Today marks the end of Golden Week here in Japan, a confluence of several government holidays that creates a week-long complete closure of basically every business in Japan. Understandably, everyone decides to travel during this week (because no one would dare take off more than 2 consecutive days in Japan unless they were forced to do so). Being the good Japanese guy that I am, I travelled too. I went to Hainan Island, the southernmost provence of China and an island which is often referred to as “China’s Hawaii”. And I guess Hainan Island is China’s Hawaii, in much the same way that Tiananmen Square is China’s Statue of Liberty.
I’m not sure China will ever be a super power. At least it won’t be a super power in the same way that the US is a super power. It’ll be a super power like the Soviet Union was a superpower. It’ll be a fake superpower that will provide plenty of fodder to juice the coffers of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Xe (formerly known as Blackwater). And the perceived threat of China (militarily and economically) will get many politicians elected in the US. But behind the bark of their cardboard, 1970’s-era navy and the threat of a rogue general setting off World War III with a nuclear missile here or there, there won’t be much bite. There’s way too much poverty. Extreme poverty. There’s way too much ignorance and a near-complete lack of globally-relevant education for so many who don’t ever see overseas. There are too many different cultures and languages and nations under one flag to ever be cohesive enough to do any real world dominating. And they don’t seem to even have as much concern for the environment as the US does, and that’s pretty bad.
But I gave China a chance. I really did. I was very excited about visiting. We were going to a tropical paradise, an economic zone that was set up by the Chinese to encourage travel from overseas and the importation of foreign money. Kind of. They seem to want American visitors just a little less than anyone else. There is a long list of countries whose citizens can visit China freely, no visa required. There’s another, shorter list of countries who will need a visa. It’ll cost you, though. Around $30. But there’s one more country on neither of those lists that requires a little more of a commitment. For an American passport holder to get a visa to China costs $150. 5x any other country -- nice, eh? I was beginning to feel unwelcome. But I was not deterred! I booked my trip, and to make up for the expected lack of hospitality at the airport I would stay at the Ritz Carlton. Score one for the good guys...
Got to give Rio credit where credit is due. We both packed into one big back pack. The two backpacks we're carrying -- mine on my stomach and hers on her back -- were just for travel gear like iPods and sweaters and books.
After a less than stellar flight aboard China Southern Airlines we arrived at Guangzhou, a regional hub airport where passengers are offloaded and made to walk 2 kilometers through the most impressive airport I’ve ever seen (I mean that seriously, this thing was massive and cavernous and very new -- and extremely inefficient) to sit around and wait for the next leg of the flight, perhaps while the pilots are trained. We walked for 30 minutes from one end of the airport to the other end of the airport from which our second flight was to depart, and only after going through security to the nearly vacant A Terminal were we told our next flight was delayed 2 hours. But there was a nice restaurant where we could have a drink and a bite to eat. We both had a very nice meal, and tea and a milkshake for under JPY 2,000 ($20). Unfortunately that nice restaurant didn’t accept credit cards, and no where in the terminal could you exchange money for RMB without going back out through security. After a colorful exchange of pleasantries that neither the hostess nor I could completely understand, followed by a quick succession of phone calls to her boss, and the airport manager, and perhaps President Hu, they reluctantly agreed to accept Japanese Yen. We decided to beat a hasty retreat from the restaurant and retire to more comfortable digs down by the boarding gate for our next flight. With 2 hours to kill I found a cozy place to catch some sleep. The steel armrests wedged into both my sternum and crotch was a nice segue to the rest of the trip.
At 5 minutes past midnight we boarded a bus and rode 15 minutes back to the end of the airport we’d arrived at to board our flight. The boarding gate was next to the gate we’d disembarked from 4 hours earlier, but now the entire wing of the airport was dark and deserted so we all climbed stairs from the bus on the tarmac to board our Soviet era converted bomber. I’m pretty sure some wheezing Japanese octogenarians were left to die on the tarmac. But at least with an empty seat behind me I could now recline without feeling guilty, which was nice.
At 2 AM we arrived in Sanya, one of two major cities on Hainan Island, and after an hour long bus ride we pulled into the Ritz Carlton resort and spa.
One of the views from the hotel -- much of the area is still under development, hence the dirt.
Despite the fact that it's 2009, and we're at a world-class resort, construction is still done with bamboo scaffolding. Kind of neat, I think.
The first full day in China was actually very nice. The weather was perfect, and we lounged by the pool and on the beach all day long, sipping on margaritas and pina coladas and Chinese beer. At least I did. Rio had one cocktail (“please make it weak”) and passed out with her mouth open after a quick monologue about how she just loves people, especially her parents and chihuahuas.
