China’s biggest cultural drop this year isn’t a sneaker collab or a designer capsule. It’s a 90-year-old, 12,500-kilometer march. And yes, there’s merch.
We’re tracing history, tracking trends and trying not to get lost in China on the wildest business trip in history.
This account is based on the author’s firsthand reporting during a six-week journey along the original Long March route in June–July 2026.
A revolutionary monument honoring the Red Army soldiers who particpated in the Long March (1934-36) stands high and mighty in the central square of Yan’an City, Shaanxi Province, where the march concluded 90 years ago, in October 1936. The square offers both entertainment and shopping opps by night today. Pictured here in July 2026
Jiangxi Province, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and Guizhou, Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces: six provincial-level regions in six weeks. From early June until late July this year, China International Communications Group (publisher of China’s only English newsweekly, Beijing Review, where yours truly works) organized a business journey that invited several of its employees to retrace the footsteps of the Red soldiers.
This trip was all about commemorating the original drop that concluded 90 years ago this month, the content nobody actually planned for: the Long March (1934-36).
As a Sinologist who explores China through the twin lenses of fashion and urban culture, wondering not just about what people are wearing but also why they’re wearing it, I set out asking the question: How do the Red Army and their Long March continue to influence national trends at play in the Middle Kingdom today?
The answer is an entire tourism economy and a generational identity project, all wrapped up in one color: Red.
Where the Red Army forded the waters in 1935, you now find the Chishui River Red Army Bridge, built with the world’s tallest canyon suspension tower, now straddles the border between Guizhou and Sichuan provinces. Seen here in Guizhou in June 2026
Gen Z Returns
The Red Tourism Industrial Complex can be found in small, remote places like Tucheng, Xishui County in Guizhou, home to the “Red Army Women Street,” among other revolutionary sites, where 29 of the 30 female soldiers attached to the Red Army’s Central Column were quartered in January 1935. They carried stretchers, nursed the wounded, sewed and cooked, as well as fighting alongside their male peers. This town is also home to the Memorial Hall for the Women of the Red Army, even those who will forever remain nameless, honoring the 4,113 women who, in one way, shape or form, joined the Long March.
Droves of guided tours pass through the street from May through October, and the food and beverage scene in the surrounding area is now generating income long after the museum and revolutionary sites have closed for the day. The town has leaned into it: Many eateries there now operate under a “one shop, one specialty” model, and some of the local spicy dishes have become as fiery of a draw as the Red sites themselves.
Vendors selling typical snacks like shaotangyuan (sweet potato rice balls) and shaositang (sweet potato taffy) mentioned to Beijing Review in casual conversation that sales typically double during holidays. One even mentioned hitting 1,200 orders in a single day at some point last summer, up from 600 during other holidays. And the tour buses keep coming, hungry for history and hearty bites.
Quick foodie facts: The Long March route maps almost perfectly onto China’s chili belt, the area in which chilies are grown and consumed with the most enthusiasm. Also, today, revolutionary-themed restaurants along the line serve up Red (pumpkin) soup, Red noodles and Long March dry rations with a sip of Red Army cola, which is in fact an alcoholic beverage guaranteed to keep you warm on the inside.
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Another standout example is that of Xisuo, a village in Barkam City, Sichuan Province, inhabited mostly by members of the Jiarong branch of the Tibetan ethnic group. The village has been given a makeover thanks to its vicinity to historical sites from China’s revolutionary era (1921 to 1949), attracting Red Culture aficionados and history buffs.
Infrastructure has followed, including the paving of dirt roads and the introduction of a school bus to take primary and middle school students from the village on the winding 8-km journey through the mountains to school.
One local woman told us how her Tibetan hotpot restaurant has gone from surviving to thriving. Many residents have been dabbling in opening minsu (homestays) and the woman said hers have done well enough that she’s now opening more.
Young people no longer need to relocate to larger cities to earn a livelihood. One reason for this is the jiamenkou zhengqian phenomenon. Literally “earning money at the doorstep,” the term refers to young graduates returning from cities to open businesses in their hometowns because now, they can. Red Tourism, combined with infrastructure investment and policies to narrow the national urban-rural gap, has created demand where there was little to none a decade ago.
Young people around China are enthusiastically embracing global coffee culture, and creating their own, and the “earning money at hte doorstep” trend is particularly evident in the coffee shops dotting the village, run by local Gen Zs. One cafe in the village was decorated to the nines in local Tibetan style and offered a menu items infused with local specialties.
Fancy a yak milk latte, anyone?
