Illustration: a child looks out over 1980s Shenzhen mid-construction, holding a toy bus, cranes and scaffolding rising behind a market street

Asia

China

China is not a country or a language but a world.

— Haun Saussy

Place stories in China (Asia).

Map

Each pin marks a place with a story — click through to read it.

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Places

Open a story to find out about a place — its photos, recommendations, and impressions.

Shenzhen
A day trip into mainland China from Hong Kong in 1984, aged four — too young to remember any of it, but not too young to count.