shanghai is fab...read my recent trip report.. click on my name

Are you planning to spend time in Beijing? We spent 8 days there and did not run out of things to do, although you can limit your time to a minimum of 4 including your day out to the wall. While Shanghai is a fabulous city, you say you want to see village life. If you read my trip report which is almost completed, you will see that none of the cities I visited would be considered local villages. If that is what you wish to see, perhaps you should visit the southwestern area or the Guillin area,neither of which we went to as we were planning on saving those for a 2nd trip to China.

If you want a slower pace you will have to get out of the cities. I can't imagine why Bob is recommending Shanghai, which is a great place for shop-and-eat tourism, and for fans of very modern architecture, but is otherwise skippable.

I agree, you need to go west, probably southwest, and will likely need to take buses rather than trains. You could start from Kunming (but avoid Dali and Lijiang - go south), or possibly Chengdu.

i suggest shanghai because it is china today

True, but not at all what the OP asked for.

AMY - article in today's NYT you may find interesting: http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/travel/sichuans-tibetan-corner-outside-of-time.html?ref=travel

If you want history then you need to go to Beijing more than Xi'An. If you want village and slower pace you can go to Yangshuo for the scenery or Pingyao for old Chinese. Shanghai is the opposite of what you are looking for.

Where would the best place be for stepping onto the Great Wall? Just have to get that marked off my bucket list.

Great Wall is near Beijing.

Well, there's a section near Beijing, but there's also a restored section out at Jiayuguan. And I've read reports from people hiking sections east of Beijing.

The Wall is thousands of miles long but someone who is only in China 12 days should see it near Beijing which is where it is best visited. Jiayuguan is essentially fake and totally rebuilt, the Disney version of the Wall.

One of my favorite places in Beijing was the temple of heaven. We spent over half a day there, wandering around the park and watching people.

Thank u all
Will continue to read

Amy, just got back ourselves and am working on a trip report. We hiked the area of the wall from Jinshanling to Simatai, which is unfortunately still closed. Perhaps because of the cold and snow it was practically deserted. And the scenery was incredible! We only met one group on our 3 1/2 hour walk.
As for villages, I can only speak of what I personally know. We spent several days in Tangkou, at the base of Huangshan. The natural scenery was beautiful but perhaps our favorite part of this trip was our visit to ChengKan, a village about 45min away. While there is an entry fee of 70cny to enter the ancient village, it is most definitely still a very lived-in and used area. Neat to see the history and the every day next to each other. I have to confess to feeling a little weird about paying to watch the peasant lifestyle but it was necessary for entering the temple. Were you to choose to avoid the temple you could still wander ChengKan, see the historical buildings and also spend more time just outside this ancient part to see a more realistic mix of life today. This is in southern Anhui province, by the way, and is a difficult place to get around due to the different dialect of Mandarin, but by no means should that deter anyone.

partmtn: Waiting for your TR to find out more about Tangkou (did you stop in Tunxi?), ChengKan, etc., where you stayed and what sights/sites you saw.

I've only been to Beijing and Lijiang, so am not an expert. But my friend, who's been all over China, suggested Lijiang, and I loved it! I did a nine day trip, half in Beijing and half in Lijiang, and that worked very well, and gave me a feel for the city and for a small town.

I suggest two places.
1.Shanghai (Shanghai is an international metropolis)
2. Tibet mount Evesrest ( the third pole of the world)

you can go to many places for 12 days, including the Great Wall and xian .ang you can still make a visit for many other attractions such as Shaolin Temple and Taishan moutain

The Wall is not the exact same in all places. Each section of the Wall has it's own features which will affect you the Great Wall experience. If you like outdoor activities you could be interested in 2 day trek along the Great Wall and stay in local village.

Which section of the Wall to visit, see this post for more tips: http://www.wildgreatwall.com/which-part-of-the-great-wall-is-the-best-to-visit/

Since you have 10 days, you can do Beijing - Xian - Huashan - Luoyang - Beijing without any problem. Happy travels!

I am very much looking forward to your trip report partmtm and finding out how you got to tangkou and what is was like

Hi loncall, you can find my trip report here: http://www.fodors.com/community/asia/winter-in-north-china.cfm

Getting to tangkou was in my top two craziest travel moments. Between the heavy snowstorm and strange unplanned bus switches we had no choice but to roll with it and hope we made it to the right place. It's in the TR but feel free to ask me any specific questions - that trip is permanently imprinted in my memory!