maybe 5 days chongqing (lots to see in the city, can take day trips to nearby cities and mountains), 5 days shanghai (for day trips to hangzhou and suzhou), 3 days xian, 5 days beijing (if u really want to see ALL the tourist attractions/temples/parks, i did so in 4 days but felt kinda rushed).

Just returned from a 12 day trip to China. 3x4 days Beijing, Chongqing and Shangai. Chongqing was best, very alive city and interesting city in a good vay Shangai also cool, Beijing was my least favourite but its still a must visit for places like great wall, forbiden city, any palace or temple just be prepared for long lines.

December is early winter a little warmer than spring.

4, ?, 3, 2

chongqing and shanghai in dec more like 0-5c while beijing and xian more like nyc

Most restaurants will remain open until 22 o'clock.

don't  be nervous,  use APP Meituan instead

Restaurants in China basically open from 5 pm to 9 pm,if your flight is not late you won"t miss it

As China’s public transport is quite convenient so u can visit a lot of places in less cost of time.

A sample for you to consider.

9/19｜Shanghai｜Skyline, Bund, city buzz, shopping, night life! (Suggest u go INS, 7 floor and clubs at each) >>Train 1h

9/21｜Hangzhou｜West Lake, tea fields, slow pace >>Flight 2.5h

9/22｜Chengdu/Chongqing｜Hotpot, river nights, panda/mountain city >>Train 5h

9/25｜Xi’an｜Terracotta Army, old walls, dynasties >>Train 4.5h

9/27｜Beijing｜Forbidden City, Great Wall

9/30｜Fly home from Beijing

Hi, not sure if it is what you need, but some months ago I posted the detailed itinerary of my 14 days journey to Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai. If you want, have a look, and feel free to ask. https://www.reddit.com/r/travelchina/comments/1er42z4/itinerary_proposal/

maybe you can share a bit about your hobbies or interests a bit. so others can give more related suggestion. And perhaps you already have few citys in mind? For fist time China visitor, the classic destinations are Beijing, Shanghai, and Xian. Recently Chengdu, Chongqing, Zhangjiajie and cities in Yunnan are also popular. What do you like to see?

As a Chinese citizen currently in Canada, I would strongly advice against visiting China Oct 1-7 if you can choose another time. National holiday, everyone would be traveling, way too crowded for people in general, especially for people used to sparse places like Canada.

I suggest returning on October 3rd or 4th. From October 1st to 8th is China's traditional National Day holiday. Everyone is traveling during this period. The peak of the return journey starts on the 6th. I recommend you avoid the peak

Similarly, Singapore and Malaysia also use Beijing Time despite being more accurately in UTC +7

Making the China - Afghanistan border the biggest time zone switch in the world: 3:30h.

Even if it were divided by timezones, something like 75% would live in just one and 95% would live in one of two. As populated as China is, western China is very empty

People on the east are perfectly in sync. Children on the west have lunch time at sunrise. 

West true, but east? Beijing is only one hour later than Tokyo.

Most of the population is in the center or east which is basically only 1-2 timezones anyways

For Zhangjiajie, your pace is doable if your plan is to see the main attraction at the forest park - Avatar mountain. We share a recommended route for ZJJ that covers the park and canyon in 1.5 days, and also the best route to explore Tianmen Mountain that you may find useful.

I’d save the terracotta warriors for a later trip. As it is, you are moving faster than I would choose. Is this your first journey into China? You could see pandas at the Beijing zoo and save the Chengdu stop for a later Sichuan basin trip, taking some time to see Chengdu and perhaps Chongqing. That would allow adding a day to Beijing and to Shanghai, giving leeway for a day trip from Shanghai (an early rail trip to Suzhou for a canalside walk through neighborhoods with stops at waterside cafes could be very pleasant).

This sounds a bit fast paced tbh! China is not the kind of place you want to rush through just to hit all the major highlights, though I understand wanting to make the most out of it!

If you’re in Guangzhou already I would recommend cutting out Chengdu and just spending more time in Guangzhou. There is a lot to see and do there!Chengdu and the surrounding areas IMO are worth more 2 days so would save that for another trip (for ex- pairing it with Chongqing), or you can remove a day in Shanghai and add to Chengdu since Chengdu is (relatively) close to ZJJ so logistically it makes sense to keep it.

