Financial Times features WildChina and Guizhou travel

The Financial Times features a WildChina tour of Guizhou province, a pocket of historical tradition in China. Guizhou travel hardly resembles typical China tourism. Rather, the area serves as a cultural haven for visitors interested in discovering off-the-beaten-path China. However, given China's rapid economic development, the current way of life in the Guizhou province may disappear within a few years.As with other WildChina tours, the Guizhou tour is one of experiential travel. Financial Times writer Patti Waldmeir and her family traveled with WildChina and came across a group of women planting rice. These workers invited Waldmeir and her family to join them, so the Waldmeir's family waded into the muddy fields to help plant the seedlings. Waldmeir writes:After marvelling at the squeamishness of my Chinese-American children – adopted as infants from unknown Chinese birth parents who may also have been farmers – the seven planting matrons collapsed in laughter at our urban inability to insert a handful of rice seedlings upright, at the right intervals, under water. “Don’t waste,” scolded the matriarch of the paddy field, gently, as one child dropped a precious seedling without realising that it would yield half a pound of rice at harvest.Soon the children were scampering off to watch a farmer ploughing with water buffalo and to stomp in cow pats with bare feet. After a pit stop at a local farmyard, where an octogenarian villager welcomed us in to wash at his water tap, we had to spend several minutes politely declining the planting ladies’ invitation to lunch.The whole story can be found at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6aa02a84-92d6-11e0-bd88-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1PBRRnJfH.WildChina is a premium, sustainable travel company based in Beijing. Started in 2000 by Mei Zhang, a native of Yunnan Province and a Harvard MBA, WildChina creates bespoke trips highlighted by rich personal interactions and superior access to experts and venues. Whether you are interested in seeing an untouched landscape, or exploring another side of Shanghai, WildChina’s journeys will undoubtedly allow you to Experience China Differently.