Must-Buy Souvenirs

A small handkerchief, coin purse, or wall panel in Cantonese (Yue) embroidery, one of China's Four Great Embroideries — recognizable for its dense, vividly colored stitching of birds, flowers, and mythical creatures, historically Guangzhou's biggest luxury export to Europe.

A boxed set of canned herbal tea (liangcha) from Wanglaoji, a Guangzhou herbal-medicine brand founded in 1828 — the bitter, cooling brew Cantonese locals drink to counter the region's humid heat, now China's best-selling canned beverage nationwide.

A small ceramic gaiwan, teapot, and tasting cups for brewing gongfu-style tea, the strong small-cup brewing method native to Guangdong — sold by the thousands of specialist vendors at Fangcun, Guangzhou's wholesale tea market and one of the largest tea trading hubs in China.

A small version of Guangzhou's famous 'concentric ball' (tao qiu) carving — a single solid piece hand-carved into many free-spinning nested spheres, each pierced with lattice patterns. Traditionally an ivory-carving specialty, today's souvenir versions use ox bone or synthetic resin following China's 2018 domestic ivory trade ban.

A glazed stoneware figurine from Foshan's Shiwan kilns, just outside Guangzhou — a 500-year-old ceramic tradition famous for expressive, often humorous small sculptures of folk characters, animals, and the same ridge-decoration sculptures seen on Chen Clan Ancestral Hall's roofline.