By Tom Daniel Sari

Mr.Tom Daniel Sari. (COURTESY PHOTO)

I'm Tom Daniel Sari and work in Beijing for a large financial consultancy. I've been working across China since 2018 and have visited many areas with their unique features. These include Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi & Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu, Guizhou, Taiwan and Chongqing. I could reminisce for days about what is beautiful about all these areas in particular and China overall, but let's be more concise.

One reason why I have always admired Chinese culture is the great variety that is present and the different ways this is shown by both the people and the environment. Let me give you a few examples. Inner Mongolia is a very industrious and vast region in China. When I visited Hohhot and Baotou for business, I talked to one local person on the train and learned that there are few foreigners in this region. Yet despite this, while there I was treated with kindness from the locals and never felt threatened, excluded, or unwelcome. I would have missed the chance to appreciate the great grass plains of Inner Mongolia had I not spoken to the man on the train and exchanged contacts.

The same is true for the southern province Guizhou, with beautiful nature and warm-hearted people. In Guiyang, you can drive out of this city for 15 minutes and find yourself in fantastic nature with much fewer tourists than Yunnan – worth a visit for your next vacation.

To focus more on the environmental aspect of what makes Chinese culture beautiful in my eyes, every province of China has its own distinct features and effective ways to preserve nature. Huangguoshu in Guizhou is a large waterfall and national park about 100 kilometers south of Guiyang. To let visitors appreciate this natural beauty there is a whole garden area similar to Suzhou Gardens, including various pavilions and classic southern Chinese architecture mixed in with the local minority's characteristics. This harmony of overall Chinese design, which is influenced by cultures of all 56 ethnic groups and regional specialties, is what make China and its culture not only beautiful but unique.

Every province is part of something greater, but has its own regional specialties and harmonizes into something new. Experiencing China feels like visiting a continent, not a single country.

Of course, you cannot talk about what is beautiful about Chinese culture without mentioning the food. There are too many examples to mention, as every region has its delicious specialties, and I've been trying to eat all of them. One of my favorite dishes is a pungent but delicious dish called Luoshifen (noodle soup), a famous traditional dish in Guangxi. I recommend everyone give it a try – don't be afraid of its unique smell!

The author is from Germany and works for McKinsey & Company, Beijing.