning "to savor") — which is why locals say they "savor tea" rather than simply "drink" it. A stranger passing by wants a cup? The uncles and aunties won't hesitate for a second — it's the most natural thing in the world here. The relentless pace of modern life seems to never quite reach this place.

Chaoshan gongfu tea is far more than a casual drink — it's a complete social etiquette system. The word "gongfu" (功夫) refers to the skill and time invested in brewing. A proper Chaoshan gongfu tea setup uses a red clay teapot (often Yixing purple clay or a locally hand-pulled pot) and Ruoshen cups (white porcelain cups as small as walnuts), with over a dozen steps in the brewing process including "pouring high, serving low" and "skimming foam and rinsing the lid." The three-cup arrangement isn't just a visual pun — it embodies the philosophy of "three for tea, four for wine." No matter how many guests arrive, only three cups are used in rotation, expressing a spirit of equality and sharing.

Chaoshan Ancestral Halls: The Clan Spirit Behind Multi-Million-Dollar Temples

Just when you think "simplicity" defines Chaoshan, step inside an ancestral hall and that notion is instantly shattered.

Clan temple culture runs extraordinarily deep here. Every surname, every village builds its own ancestral hall for worshipping ancestors, conducting clan affairs, and maintaining genealogical records. The level of craftsmanship directly reflects a family's wealth — a top-tier ancestral hall can easily cost tens of millions or even over a hundred million yuan to build.

Jian Ci (Porcelain Mosaic): Chaoshan's Unique Maximalist Aesthetic

The temple rooftops feature a craft called "jian ci" (嵌瓷, porcelain mosaic): colorful porcelain pieces are shattered, then painstakingly glued back together by hand, one fragment at a time. This isn't merely decorative — it's practical wisdom. Chaoshan's heavy rainfall causes wood carvings to rot quickly, while porcelain mosaics can last for generations. Those shimmering ceramic fragments refract astonishing colors in the sunlight, creating what can only be described as Chaoshan's signature "maximalist aesthetic."

Jian ci (also known as "cut porcelain sculpture" or "paste porcelain") originated during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, giving it over 400 years of history. Artisans first sculpt a basic form from lime putty, then break colorful porcelain bowls and plates into specifically shaped fragments, adhering them piece by piece with glutinous rice mortar. A single rooftop mosaic can require several craftsmen working for months or even years. Common motifs include opera characters, flowers, birds, fish, insects, dragons, phoenixes, and qilin — all auspicious symbols. In 2008, Chaozhou jian ci was inscribed on China's National Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Thanks to the exceptional weather resistance of porcelain — impervious to rain, wind, and UV radiation — these works remain vivid even after a century.

The Hidden Function of Ancestral Halls: Clan Mutual Aid and Fundraising for the Nanyang Voyage

The significance of ancestral halls goes far beyond architectural beauty. In the past, they functioned more like community financial institutions. When Chaoshan people set out for Nanyang (Southeast Asia), a single family couldn't afford a boat ticket — the entire clan had to pool resources. Of every ten people who sailed for Nanyang, perhaps only four survived the journey. And the lucky one who succeeded was expected to share earnings with siblings, aunts, and uncles back home.

"Going to Nanyang" (下南洋) refers to the massive wave of emigration from China's southeastern coast to Southeast Asia from the mid-19th to mid-20th century. Chaoshan people were among the primary groups in this migration, heading mainly to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Conditions on the ocean voyages were brutal — emigrants traveled on "red-headed boats" (named for their red-painted bows) and frequently encountered typhoons, epidemics, and pirates, resulting in extremely high mortality rates. Upon arrival, most overseas Chinese worked as laborers or street vendors, and it took generations of struggle to gain a foothold. Thailand's CP Group (the Xie family) and Singapore's Ng Teng Fong family are prominent examples of successful Chaoshan diaspora entrepreneurs.

This heavy burden of responsibility? Chaoshan people don't see it as suffering. They simply say: "I contributed to the family. I kept everyone from suffering too much."

Licorice Fruits and Yingge Dance: Sensory Experiences Pushed to the Extreme

Locals say Chaoshan has two kinds of "addictive poisons": one is raw marinated seafood, and the other is licorice-preserved fruit.

