How to Choose the Right Flour

I used to live in what I call a "noodle city." The staple diet comes from noodles. Because I lived in a noodle city I could buy flour in 10-20kg bags, the flour sellers could tell me which one I wanted for bread making, and I never had a bit of trouble with anything I cooked. Now I live in a "rice city." Most flour is just in the grocery store and sold in about 2.5kg bags. But there are about 7 different bags of flour to choose from. The more I've looked at them (and tried them unsuccessfully!), I've realized that many of them have added rising agents like baking powder, soda, or yeast. I don't want self-rising flour though, I want all purpose flour! Well, not long ago, my nearby grocery store started carrying some bags of Great Value brand flour that had English on them. One says High Gluten and one says Low Gluten. I bought high gluten flour the first time, because I vaguely remembered someone in Taiwan telling me to do that.  My bread turned out amazing. But my pancakes struggled, not to mention biscuits! So I started researching flour. Hopefully this compiled info on flours will help you a bit as you're figuring out what is available to you where you live.

High Gluten Flour 高筋面粉 gāo jīn miànfěn
For those of us from the US, this is most closely associated with bread flour.  Due to whatever the chemical make up is of this flour, it helps retain gases in the dough when using yeast and such. The higher the protein content (gluten), the better the bread will be. It is best used for making breads--but not quick breads like banana bread, etc.. I use high gluten flour when making French Bread, pizza crust, Oatmeal Wheat Bread, cinnamon rolls, pitas and almost any yeast bread.

Low Gluten Flour 低筋面粉 dī jīn miànfěn
Pastry flour or cake flour are essentially low gluten flours. Lower protein content (gluten) flour will make a softer crumb like we look for in cakes, muffins, and cookies. I've found this works great in a pie crust, biscuits, and cakes.

All-Purpose Flour 
This is essentially a mix of high and low gluten flours--its a compromise if you don't want all kinds of flours filling your cabinets. You might be able to find this where you are with no problem. What I sometimes do is just buy a bag of high and a bag of low and I mix them half and half in anything calling for all purpose flour. In cookies, quick breads, brownies, tortillas and other things like that I just put half and half to create my own all purpose flour mix.

The best all-purpose flour I've found in my city is called 特精粉 tè jīng fěn. I buy it by the kilo in my local wet market (its 4RMB/kg here. The lady just measures it out of a huge bag. She just calls it mianfen, but look on the bag for the characters to see if its "special flour!" I have not seen it in stores. I used to buy it by the 10kg bag in the noodle city I lived in. I have found it works great in cookies, breads, cakes etc. You don't have to buy high and low and mix them. Just use it like all-purpose in recipes.

Self-Rising Flour 自发面粉 zìfāmiànfěn
In the US, you can buy self-rising flour. You can here in China, too, but I just don't know the make up of the leavening agents in it (when you start translating them, some even say yeast!). Its actually the primary flour available in the stores. But if you have a recipe calling for self-rising flour, make your own by using the standard substitution of 1 cup all purpose flour + 1 1/2 tsp baking powder + 1/2 tsp salt = 1 cup self-rising flour

Whole Wheat Flour 全麦面粉 quán mài miànfěn
This is a great flour to add to baked goods in order to increase the nutritional value of the item. However, its not the best choice to use ONLY wheat flour in things. You need to have it be at least half wheat and half regular when you make things or the baked goods will not have the amount of gluten they need to have the texture you likely want.