Current Time in Suicheng, China

Suicheng lies on the Leizhou Peninsula in the far south-west of Guangdong Province, China, a short distance inland from the coast of the South China Sea. It is the seat of Suixi County and part of the wider Zhanjiang municipality, whose port city centre is only some twenty kilometres to the south. Around a quarter of a million people live in the town and its immediate surroundings, in a hot, humid tropical landscape of red volcanic soils, sugarcane fields and coconut palms.

The peninsula has been settled for well over two thousand years and lay on the ancient maritime route that carried Chinese silk and pottery towards South East Asia and the Indian Ocean. The county itself was established in the Tang dynasty, and its old temples, ancestral halls and stone bridges reflect a long history at the meeting point of Cantonese and Leizhou Min cultures. Both dialects are spoken here, alongside standard Chinese, and the local opera and folk songs preserve older forms of the southern coastal tradition.

Suixi is best known throughout China for two things. The first is sugar. The county is one of the country's leading producers of sugarcane, and during the winter crushing season the roads are full of trucks carrying cane to the mills, while the sweet smell of processing hangs over the countryside. Pineapples, bananas, mangoes and other tropical fruit are grown alongside it, and fishing and aquaculture, particularly prawn farming, are important along the coast.

The second is the lion dance. Suixi is officially recognised as the home of the southern lion dance in China, and its troupes are famous for performing on tall poles and platforms, leaping between them in acrobatic routines that combine martial arts with drumming and theatre. The tradition is listed as national intangible cultural heritage, teams from the county have won competitions across Asia, and performances mark weddings, temple festivals, business openings and above all the lunar new year.

Just outside the town lies one of southern China's natural wonders. Huguangyan is a maar lake, a deep circular crater formed by volcanic explosion around one hundred and forty thousand years ago and now filled with clear water and ringed by forested walls. Part of a UNESCO global geopark, it is a place of walking trails, temples, a geological museum and preserved lake sediments that scientists study for records of past climate.

Transport is good. Expressways and the western Guangdong railway pass through the county, high-speed trains stop at Zhanjiang, and an airport and one of southern China's largest deep-water ports lie nearby, with ferries crossing the strait to Hainan Island.

Schools, vocational colleges and agricultural research stations serve the area, and Zhanjiang's universities are within commuting distance.

Tropical, agricultural and culturally distinctive, Suicheng is a good introduction to the Leizhou Peninsula.