Xiangyuan Hand-Pulled Noodles 襄垣拉面
Xiangyuan Hand-Pulled Noodles is featured among the local specialties of Shanxi.
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Xiangyuan Hand-Pulled Noodles (襄垣拉面) are hand-pulled noodles from Xiangyuan County (襄垣县) in Changzhi (长治), Shanxi. The Changzhi committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) describes them as an everyday home meal that nearly every housewife in Xiangyuan can make, and as a speciality of the Shangdang (上党) region.
How it is made
The noodles go by many local names that describe the pulling: chenmian (抻面, stretched noodles), chemian (扯面), shuaimian (甩面, flung noodles), zhuaimian (拽面, tugged noodles), and small-bundle or big-bundle lamian (小把拉面, 大把拉面). The dough is tugged, pulled and stretched into strands of even thickness before it goes into the pot.
How it is eaten
In Xiangyuan villages the noodles feed the guests at weddings and funerals. Several large pots are set up and a few skilled pullers are hired to cook for hundreds, sometimes a thousand, people. Working stripped to the waist amid the steam, a puller stands about three metres from the boiling pot and, with a lift and swing of both arms, flings the whole bundle of noodles into the water, a feat the Changzhi CPPCC says draws applause and adds to the festive mood.
Where it comes from
The Xiangyuan hand-made big-bundle pulling technique (襄垣手工大把拉面) was one of the methods shown in the noodle-dance performance at the 2024 China Intangible Cultural Heritage Noodle Conference (中国非遗面食大会), which opened in Taiyuan (太原) on 23 August 2024.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.