Yangzhou city - China

Yangzhou (simplified Chinese: 扬州; traditional Chinese: 揚州; pinyin: Yángzhōu; former spellings: Yang-chou, Yangchow; literally "Rising Prefecture") is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu province, People's Republic of China. Sitting on the northern bank of the Yangtze River, it borders the provincial capital of Nanjing to the southwest, Huai'an to the north, Yancheng to the northeast, Taizhou to the east, and Zhenjiang across the river to the south.
Yangzhou dishes may be one of the reasons why the people of Yangzhou are so infatuated with their city. They have an appealing color, aroma, taste and also appearance. The original color of each ingredient is preserved after cooking, and no oily sauce is added, so as to retain the fresh savor of the food.
In Yangzhou all dishes, whether cheap or expensive, are elaborate. Cooks will not scrimp on their work, even with Zhugansi (stewed sliced dry bean curd), a popular dish that costs only a few yuan. Dry bean curd is made by each restaurant that serves it, so the flavor is guaranteed. The cook slices the 1-cm-thick curd into 30 shreds, each one paper-thin but none broken, and then stews them for hours with chopped bamboo shoots and shelled shrimps in chicken soup. In this way the dry bean curd shreds can soak up the flavor of the other ingredients, and the soup is clear but savory. It is not only Yangzhou cooks but also the ordinary people who are conscientious about cooking. The Yangzhou Dialect (Chinese: 扬州话, Yangzhou Hua) is moderately understandable by an outsider as it does differ a lot from today's standard Mandarin. The Yangzhou Dialect is considered to be the representative dialect of Jiang-huai dialect group 江淮话 within the Mandarin language family. It is regarded by linguists to be very close to the official Mandarin (based on Nanjing dialect) spoken during Ming dynasty and early Qing dynasty.
During a period of prosperity and Imperial favour, the arts of storytelling and painting flourished in Yangzhou. The innovative painter-calligrapher Shitao lived in Yangzhou during the 1680s and again from 1697 until his death in 1707. A later group of painters from that time called the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou are famous throughout China.
Former President of China Jiang Zemin was born and raised in Yangzhou. His middle school is located right across from the public notary's office in Yangzhou.
Yangzhou is famous for its carved lacquerware and jade carvings.
Poet Li Bai (c.700-762) wrote in Seeing Meng Haoran off to Yangzhou from Yellow Crane Pavilion:
At Yellow Crane Pavilion in the west
My old friend says farewell;
In the mist and flowers of spring
He goes down to Yangzhou;
Lonely sail, distant shadow,
Vanish in blue emptiness;
All I see is the great river
Flowing into the far horizon.
Some of China’s most creative and eye catching dishes come from the Yangzhou school of cuisine called Huaiyang (also commonly known as the Weiyang school). Along with Sichuan cuisine, Cantonese cuisine, and Shandong cuisine, Huaiyang cuisine (淮扬菜) is a distinctive and masterful skill that locals are quite proud of.
The city is famous for its public bath houses, lacquerware, jadeware, embroidery, paper-cut, art & crafts velvet flavers.
The city was awarded Habitat Scroll of Honour in 2006.
Yangzhou is also very famous for its toy industry (especially stuffed animals). Many tourists from neighboring cities travel to the city for its good-quality and low-priced toys.
It is worth mentioning that the city is also famous for an ancient folk art called Yangzhou storytelling (扬州评话), which is like Xiangsheng - the traditional Chinese comedic performance. It rose as a performing act during the Ming Dynasty. In the performance, the artist details an interesting historical story to audiences, using Yangzhou dialect. These stories have been edited by artists, so they sound very soul-stirring and funny. The most well-know artist of Yangzhou storytelling was Wang shaotang. His most famous works are The 10 chapters of Wu Song (武十回), The 10 chapters of Song Jiang (宋十回), The 10 chapters of Lu Junyi (卢十回), and The 10 chapters of Shi Xiu (石十回).
Compared with the neighbouring cities of Nanjing and Shanghai, Yangzhou cannot be called a shopping paradise. Perhaps due to its history of more than 2500 years, the Yangzhou city government is fairly strict with new construction proposals in the city center. Consequently, most buildings in downtown area are not taller than 6 stories, which is a big restriction for the development of large department stores.
Nonetheless, you can still find some grand shopping centers around #Wenchangge; the de facto city center. For those fans of big expensive brands, Golden Eagle Shopping center, Wanjiafu department store and Times Square are the easy choice. The new built Living Mall in west end of Yangzhou aims at a higher end of market, which could be seen from the sellers inside, such as Starbucks and Dairy Queen.
Located on the south-west corner of Wenchang Pavilion Roundabout, Yangzhou Golden Eagle Shopping Center is the most up-market store in the city center and features a wide variety of clothes, electronics and jewellery.
Situated diagonally across Wenchangge from Golden Eagle, Wanjiafu Department Store boasts a favourable geographical position. It has a business area of 18,000 square meters with a good selection of clothes.
Located on the west side of the Golden Eagle Shopping center, Times Square attracts thousands of citizens and covers an area of 23,000 square meters. Compared with the previous two shopping centers, Times Square is more like an "American" style mall, with a wide variety of clothing stores, appliances, restaurants, and a cinema. Many young people shop in the basement for cheap fashion. Also, a large book store is located on the top floor. English books could also be found. However, they are not originals.
Jinghua Living Mall or Living City-Recently Yangzhou did get an "American" style mall known as: Living City. The mall is located in the west of the city, about 1 kilometre east to the railway station, across from the Yangzhou Museum. Living City targets high market customers with many global brands. This is perhaps the easiest place in Yangzhou to meet foreigners, what with a Starbucks, Dairy Queen and the highest concentration of restaurents catering to western tastes.
Besides big stores, there are many small clothing outlets lining most of the streets in the city center. Unlike the stores listed above, here you can bargin with the shopkeeper for a better price, and usually the prices are cheaper than for like items in Nanjing or Shanghai.