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A Green Team
The story of the Long March today is now no longer only Red. It’s also green, incorporating mountains, rivers, marshes, grasslands or, in other words, Green Tourism. For example, Jinggangshan, a city in Jiangxi that was home to the first rural revolutionary base, markets itself with the label “History Red, Mountains Good,” promoting a type of Red-Green Integration Tourism that pairs revolutionary site visits with forest hiking and ecological homestays.
Quick fitness fact: Jinggangshan’s local government is leaning hard into the ongoing national campaign to promote fitness and has been developing dedicated hiking and trekking routes as part of a “sports + tourism” push.
At the Ruoergai Marshland in Sichuan, a raised walkway offering some of Mother Nature’s most stunning marshland views, with rugged mountainscapes as the backdrop, cuts through the very terrain in which historical records show some 10,000 Red Army soldiers died of illness, starvation and cold. You can also get dressed up in the traditional attire of the Tibetan ethnic group or Red styles and treat yourself to a glossy-worthy photoshoot in this place, a service now offered around China as part of the “travel shoot” trend.
The Ruoergai Marshland, where the Tibetan Plateau meets Sichuan Province and where some 10,000 Red Army soldiers lost their lives crossing the bog, in July 2026. Red and green tourism today converge here.
In both Guizhou and Sichuan, recreational vehicle (RV) glamping sites offer towering views of where the Reds once crossed the mountains from the former province into the latter — wearing sandals woven from straw, mind you.
Quick fact: China is encouraging regions to develop distinctive RV tourism routes as part of a wider effort to unlock RV consumption and cultivate RV camping as a new growth area, according to a guideline released on September 18.
And the sales numbers don’t lie. Year-on-year search growth for Red Tourism products went up 130 percent in the first half of 2026, according to Chinese travel and ticket booking platform Tongcheng Travel’s 2026 Red Tourism Consumption Trend Insight Report, released on August 25.
Even more interestingly, interactive Red experiences and revolutionary site visits tagged with “real-scene missions,” “costume participation” or “NPC interaction” — Non-Player Character, gaming speak for the costumed actors who stay in character and guide you through the experience — saw booking growth rates double that of overall scenic areas on the platform.
A theater performance recreating the 1935 Red Army mountain and river crossings from Guizhou into Sichuan takes to the stage in Zunyi City, Guizhou, in June 2026.
The Long Merch
Reenactments and live shows are Red hot right now.
Near the site of the Luding Bridge in Sichuan, where a major battle took place in 1935, you can get the fighter experience through a virtual reality (VR) shooting game, uniforms included. Several provinces run “Follow the Commander Into the Attack” events, where tourists don period uniforms, grab prop rifles and charge a simulated Republican-era (1911-1949) town alongside NPC actors. The related hashtags on Douyin, the Chinese TikTok, and lifestyle bible app Xiaohongshu (RedNote) for that one alone have hit over 500 million views combined. The static exhibition is dead. Long live the immersive experience.
Local Red Army “cola,” in fact an alcoholic beverage, in Tucheng Town, Guizhou, in June 2026
On Douyin, the hashtag “my Red Culture travel” had racked up over 1.5 billion video views and 380 million reads on microblogging platform Sina Weibo as of late September. The immersive battle experience of the Loushan Pass, located in the Dalou Mountains, a limestone range straddling the Guizhou-Sichuan border, has been particularly popular online. Known as the “first strategic pass of north Guizhou,” the site’s Red Tourism had hit 76 millions impressions on RedNote, while short videos of the Loushan Pass immersive battle experience visitors can engage in there had pulled in 180 million views.
Red Travel map in Zunyi, Guizhou, in June 2026. Zunyi is one of China’s most important Red Tourism destinations; the 1935 Zunyi Conference saw the Communist Party of China give their military strategy an entire overhaul–leadership included. The city also features Miao ethnic culture and stunning scenic mountainscapes.
The earlier-mentioned straw sandals soldiers, and colorful variations thereof–see pic), wore to cross the mountains are now available on Taobao, Alibaba’s online shopping Valhalla, tagged “guochao straw sandals” and “Red Army vintage.” Image: Taobao (“Red Army vintage”), October 1, 2026
Quick fashion fact: The earlier-mentioned straw sandals soldiers wore to cross the mountains are now available on Taobao, Alibaba’s online shopping Valhalla, tagged “guochao straw sandals” and “Red Army vintage.” Guochao, also known as China Chic, literally means “national tide,” but refers to items, from toys and tech to food and fashion, that are embedded with traditional Chinese cultural elements. For good measure.
The sandals typically sell for 39 RMB (roughly 6 USD) a pair — the original Long Merch, adversity rebranded as a summer slipper.
This is the Red Thread:
Still walking, still selling, still trending…
90 years on.