Current Time in Yanji, China

Yanji is a city in the far east of Jilin province in north-eastern China and the capital of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. It sits in a basin on the Buerhatong River, ringed by low forested hills, close to the point where China, North Korea and Russia meet. The Tumen River, which forms the border with North Korea, flows only a short distance to the south.

Around six hundred thousand people live in the city. Its distinguishing feature is its Korean character: a very large share of residents are ethnic Korean Chinese, street signs are written in both Korean and Chinese, and Korean is used alongside Mandarin in schools, broadcasting and daily conversation. This makes Yanji the cultural capital of the Korean minority in China and gives it an atmosphere unlike anywhere else in the country.

The area was long a frontier zone, part of the historic Manchurian borderlands and largely closed to settlement under the Qing dynasty. Korean farmers began crossing the Tumen in the second half of the nineteenth century, driven by famine and, later, by Japanese colonisation of the peninsula, and Yanji grew from a small garrison post into a town. It was an important centre of anti-Japanese resistance in the 1930s, when Korean and Chinese partisans operated in the surrounding mountains. The autonomous prefecture was established in 1952, giving the region formal recognition of its Korean identity.

The city itself is modern rather than historic, but it is a pleasant place to walk. The riverside parks and illuminated bridges are the centre of evening life, and the Yanbian Museum offers an excellent account of Korean migration and local history. The vast markets, especially the Xishi market, sell kimchi, cold noodles, dried fish and medicinal roots. The greatest attraction of the region is Changbai Mountain, called Paektu in Korean, a volcano about four hours away whose crater lake is sacred to Koreans and one of the most beautiful sights in East Asia.

Culture is expressed in food, music and festival. Yanji is famous throughout China for its cold buckwheat noodles, barbecued meat and spicy dishes, and its restaurants draw visitors from across the north-east. Korean drumming, the swing and seesaw games played at holidays, and traditional dress worn at weddings remain common. The city has also produced generations of footballers, and the local club enjoys extraordinary support.

Transport has improved rapidly. Yanji Chaoyangchuan International Airport connects the city to Beijing, Shanghai and Seoul, and a high-speed railway completed in 2015 links it westward to Changchun and Jilin. Border crossings into North Korea and towards Russia give it a role in regional trade, though this fluctuates with international conditions.

Yanbian University, based in Yanji, is a national key institution offering instruction in both Korean and Chinese, and it attracts students from South Korea as well as from across China.

Yanji is worth visiting because it is genuinely bilingual and bicultural, a Chinese city with a Korean heart, and it serves as the natural base for reaching the volcano and the border country of the far north-east.