Visas
Hong Kong Citizens
Hong Kong Citizens who has Chinese Nationality require Home Entry Permit to enter China.

World Wide Travellers
World Wide Travellers require a visa stamped on a full passport with validity of not less than 6 months upon entry to China.
Various types of visa are issued dependent on the purpose of this visit. Tourist visa applications require only basic personal information.
Busienss visa applications require the presentation of an invitation to visit from a business counterpart in China.
Visas can be applied through Chinese embassies/consulates or Chinese travel agencies.

Language

Festivals

Holiday	Date
Lunar New Year	1st of the 1st Month                  In between Winter and Spring
Lantern Festival	15th of the 1st month
Dragon-Boat Festival	5th of the 5th month
Mid-Autumn Festival	15th of the 8th month

Lunar New Year
Lunar New Year is between the end of winter and the beginning of spring. During the New Year, every household will display couplets and pictures, and decorate the home. This is an important time for family reunions. Usually, the entire family gets together for a New Year's Eve dinner and in the morning people pay New Year calls on relatives to extend congratulations. During the festival, many people also attend traditional recreational activities, such as the lion dance, dragon-lantern dance and stilt-walking.

Lantern Festival
The Lantern Festival is on the 15th day of the first lunar month, the first full moon for the new lunar year. It is customary to eat special sweet dumplings called YuanXiao and enjoy displayed lanterns during this festival. YuanXiao, also known as TangYuan, are round balls made of glutinous rice flour stuffed with sugar fillings and they symbolize reunion. On this festive night many cities hold lantern fairs to display many exotic and sometimes weirdly shaped multi-coloured lanterns. In rural areas the local people gather together and enjoy themselves as spectators and participants setting off fireworks, walking on stilts, performing with dragon lanterns, dancing the yangge and other folk dances and playing on swings.

Dragon Boat Festival
The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the 5th day of the fifth lunar month. This festival originated to celebrate the memory of the ancient patriotic poet Qu Yuan who drowned himself to protest his emperor who gave in to the bully. To avoid his body being eaten by fish, people launched their boats and threw rice dumplings into the river to feed the fish. Every year thereafter people row dragon boats on their local rivers in memory of Qu Yuan's life and death and eat ZongZi, glutinous rice wrapped in a pyramid shape using bamboo or reed leaves in memory of Qu Yuan.

Mid-Autumn Festival
The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, the exact middle of autumn. On this mid-autumn night, the full moon is especially bright. As the full moon symbolizes happy family reunion, people will sit together with their family beneath the clear moonlight feasting in good wine, fruits, nuts and tasty moon cakes. Many cities hold lantern fairs to display many exotic and sometimes weirdly shaped multi-coloured lanterns on this night too.

Top 5 Places
Beijing
Beijing is the capital of China. It is also the political and cultural center of China. Reigning as both an ancient capital of Imperial China and the modern capital of a thriving nation, Beijing retains plenty of evidence of its royal past, with aristocratic parks, temples, and palaces (all open to the public). Beijing is home to an incredible cultural display of art and historical artifacts in more than 50 museums, folk traditions that flourish in theaters, delicious dining in exotic settings, and cultural centers with fascinating demonstrations of centuries-old art and craft-making. Nowhere else can you get a more concentrated impression of the old and new China. Beijing is the treasure trove of Chinese culture, where many of the sights that make China a world-class destination are located.

Shanghai
Shanghai means "on the sea" in Chinese. It is bordered by the East China Sea and is where the Yangtze River empties into the sea and it is one of the world's largest seaports and a major industrial and commercial center of China. The municipality covers a total area of 2,383 square miles (6,185 square kilometers), which includes the city itself, surrounding suburbs, and an agricultural hinterland. The best times to visit are spring and autumn - winter and summer here are merciless in their respective extremes.

Hong Kong
From the vantage point of Victoria Peak, overlooking the world's busiest deepwater port, you can see a city geared not only to making money but feeling good about it. It is a colorful kaleidoscope of attractions to arouse the senses: spectacular sightseeing, sensational shopping and fabulous foods. Despite its British colonial past, Hong Kong has always stuck to its roots and the culture beneath the glitz is pure Chinese.

Xi'an
Xi'an is the cradle of ancient Chinese civilization dating back to 4000 BC. It was the capital city for eleven dynasties and it is from here that caravans started on the Silk Road to Europe, changing the Western world forever. The dramatic life-size warrior figures of the 6,000 strong terracotta army, known as the eighth wonder of the world, were built to protect the first Qin emperor in the afterlife. Moving around this old city gives an eerie feeling, like traveling back through thousands of years in time.
Xi'an has a mild weather that makes it pleasant to visit year round to bring you back thousands of years to a glorious time in the history of China.

Macau
Ever since Portuguese galleons first started dropping by in the 1500s, Macau has been a memorable meeting place of cultures. For a view of this compact city take a hike up to nearby Monte Fort, or Guia Fortress, where you'll find a rustic 17th-century chapel and the oldest lighthouse on the China coast. Add to the fantastic combination of Portuguese and Chinese cuisine, a gloriously gaudy casino-led nightlife and a streetscape of cobblestones and shady squares and you've got a wonderful antidote to mainland China and Hong Kong.