Foshan

Foshan is a city in Guangdong province in southern China, in the Pearl River Delta west of Guangzhou. Foshan means Buddha Hill, after three bronze Buddha statues dug out of a hillock in the 7th century.

Midea Group, based in the Shunde district, makes air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines. Foshan Haitian, the soy sauce maker, brews its sauces and oyster sauce in large outdoor vats in the city. Galanz, also from Shunde, began as a duck down processing plant and became a maker of microwave ovens.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties Foshan counted among the four famous towns of China, known for its iron pots, silk and pottery. The Shiwan kilns made glazed ceramic figures and roof tiles, and the Nanfeng Ancient Kiln, a long dragon kiln built on a slope in the Ming period, still fires pottery. Cantonese opera grew up in the city, where its performers formed their first guild. Wong Fei-hung, the martial artist and healer, and Ip Man, the Wing Chun master who later taught Bruce Lee, were both born in Foshan.

The Foshan Ancestral Temple, built in the 11th century and rebuilt under the Ming, honors the Taoist god of the north and holds a stage for opera and lion dance. Qinghui Garden in Shunde, laid out in the Qing dynasty, has ponds and pavilions in the Lingnan style of southern China. Shunde cooking, known for fresh fish and double-skin milk pudding, earned the district the title of UNESCO City of Gastronomy in 2014.