Incredible scenery, superb food and a great wall  You can’t
ignore China: more than a country, it’s a civilization, and one
that has continuously recycled itself, not much perturbed by
outsiders, for three millenia. Its script reached perfection in
the Han dynasty, two thousand years ago, and those stone lions
standing sentinel outside sleek new skyscrapers are built to a
three-thousand-year-old design. Yet this ancient culture is now
undergoing the fastest creative and commercial upheaval the
world has ever seen, with Hong Kong-style skylines rearing up
across the country. This dizzying modernisation is visible in
every aspect of Chinese life, and it is the tension and contrast
between wrenching change and continuity that makes modern China
such an endlessly fascinating destination.  The first thing that
strikes visitors to the country is the extraordinary density of
its population. In central and eastern China, villages, towns
and cities seem to sprawl endlessly into one another along the
grey arteries of b