I will soon visit my native U.S. after having been gone for over 7 years. Does anyone have some suggestions for nice gifts from China that Westerners might like?

(All reasonable ideas considered.)

flower cakes, puer tea, dehong beed jerky

There is a store on the third floor of the shopping center building in the middle of the Bird and Flower Market that sells hand-made Yunnan shadow puppets. Very unique gift.

Calligraphy and Chinese paintings. Can be small if necessary. They can be rolled and put in a tube casing.

Compressed tea as decoration, the circular shape with traditional artwork.

Baijiu to try. Gets a few laughs and grimaces but a warm reception!

Handcrafted jewelry, bags, wallets

Cigarette holders, pipes, bongs

Lu mi xian and stinky tofu (if you can get it past customs)

You can get prepared food past customs, though lu mixian is a ball of goo after 30 min, so not sure what it tastes like after 12 hours. Getting dried meats passed customs depends, but probably less than than 30% chance if arriving from an Asian destination. Rose cakes in the nice packages gets past customs. List them as pastries, don't list them as flower or rose.

The hearts and hands craft store by wicker west has some nice Yunnan crafted gifts.

www.gokunming.com/en/listings/item/33384/hearts_hands

Thanks for all the suggestions.BTW, one expensive gift I bought for a family member back home was a small silver Chinese teapot. Tip for tourists: Lots of bogus silver here in LiJiang. Don't buy any w/o a visit to the police for authentication.

@Strato

"Lots of bogus silver here in LiJiang. Dont buy any w/o a visit to the police for authentication".

Seriously, will the Lijiang police authenticate Lijiang silver?

The idea of going to the police station with a seller and a silver bracelet, for authentification of the silver, sounds nuts.

--

Edit: Or did you mean they could authenticate a bill. And if silver proves fake you got the bill. Sorry, I probably misunderstood it.

@Peter
In the presence of my wife and the retailer, a government official at a LiJiang police station authenticated the purity of the silver of which our teapot was made (999 fine). They took pictures, gave it a serial number and presented us with an official certificate of authentication.

Typically, when one asks a silver retailer about the purity of their products you get an answer like, "Of course it's silver, can't you see it shine? Can't you hear it ring out?"

Local residents had told us that most of the shops sell only silver plated or lower quality products. Buyer beware.

Of course, I can't rule out the possibility that this wealthy silver merchant is somehow in kahoots with the police to sell bogus silver. Nevertheless, I feel I've taken prudent measures trying not to get ripped off.