And I have eaten a delicate turtle soup while watching dancers from the Dai ethnic group, of subtropical Yunnan province, flutter mothlike to an ancient melody wafting forth from a battered cassette player.

BBC: A Beijing state of mind

Yunnan Red, made from the Rose Honey grape that is extinct in France, is said to have been first made by a 19th-century French missionary who was nostalgic for a taste of home.

WSJ: Only in...Yunnan

The spark, though, came from Li Guanlu, president of the Yunnan Education College in Kunming.

CNN: On-line in Yunnan

"We learn to exchange e-mail, make our own Web pages and, best of all, improve our English, " says Yang Yimei, who is from the town of Simao, in China's southwestern Yunnan province.

CNN: On-line in Yunnan

Sample it with traditional Yunnanese dishes such as grilled goat cheese and wood-ear mushrooms braised in vinegar at the restaurant of Yunnan Red Chateau (yunnanhong.cc), about 14 kilometers from the town of Mile, while looking out over 4, 000 hectares of vineyards, touted as the only wine-producing area above 1, 500 meters.

WSJ: Only in...Yunnan

They concentrated on Yunnan Province where Sino Forest claims to have purchased 200, 000 heactares of standing timber from one specific company.

FORBES: Sino Forest: Is This the Biggest Theft in History?

Mandalay in particular is where one feels the depth of China's demographic penetration into Myanmar, owing not only to recent decades of commercial expansion from gems trading to real estate but also centuries of seasonal migrations across the rugged natural border with Yunnan province.

CNN: From Burma to Myanmar: Land of rising expectations