October 1st marks the National Day of the People’s Republic of China, and is celebrated throughout China much like we celebrate the Fourth of July, festivities, fireworks, concerts, parades, etc. Schools are out for the entire week and accordingly I did not have to work. For this holiday, a few of my friends (all other foreign teachers) and I (ten in all) decided to head further south to the ‘tropical’ island of Hainan, following perhaps the last hot days of summer.
Located in the South China Sea, Hainan is the southernmost province of China; it is the smallest province but largest island fully governed by the PRC (Taiwan is larger, but Taiwan does exercise some levels of autonomy). In ancient China Hainan was known as the ‘end of the world,’ having only spent under a week there I can agree. I can imagine the ‘end of the world’ as a paradise, and having visited Hainan, it can be paradise – long, quiet beaches, mountains, amazing seafood, friendly people. But at times during the week, the ‘end of the world’ narrative spoke more to its negative connotations, the difficulties, snags, problems that arose, the hell.
Monday, September 29, half of our group took a short train ride to Guangzhou, a city of about 8.5 million, people was like you might expect, crowded. We arrived hungry. So following a difficult check-in at the hostel and maneuvering through the vulture-like private vans and taxis offering to take us anywhere, anywhere for a 100 yuan, that is. We finally located a bus that seemed to be headed towards our intended dinner spot: The Italian Restaurant. Now I have grown quite accustomed to Chinese food, in its flavors and eccentricities, but the idea of cheese and real bread had my full attention. And the Italian Restaurant did not disappoint. Owned and operated by a chef straight from Milan, it was the first truly legit western food I have had here in China; we ordered an all you can eat and drink buffet. From there we moved to a nearby bar called the Cave.
The Cave is not unlike most Chinese bars, although the atmosphere had a chill, laid-back feel, the bar itself was completely decorated in red and blasted every single Britney Spear’s song (pre-meltdown) you can think of from its speakers. After an hour or so of playing dice trying either to drown Brittney out or belting out the lyrics we could remember from our days of adolescence; we were just about getting up to leave, when a DJ came onto the floor, along with a scantily clad woman shimming and dancing about. Odd. Even more so when the next song came on and the woman produced a yellow python, wrapped it around her and continued dancing. It was quite astonishing how that snake was able to hold on.
The next day we began the real journey; a 15 hour train ride to Sanya, Hainan.
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