Vignettes of the World
Sheung Shui Heung, also known as Sheung Shui Wai, is traditionally of the Liu surname. As a large centuries-long settlement area for indigenous villagers, Sheung Shui Heung has a few heritage sites worthy of visiting. I have discussed the stately Liu Man Shek Tong Ancestral …
For all of my friends that visit Hong Kong for the first time, I always suggest the Peak as a must-do itinerary. Even for friends that have been there before, I would suggest visiting it again. The Peak offers a whole lot of things to …
Chenpi, the dried mandarin peel, is a specialty of Xinhui for as far as history remembers. In this part of China, the chenpi is so well-known that it is considered one of the three treasures of Guangdong, alongside with old ginger and straw.
At first glance, these three things seem rather insignificant to be called the treasures of a province long reputed for its prosperity and vibrant cultural life. Yet all three have been critical ingredients and materials in Cantonese culture, especially in its cuisine. Chenpi is particularly known for its fragrance. Adding just a small piece of chenpi introduces a unique flavor and aroma in tea and food. Chenpi also comes handy in Chinese medicinal application.
The Chenpi Village of Xinhui is a trading market for tourists. I have no other way to know which stores in Xinhui are good, or highly reputed, so I decided to visit the touristy Chenpi Village in search for the secrets to chenpi. I did learn a lot.
I looked around when the stores were just opening their doors. After visiting a couple stores, I went into the mall. There, a lady started telling me about the specific qualities of chenpi. In her I sensed a genuine, learned appreciation for the treasure of Guangdong. The staff at the other two stores were simply too eager to make deals. She was rather eager to share about the knowledge and expertise that makes her products special.
Her store’s name is Chen Lao Guo.
Photo above: These are peel pieces.
Chenpi, its literal meaning in Chinese is “aged skin.” The first order of judging the value of a piece of chenpi is the ability to discern between the fragrance, color, appearance and texture of the dried mandarin peel. In terms of fragrance, the good Xinhui chenpi is not supposed to be fruity. If you smell a strong, unitary smell that reminds you of the sweetness and sourness of fruit, beware. It is supposed to smell aged, “chen,” with hints of citrus, but a complex and rather subtle aroma. The older the dried mandarin peel, the chen fragrance is the more pronounced than the fruitiness.
Perhaps it is an obvious point, but the more aged the peel is, the darker the color as well. In terms of aging, it is not uncommon for a Cantonese grandmother to keep her chenpi for a lifetime, meaning 40 to 50 years. Such old chenpi is what the Cantonese people think of as miraculous cure for lung and stomach deceases.
Photo above: These are whole peels.
As you would expect, the more aged the peel is, the more expensive it gets. There is also a common distinction between whole peel and peel pieces. The whole peel refers to the dried peel of a whole mandarin, in three attached but distinct pieces. For cooking and self-use, the peel pieces would do – you do not typically need a whole peel. In fact, it is better to break the peel into smaller pieces if you use it for cooking, otherwise the bitterness will overwhelm your food.
In terms of medicinal quality, there is no difference between the whole peel or the peel pieces. The whole peel is for the sake of gift-giving usually. When you buy chenpi as a gift, whole pieces are simply better looking, as it is indeed more expensive even if they are from the same batch of mandarins and aged for the same amount of time.
If you do buy chenpi in Xinhui, consider only the peels that have aged for over 10 years. That is the time that the medicinal qualities have formed, and it will be worthwhile to make chenpi infused tea with those.
Photo above: This is a whole green peel.
The most sought after chenpi is the red peel. The less common kind is the green peel. Please be careful about these. Green peels come from mandarins that were not yet ripe, thus the green color. Even after years of aging, green peels are a world’s difference in terms of its medicinal qualities. Green peels only serve to dispel excessive heat in the body. It has no use in stomach decongestion and lung nurture, unlike the red chenpi. In fact, the green peels have such a strong heat dispelling effect that they can cause some problems if your body is already cold in nature. The green peel, even when aged, remains a dark green color.
Ultimately, the best judge of the quality of chenpi is to get a taste of it. At the Chen Lao Guo store I enjoyed the chenpi tea making the most. The lady Ms. Hua demonstrated the technique of “Four Time Infusion” to render both the essence and medicinal qualities of chenpi. I tried a full piece of chenpi from the year 2014, meaning that it has had full ten years of aging.
She said for the chenpi flavors to be rendered one has to boil the whole piece of it for four separate times. On the fourth time, you will really taste the aged, bitterness that remains in your palate, and this bitter first impression will linger and turn into a herbal sweetness. True to her word, I only noticed the strength of the chenpi after she boiled it for the fourth time.
The chenpi water from the first time of boiling is for cleansing purposes. You do not retain that water. After that, boil the water with the chenpi for four separate times, five minutes each session. For all four times you would retain the water, drink it and slowly garner the sensation that the chenpi flavors are being infused in increasing intensity, until the herbal sweetness finally lingers in your palate.