If you are a history lover, then Xi’an definitely also deserves at least two days (3 is ideal esp if you enjoy local culture + are a foodie). It is much more than just the terracotta warriors and even then seeing the terracotta warriors IRL is worth it.

No matter what though I personally recommend removing a day from Shanghai and allocating it to another one of the destinations. Shanghai is a cool city and I may be biased here as someone who is from a big city myself, but not much stands out compared to the other places listed.

I work in Chengdu, and it is a good idea to come to Chengdu to see the giant pandas. In addition to that place, you can go to the People's Park, a place with a strong atmosphere of local life. You said to go around the city. I don't know what you like, and I'm not convenient to recommend. If you have more questions, you can ask me. I'm very familiar with Beijing, Chengdu and Xi'an.

That looks like a solid 12-day China plan! Zhangjiajie + Chengdu + Beijing + Shanghai already gives you a great mix of nature, culture, and modern vibes. If the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an are a bucket-list thing for you, you could swap a day from Shanghai (3 days there can feel a bit long unless you’re super into shopping/nightlife). Otherwise, skipping Xi’an is fine since you’re covering a lot already. Overall, your timing seems well-balanced. Check Adotrip and JustTravel for quick guides and tips while on the go!

If your travel date in mid-September, my best recommendation for would be Beijing. Because this time is the best period in Beijing😝main point is👉🏻mild and comfortable temperature 😄great sceneries as well～

Generally the weather is would still be hot and humid. Zhangjiajie is a good choice, with better weather, and not as crowded. 3 days is a good amount of time to spend there. I prefer Sep than Feb.

We shared our itinerary and tips for Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in this post. Think it will be useful if you wanna check out the must-see there.

it's end of summer in most south China, but it could be still a little bit hot. Zhangjiajie is a definitely nice destination, I been there once, enjoyed spectacular scenery there.

It will still be relatively hot, especially in Guangzhou. Depends how you feel with high temperatures and humidity. Yes, Zhangjiajie should be great in September.

Normally Mid-Autumn Festival is in September but it’s in October this year. It might even be a little quieter than previous years.

I live in South China and think February will be a little too cold for most, unless you like cold weather/from a country that is used to cold weather. Guangzhou is just about bearable on most days, freezing in Shanghai and Chengdu. Although you might get the chance to see snow in Zhangjiajie - which is a different experience, but bear in mind it will be even colder at high altitude. Also Spring Festival is in mid-February next year.

You can check out Chongqing (the mountain city/cyber city), which is right between Chengdu and Zhangjiajie. A new bullet train route just opened last week (taking only a few hours). Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing are all 1 hour or less from Shanghai Hongqiao station by bullet train.

I’ve heard September is a great time weather wise

Officially, all of China uses one timezone. However, it becomes impractical for people in places like Urumqi to use the same timezone in practice simply because doing so results in people getting up way before sunrise and going home from work in the middle of the afternoon.

Xinjiang officially follows China Standard Time (UTC+8), like the rest of the country. However, many locals — especially ethnic minorities — use “Xinjiang Time” (UTC+6) in daily life, which is two hours behind. This dual-time system reflects both administrative unity and local customs.

It's only one time-zone, just that place like Xinjiang will act differently compares to Beijing, like 12 pm for breakfast, 10 pm for dinner etc.

In Republic of China period China has 5 time zoneswikipedia

Lol you make it sounds like the central government is doing “oopsies did i inconvenience you? Never mind, too much effort to fix” Meanwhile what they are doing is “Are you saying your convenience is more important than unity? 👨‍✈️ Why do you want to be on a separate time zone with the rest of the country? 👨‍✈️Do you find it inconvenient? Good. ”

Japanese is composed of 3 types of script: kanji, hiragana, and katakana. Kanji are the characters that were borrowed from the Chinese language, while the other two you can essentially think of as an alphabet that’s unique to Japan. As a result, kanji often looks quite complicated involving many strokes, while hiragana and katakana are very simple and can be written with much less strokes (max 4?). For examples, just Google “hiragana” and “katakana”.