That night we decided we’d leave the safety of the resort and take a taxi to Sanya. That way we could see a little bit of the real China, and get some real Chinese food! We were smart, though, and we got a restaurant recommendation in Sanya and directions (written in Chinese) from the front desk to give to the cab driver. After a short cab ride, though, he dropped us off at a deserted open-air shopping mall, with one restaurant in the corner. We were quickly grabbed by the valet and whisked into a seafood restaurant. Had the concierge called ahead and told them to expect us? What nice service! We ordered the fish we wanted from what looked like a tropical fish store, and watched as the fish we’d condemned was netted out of the tank by a gap-toothed, giggling man and vigorously beaten on the floor until dead. We chose to dine al fresco, but were quickly taken inside to join the other 2 customers because the fluorescent street lamps that illuminated the patio were raining down more dead insects than the wait staff could tolerate. Inside we realized that this might not be the right restaurant, and slowly pieced together that if we were in Sanya, a town of 500,000 people, there should be more people. It turned out that our cab driver had deposited us at a restaurant that gave him a nice finder’s fee, and was only 5 minutes from our hotel. Sanya was at least 30 minutes away if our long bus ride the night before had been any indication! We’d been had! So we finished our meal, paid whatever they asked of us and left, knowing that our protestations would fall on deaf ears. Needless to say no cabs were perusing this vacant shopping area for customers, so we asked (in sign language) the girl at the front desk to call a cab for us. We think she said she would, and after none arrived for more than 20 minutes a guy in a 1986 Toyota Corolla took us back to the hotel. He definitely wasn’t a cab, but he took my money anyway. We were just glad to be back at the hotel, and we crawled into bed to await what we assumed would be violent diarrhea and vomiting around 4 AM.
Day 2 arrived and neither of us had any trace of food poisoning. We started the day the same as before, me enjoying some drinks by the pool and Rio sipping a near-virgin coconut drink and then trying to go comatose in a position that would provide the least risk of choking to death on her own vomit.
In the afternoon we got a wild hair and opted to go scuba diving. So after a strenuous training session involving putting on our wetsuits and learning how to put the respirator in our mouths we were given a tank and goggles and shoved on a boat. After a short ride we were in a small bay, and two Chinese guys put on their scuba gear and pushed us in the water. Once in, the only thing we lacked were flippers. But this wasn’t going to be real scuba, this was puppet scuba. Both Rio and I had a dedicated guide with us, and he had the flippers. His job was to hold onto our tank from above, and suspend us wherever he pleased at whatever depth he liked like aquatic marionettes. But it was an eye-opening experience.
It wasn’t beautiful. I’ve snorkeled in the Bahamas, and I’ve snorkeled in Thailand. I’ve seen beautiful, clear water and I’ve seen vibrant coral and huge schools of colorful fish. China didn’t have that. The water was murky, at best. Visibility was maybe 20 feet, and it was like looking through a foggy piece of glass. Clear enough to keep from hitting things, but not clear enough to really enjoy. And at 40 feet deep it was damn-near dark. Creepy. On the surface of the small bay there were swirling eddies of plastic bags and food wrappers and tin cans and aluminum cans. In the water, tumbling across the sand 10 meters deep like tumble weed in slow motion were countless shopping bags.
But our sadistic puppet masters knew how to make this situation interesting for us. They swam around, running us face-first into any coral they could find. Literally pushing your face into soft, flowing coral (such that there were). In Thailand we were warned not to touch anything, not the fish, and especially not the coral. If you touch it, they said, it could die and Thailand’s booming eco-tourism business could die with it. But the Chinese don’t subscribe to the same long-term view of nature. We were encouraged to touch anything, and if we resisted we were shown how. They would break off chunks of hard coral, or yank off hands full of waving, soft coral. I came upon a huge sea urchin, with spines more than 12 inches long. It looked pretty scary, and I showed my dive guide my closed fist (which we were told was the signal for don’t touch) in an effort to let him know that I knew to steer clear. But he wanted to show me how brave he was, and with his flippered foot he stomped on the poor thing, flattening it and breaking off all of its spines. As I watched the shattered spines float away in the current I lost interest in diving in China, and realized that it’s likely that none of us will be able to do it for much longer.
