Chinese recipes come in thousands of different varieties. Everyone has their favorite dish but every restaurant you go to will have a different recipe for it.
This can be a pain if you are trying to recreate it and you might have to try a couple different times to get it just right. The best recipes have been handed down through family lines and it may be hard to get them without shelling out some cash for a cookbook.
The standard types of Chinese recipes are rice, noodle, meat, seafood, and vegetable. There are also recipes that belong to the many different regions of China. Your Lo Mein in Beijing might taste nothing like your Lo Mein in Shanghai.
Regions play a very important role in different Chinese recipes. Many restaurants incorporate the various regions into their menu so you can get a feel for what is popular all over the different areas of China.
The Northern regions use more wheat and noodles as opposed to the Southern regions which use a lot of rice and rice flour in their dishes. China is a huge country so the climate in the North is much different than the South.
Spices play a key role in many types of Chinese recipes as well. A familiar spicy dish is the famous Kung Pao. Used with shrimp or chicken usually, this type of recipe is made with pepper sauce and the level of heat can vary.
Even with the regions and spices involved, Chinese recipes still usually are rice or noodle based and have a meat and vegetable accompanying or mixed with it. Soups and pancakes are an exception and are great recipes to try out.