With history of around 3,000 thousand years, traditional Chinese painting falls into two broad styles in terms of painting techniques: gongbi, fine brush painting, and xieyi, free brush painting.

Gongbi is primarily an outline drawing, with colors added where the artist thinks necessary. It is refined and decorative. Xieyi appears to be done with spontaneity, and even careless freedom. In fact, both styles depend on the total mastery of line, which is partly because Chinese painting developed out of and alongside calligraphy.

The subjects of traditional Chinese painting can be divided into three categories: flower and bird painting (including animals and plants), landscape painting and figure painting.

Traditional Chinese painting is made with brush on either rice paper or silk. There are ink and limited colors. The different tones of ink are also considered as colors in the traditional philosophy.

The most important is to realize that traditional Chinese painting does not depend on technique alone. It is part of a 3000-year-old culture in which painting is intimately linked with the arts of calligraphy, poetry, music, religion and philosophy.

The concept of qi is important in traditional Chinese painting. It is a sort of unseen and moving energy. Good paintings always have this qi and Chinese painters try to ensure that the energy is fluid.

We organize exhibition of Chinese traditional painting from time to time.


For detailed schedule, you may find it in “What’s new?”



You want a cozy corner where you can watch some movies about the country you are staying in currently? We try to collect and offer you a selection of the classic and updated movies from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.Come to XiaoYao Guan, our place in Dali Old Town (Yunnan province) to spend good time watching nice movies.

From time to time, we also organize movie salons about certain movies to chat or debate about anything related to the movie.

For detailed schedule, you may find it in “What’s new?”
You are also welcome to write us your recommendations or comments about Chinese movies.



Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism… How do they influence the life of Chinese people? How do Chinese people integrate the different philosophies together in their believes? What are the differences between different Buddhism from Tibet, China and Southeast Asia? We also introduce interesting stories told by those philosophers like Zhuang Zi, Confucius, etc.



Here you can find the most original slang, idiom and other expressions in China; we will explain you the reason and history behind that. This corner will empower you to get into the Chinese context more easily.