Licorice Fruits: A Taste Reversal from Bitter to Sweet

Olive fruit (gan lan) and Indian gooseberry (you gan) are the most iconic licorice fruits. The first bite is so astringent it makes you question reality — "a hundred times more astringent than the most astringent thing you've ever tasted." But miraculously, a few seconds later, a wave of sweetness floods your mouth. This dramatic reversal from bitter to sweet costs only about 20 yuan for a huge bowl, with sour, sweet, and salty flavors exploding simultaneously — an experience you'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.

Yingge Dance: A Thundering Spectacle from Street to Alley

In Jieyang, the one thing you absolutely cannot miss is Chaoshan's most iconic traditional dance — the Yingge Dance. This folk dance, inspired by the classic novel Water Margin, is performed from the first day of the Lunar New Year through the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth. Troupes can number over a hundred performers, dancing from one end of the street to the other. "Until you see it in person, you can't imagine what it feels like — their battle cries, the pounding of gongs and drums, hit you right in the soul."

Yingge Dance has been called "China's war dance" and was inscribed on the first National Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2006. Dancers portray the Liangshan heroes from Water Margin storming Daming Prefecture, their faces painted with colorful opera-style makeup, wielding pairs of short wooden sticks (symbolizing weapons) in choreographed combat sequences set to intense drumbeats. The dance is divided into the "front shed" (martial dance) and "back shed" (comic skits) — the front shed is powerful and thunderous, while the back shed is humorous and lighthearted. Based on tempo, there are three schools: slow, medium, and fast. Yingge troupes are typically composed of young men from the village, with selection and rehearsals taking months — a powerful expression of clan solidarity. During the 2024 Spring Festival, Chaoshan Yingge Dance videos went viral on social media, with individual clips racking up hundreds of millions of views. Netizens dubbed it "the most electrifying Chinese New Year tradition."

Beyond Yingge Dance, there are jaw-dropping traditions like tower burning and fire dragon parades. In Chaoshan, the "spirit of the New Year" isn't an abstract concept — it takes vivid, tangible form.

Qiaopi: A Family Letter Preserved for 80 Years That Pierces Through Time

The most moving part of the entire journey came from a 95-year-old grandfather. His father was one of the overseas Chinese who sailed to Nanyang, and one of the real-life inspirations for the film A Letter to A'ma.

The grandfather said he never once met his father in his entire life. His father left for Nanyang in his thirties, and after the boy was born, his mother raised several children alone in Chaoshan. It wasn't until he was twelve that he received his father's first qiaopi — a combined letter and remittance sent by overseas Chinese back to their families. The day it arrived, he and his mother held each other and wept.

Qiaopi (侨批 — "pi" means "letter" in Chaoshan dialect) is a unique type of document combining personal correspondence with monetary remittances, delivered by specialized "pi bureaus" (private postal and exchange agencies). From the mid-19th century through the 1970s, qiaopi were the sole lifeline connecting overseas Chinese with their families back home, and the primary source of income for those left behind. In 2013, the "Qiaopi Archives" were inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, alongside Erta Materia Medica and Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Approximately 160,000 qiaopi survive today, the vast majority from Chaoshan. These yellowed letters document not only personal joys and sorrows but also serve as invaluable primary sources for studying modern Chinese migration history, financial history, and social history.

The grandfather has kept that qiaopi to this day — preserved for over 80 years. His father passed away in Thailand in 1969. Though the father and mother spent very little time together in life, in death they were finally "reunited."

When the grandfather read aloud the words his father had written, the century-old text was mostly about the mundane details of daily life — no flowery language, yet carrying a power that pierces through time. It's hard to fathom the resolve and helplessness of that older generation of Chaoshan people who entrusted their fate to the sea, and even harder to imagine how the families left behind endured each long day of waiting.

Why Chaoshan Is an Underrated Travel Destination

Chaoshan isn't just about food — though the food is indeed endless and remarkably affordable. More importantly, this region preserves something increasingly rare in the rest of China: a complete, living traditional way of life.

The unhurried calm of gongfu tea, the clan solidarity embodied in ancestral halls, the festive ecstasy of Yingge Dance, the deep family-and-homeland sentiments carried in qiaopi — these elements weave together into Chaoshan's unique cultural fabric. This isn't a museum exhibit. It's alive, practiced daily by the people who call this place home.

If you haven't been to Chaoshan yet, I'd suggest going during the Spring Festival. When the gongs and drums of the Yingge Dance thunder to life, when the flames of the burning tower light up the night sky, you'll truly understand what "the spirit of Chinese New Year" means.