That night we decided to try to eat dinner in Sanya again, assuming that we were more savvy now and wouldn’t let a cab driver pull the same trick. Once again we got directions and a recommendation, and the concierge sent us to the “nicest and most popular Chinese restaurant in Sanya”. The cab driver was a different one, and he was personally picked by the Ritz Carlton staff to take us where we wanted to go -- we’d been quite vocal about our displeasure with the previous nights events. But 5 minutes into our 30 minute cab ride it began again. In very limited English, and augmented by hand gestures and miming, the cab driver was insistent that the restaurant we wanted to go to was too expensive, and Sanya was too far away to make sense. We wouldn’t like the city and would enjoy the restaurant he wanted to take us to much more. He actually pulled the cab over and into the parking lot of the restaurant he wanted us to eat at. But we stood our ground. We had a piece of paper that said the restaurant in Chinese, and I took it out one more time. In my best no-nonsense, stop-your-bullshitting manner I dropped my smile, held the paper beside my face and pointed at the name, lowered my head, and glared up at the driver. “Take me here, now”, I said without smiling or seeming at all amused. He smiled, and started the cab up again. 20 minutes later we arrived in Sanya. Luckily Rio is Japanese and can read a lot of the Chinese alphabet, so she confirmed that we were indeed sitting in front of the restaurant written on the card by the hotel. Only then did we pay the cab driver the 60 RMB fare (less than $10).
We took this picture in the cab on the way to Sanya, just before the argument with the driver...
Inside we were confused, because this “most popular and most delicious restaurant in Sanya” wasn’t what we expected. It was 7 PM and there was no one else there. Literally no one. But there were about 30 people staffing the huge dining room. Tired and jaded, we gave up the fight and ate there anyway, and had a so-so meal. This one, though, was half the cost of the meal the night before. Probably because we could have easily gotten a cab and left if we’d have needed to.
"The nicest and most popular restaurant in Sanya."
After dinner we went for a walk from the restaurant to the shopping district. Along the way we crossed a river, and I took this picture.
We also passed a pedestrian area where about twenty ten-year-olds were racing on rollerblades while there parents cheered them on. I assume it was their parents, but it could have just been people gambling on the races. I did notice that the losing children were being auctioned off for dog food, but I thought nothing of it at the time.
Rio bought some fruit from a roadside stand. Neither of us had ever had it before, and I’ve since decided that this might not be a great idea. I’m all for trying new food. I’ve had some of my most rewarding experiences while trying a new food: possibly poisonous blowfish in Japan with a group of good friends, hotpot in the mountains of Vietnam after a long day of riding bikes, or wurst and sauerkraut in a pub under the train tracks in Berlin. But maybe trying something completely new, consisting solely of an ingredient I’ve never tried before in my life, while on the street in a rural town in China where no one speaks any English or Japanese is not the best idea. The fruit was great, like nothing I’ve ever had. Sweet, almost syrupy, but with a fibrous texture like pineapple soaked in molasses. Luckily I was absolutely stuffed from the meal we’d just had, so I only had one bite. But about 2 minutes after I swallowed it my throat started itching. I swallowed again, and tried to scratch the tickle in the back of my throat with some coughs. No good. I swallowed some more, and began to notice that swallowing was difficult. I told Rio, and my voice came out high pitched and muffled. She had some water, but drinking the water burned and was difficult. So we went into a market, and I bought some orange juice. I sipped on the orange juice while we assessed the situation. It was bad, but it wasn’t getting any worse. I could breath, but not swallow, and my epiglottis was extremely swollen. I was a trooper though, and we continued toward the market to do a little shopping.
The market was interesting. It was like an open-air mall, but most of the shops were unrecognizable. There was a store there that looked just like a Nike store, but the brand was a little different and the name was Chinese. But if you replace their zag with a swoosh I’d have sworn it was a Nike store. And despite the fact that Tokyo is a city of 30,000,000 and I’ve seen only one Adidas store, this open-air market in this relatively small Chinese town literally had 3 “Adidas” stores within 5 shop spaces of each other. Each decorated a little differently and selling a little different Adidas apparel. I can only conclude that not only does China sell counterfeit clothes, but they often sell them to the Chinese from counterfeit stores. But take any of these “Adidas stores” and put them in a US mall and I could not tell you if they were fake. It was very strange. Yet another reason that China won’t ever make the ranks of true superpower without big changes -- there’s a lack of rule of law, and there are no protections for intellectual property. Why innovate in China? I’d much rather innovate in Japan or the US. I’ll manufacture in China, but that’s it.
After a little shopping we decided that I needed to get back to the hotel and take some allergy medicine in the hope that over-the-counter Claritin has some antihistamines in it. It was scary, not because it happened so much as because of where it happened. I would NOT want to get seriously sick in rural China -- you could end up an unwilling kidney donor.
As I write this I’m back in Japan, and quite happy at that. I’m glad that I saw coastal China, and I’m glad that I had the experience I did. I’m glad we didn’t stay at the hotel the entire time because my view of China might not be accurate. But it’s probably not accurate now, either. I might have a very different opinion if I’d been to Shanghai or Beijing. And I would still very much like to visit one or both of those cities, but I think that I can safely say that China still has a long, long way to go before it will ever be a real contender. The only thing, as I see it, that China has is an absolute crap-ton of people. With 1.3 billion people you can have per capita GDP of only $2,500 and still be the world’s third-largest economy, but you might never be more than the world’s factory.