But don’t take me wrong here, the four time infusion does not limit you to boiling the chenpi for only four times. You can certainly boil it for as much as ten times, throughout the day, drink it as if it is water, until you cannot taste the chenpi again. It is advised that you drink chenpi infused tea throughout the day.
Xinhui’s chenpi has been named in the ancient medical scrolls of China, the preeminent Bencao Gangmu (The Compendium of Materia Medica), as the very best in its medicinal qualities. Xinhui is thus properly the home of chenpi. The author Li Shizhen, one of the four Great Doctors of China, praised the chenpi of Xinhui, naming the health effects of casting out the heat and dampness in the body, decongestion and soothing one’s internal running of qi. As such chenpi is particularly good for the stomach and the lungs. The inner lining of the mandarin’s skin bears medicinal qualities.
The simplest way to enjoy chenpi is to simply drink it as it has been infused in boiling water, as discussed above. If you have a whole bottle of hot water infused with chenpi, consider making a pot of pu’er tea with it. The same can be done with a pot of hand brewed coffee.
Another suggestion for using chenpi in cuisine is to put a small piece of chenpi (presoaked) into steamed spareribs with black bean sauce. Likewise, in almost any kind of Chinese soup a small piece of chenpi will enhance the overall flavor profile of the soup, with additional health benefits.
Perhaps it is now the time to wrap things up by discussing the storage of chenpi. At the store, you see the display of thousands of chenpi in glass jars. However, Ms. Hua told me that when they let the peel age, they mostly keep them in burlap sacks. They must keep the general environment very dry, of course, as air does seep into burlap sacks easily.
Once you bought your chenpi, for home use it is the easiest to keep these treasures stored in air-tight metal containers. Keep them in a cool and dark place, and let them age further.
At the Chenpi Village I finally tried chenpi coffee, which I did not have a chance to do so in my last trip to Jiangmen. Because of its touristy nature, the Chenpi Village has all sorts of chenpi by products to offer. Besides the famous chenpi coffee, there is chenpi ice cream (as in ice cream scoops, not soft serve), and chenpi candies.
Surely, the Chenpi Village’s main objective is the retail of chenpi, but they do actually produce them in the villages right by the retail area. Although I had hoped for taking cultural photography at the Chenpi Village, the people there said the drying season has long been over. They do natural sunlight drying on site, and that usually takes place between September and around the time of the winter solstice.
In this three-day, two-night trip, I tried three restaurants. After the heaviest day of sightseeing on Day 2, I decided to treat myself at Daxia Tanbao Restaurant. It serves Malaysian cuisine and offers a few significant strengths in its dining experience. Daxia Tanbao (Daxia Charcoal …
After seeing the Lvmei Ecological Park and the Shijian Park, I was geared up for some historic sightseeing. The Yamen Fort came into mind. The Qing dynasty era old fort stands beautifully restored at the mouth of the Pearl River. It has a proud history …
I had to leave and return to Xinhui in order to have a proper meal. I checked the Gaode Map App and realized that I could in fact walk from Lvmei Ecological Park to Shijian Park, which was what I intended to see next. The walk would have taken about 45 minutes. However, I must have food before I do this kind of walk. The final decision was to call a driver to take me back to Xinhui.
The Lvmei Ecological Park, despite being a hot tourist destination, was not a kind of location for which drivers were readily available. I had to wait about half an hour before being picked up.
It took about 20 minutes of a drive from Xinhui to Shijian Park. I was really hoping that I got to see the very last bit of red foliage by the reservoir. It turned out to be a good decision.
The day of the visit was January 24, 2025. There was no admissions fee to enter the reservoir.
There does not seem to be much information about the Shijian Reservoir, except that it cost 20 million yuan to build, and that a scenic area was established to make it a beautiful site for leisure.
I think the best thing to do at Shijian Park is to do the around-the-reservoir loop walk. The instructions say it takes 50 minutes. However, given the beautiful scenery, allow for about a little less than two hours for both photography and a leisurely stop to have chenpi tea at the tea house.
About 10 minutes after you start the walk at the entrance to the Shijian Park, you will come across the river boardwalk. The sign calls it “Woodon Path.” This is the scenic walking route that takes you to along the reservoir’s bank, the grassy open area, with some river views and the tea house by the reservoir.
The tea house is surrounded by bald cypress, the foliage of which remained red when I went. I was exceedingly lucky to have come at the crossover moment between winter and spring. In this trip I managed to see a sea of purple tabebuia flowers and red foliage.
The bald cypress views are usually exceedingly beautiful because this type of tree can grow submerged in the water. As such, a lot of the bald cypress views are also waterfront views.