So, although there may occasionally be Japanese text composed of only kanji, you will almost always see some hiragana or katakana, especially in longer Japanese texts. These can be easily differentiated, as hiragana and katakana characters are usually much simpler compared to Chinese/kanji characters and also have a higher prevalence of curves and squiggles. Of particular interest are の, は, を, and が as they are often used for grammatical purposes and are thus written in hiragana (someone correct me if I’m wrong or if I’m missing some as I only took a couple years of Japanese), which can be easy to spot.

TL;DR for Japanese vs Chinese: /usually but not always/… text comprised of only Kanji => Chinese, while text containing some simple looking/squiggly/curvy characters (hiragana and katakana) => Japanese.

To differentiate Taiwan/HK script from mainland Chinese script is much harder and I’d imagine you’d necessarily have to be relatively familiar with Chinese to do so, though you may be able to shortcut this process.

Essentially, Taiwan/HK use the “traditional” version of Chinese script, while mainland China uses the “simplified” version of Chinese script. The “simplified” version of Chinese script is just the “traditional” version except some subset of the words have parts of the character vastly simplified or have the entire character outright changed. This often involves changing the “radical” in the characters, which you can think of as a modular part of the character that gives it some sort of semantic. For example, the left side of 說, 話, 請, and 誰 imply that the character is one regarding “speech”. In simplified chinese, this is simplified to 说, 话, 请, and 谁. So, if you want a shortcut to differentiating mainland Chinese text from Taiwan/HK text, I’d suggest learning the different radicals and what they look like in simplified and traditional Chinese text. You can ctrl-f “simplified” in https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Chinese_radical to see the radicals that were simplified (aka unique to mainland China).

TL;DR shortcut for mainland China vs Taiwan/HK: simplified radicals = mainland, traditional radicals = Taiwan/HK.

Taiwan - Green highway signs with western characters as well as Chinese.
Hong Kong - Blue highway signs with both western and Chinese characters. English language everywhere.
China - Mostly photospheres. Blue license plates. Mostly Chinese characters. Probably won't see a highway sign.

Hong Kong has red taxis (common) or sometimes green (if in the New Territories area). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxis_of_Hong_Kong

They drive on the left, whereas Taiwan drives on the right. There is no yellow/black striping on power poles. And much more likely to see bi-lingual Cantonese/English signs.

Japan: Left side of the road driving, relatively short white and yellow license plates, distinct language: here is an example, these poles

Taiwan: right side of the road driving, these poles (similar ones in japan can be found) taiwan also has white plates only

China: right side of the road driving, blue license plates (in hong kong it is white front and yellow back thin plates) and distinct language (link is under japan)

Assuming that you cannot find any written sign anywhere. Taiwanese houses have very strong metal bars on the balconies and in general the windows. Also, they have metal doors that seem to be built with aluminum foil. I have not seen something like that in China. It seems quite a Taiwanese feature (Taipei, perhaps). The external walls of many houses in Taiwan are also decorated with very small tiles that make them resemble (sorry about that, Taiwanese friends) the interior of a toilet. They are very strange, small square tiles, like those that you find in the restrooms of train stations or some public places.

Japanese houses are very different. They are low, generally white and cubic (they look like plastic boxes), with no tiles and no bars on the windows. Also, they are separated from each other by a small space. I think I have never seen houses in Japan sharing the same wall. It may be a structural device based on the high seismicity of the area, so if structural damage hits a building, it does not propagate to the adjacent one. Also, if you look above your head, you will see frequent poles with nets of electric cables next to these houses. These are pretty common sights in Japan. This is if you, of course, do not want to rely on the written language you can spot around. I hope it helps

什么时候 is a very broad when. You can respond with “过一会儿”, “明年”, “四点”, “二十一分钟后”, etc.

几点 asks for the specific clock time like “三点”, “六点半”

什么时候 means ‘when’ in general conversation, where as 几点 specifically means ‘what time’.

什么时候 is more general

几点 is usually more like "what time"

Piggyback question: could u use 哪时候？😬