After visiting the tea house, go on further and the path will take you to the dam. Walk across and you will be back to the entrance of the Shijian Park.
As said in the last entry, if you plan on calling Didi car, be prepared that you have to wait a little before a driver is nearby to pick up your order.
The day was becoming a little bit chilly as dusk will befall in two hours. I hadn’t decided on this when I planned my itinerary, but I wanted to see the Yamen Fort in the southern part of Xinhui. In my last trip to Jiangmen last year, I had not had the chance to visit this old fort. I finally get to do so.
At Lvmei Ecological Park (Green Beauty Ecological Park—in Mandarin Chinese, “lv” is pronounced in l as the consonant combined with the French vowel “u”) in Shantouping, Xinhui, a flourish of purple tabebuia flowers has drawn the curtain for the spring season with a colorful song …
In January of 2025 we welcome spring with open arms. The floral season has begun, and I have been seeing some really beautiful photographs of purple tabebuia on travel and photography blogs. Striking the iron while it’s hot, I packed my bags for a quick …
More than a thousand stone rakan statues populate the temple ground at the Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple. Being moss-covered, the stone statues create an ambience that is faintly eerie, but the unique facial expressions on the statues convey a quirky sense of comical cheerfulness at once.
The admissions fee to the Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple is JPY ¥300.
The very original of the Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple was established near the Gion District in the Higashiyama area by the order of Emperor Shotoku in 766 A.D. That temple was destroyed by the flood of the Kamogawa River during the early Heian period. Thus began the seemingly “bad luck” that struck this temple throughout its history.
The temple underwent reconstruction with leadership by chief monk Senkan Naigu, who carved the Yalu-yoke Senju Kannon that was the resident deity around the 10th century or so. During the 13th century, the civil war destroyed the temple again.
By the 20th century, the temple has come to stand for resilience. In those long years past, the temple fell victim to fires and neglect. There were only three structures still standing in the temple, namely the main hall, the Jizo Hall, and the temple gate. In 1922, there was effort to move these structures to the current site in Arashiyama, and the temple started anew. Yet again, in the 1950s, a typhoon damaged the temple.
Finally, in 1981, the temple underwent a major restoration led by Kocho Nishimura. He was a craftsman for Buddhist statues before becoming a monk himself. The restoration effort took a good ten years, during which time structures were taken apart, rebuilt, renovated and restored. This was also the time needed for the temple to offer sculpting pilgrimage for the followers. The army of 1,200 rakan statuettes was the work of many followers over this decade of time in the 1980s. Kocho Nishimura’s innovative initiative to combine art and religion was very much reflective of his own journey of faith.
Rakans are the followers of Buddha. The statuettes in the temple were created by the common people. In this creative process, the followers of Buddha essentially invested in their artwork some of their own humanity. Surely, there were many statuettes wearing somber expressions, but some were reading, some were marveling, and some were laughing as well. In the back of these statuettes the sculptor carved his or her own names.
The Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple had roots in Tendai Buddhism.
After seeing the Ryoan-ji Temple and the Kinkaku-ji Temple, I was momentarily troubled by the fact that I really did not have a plan for the afternoon. I had wanted to do some hiking, from Mt. Takao to Arashiyama, but my schedule did not allow that. Outside of Kinkaku-ji Temple, I decided to look for temples that are somewhat lesser known.
In many travel websites, the Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple is described as a hidden gem. It is certainly one of the lesser-visited temples in the Arashiyama area. I was very much drawn to the army of rakan statues there, and it turned out to be a wonderful visit.
As you enter the main gate of the temple, you start seeing these statues along the inclined slope leading you to the main hall. At first glance there were more eerie than interesting, because moss has grown its spell on their faces. But behold, because you will come to face with some really humorous artwork throughout the temple grounds.
As I looked closely at these rakan statuettes, I noticed a lot of eccentricities. They brightened up my mood immediately, and I started looking for faces that reminded me of my friends as well.
The Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple is truly unique in this aspect. All over the hillside on which this temple stands, there are testaments of faith as expressed by the commoner Buddhist believers that sculpted these statues. Surely, time has done its work on these statues, as they are overgrown with moss, but the timelessness of these individual testaments brought forth an incredible sense of wonder. It was as if I came into an ancient choir singing a silent song of faith.
I left the Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple inebriated by the tickles of joy that these statues gave me.
Descriptions on site at te Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple.
Japan Experience, Otagi Nenbutsu Temple: A Hidden Gem of Whimsical Buddhist Art in Kyoto.
The Wikipedia on Otagi Nenbutsu-ji.
The golden glow of the Kinkaku-ji Temple comes from actual gold leaves plated on the exterior walls of its upper levels. My heart leapt as I saw it luminesce in glory and grace. The Kinkaku-ji Temple is a ten-minute bus ride from the Ryoan-ji Temple. …