This week, my Hainan Island adventure continues. It is hard to believe that this trip took place almost twenty years ago. I have returned to Hainan twice since then, thoroughly enjoying my visit each time. And, Hainan Island continues to be my idea of paradise. It is almost like the writers of Gilligan’s Island, Donovan’s Reef, Lost and other stories set on tropical islands got their ideas about such settings while doing an internship in Hainan. Don’t misunderstand me; I am pretty happy with my current expat life in Chongqing. Still… if it weren’t for certain parental responsibilities, I might be working remotely to prepare this episode from a beach somewhere on Hainan Island where my only worries would be about getting sand in my laptop.
Sigh.
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After finishing our leisurely breakfast, we wandered to the market area and Ellen took me to a tea shop. The shop was quite small but the crowded shelves and counters were filled with a wide variety of teas, most of them already packaged. This tea shop felt like a combination of a wholesale establishment, neighborhood shop for local consumers, and souvenir stand. Like everything else on Hainan Island, it was decidedly casual.
When I expressed interest in some of the local teas, the owners, a married couple, were delighted to stop everything and brew some samples for me. Using the same process I had seen in Zhengzhou of pouring boiling water into and over the small ceramic tea pot and cups to both sterilize and warm them, they soon offered several samples to us. Each was pleasant but I finally settled on one tea that seemed as naturally sweet and fragrant as life on Hainan Island. With Ellen’s help, I purchased some of this tea and some of the Hainan Island coffee to take back with me. One other local product which caught my attention was the coconut coffee, a strong instant coffee flavored with coconut. The addition of coconut softened the coffee’s bitter flavor, plus it added a heavenly aroma. As an unexpected bonus, the friendly owners pressed a small tea set on me as we were leaving. Their gift was a tiny tea pot that would hold less than a cup of water and three miniature tea cups, perfect for enjoying my Hainan Island tea when I got back to Zhengzhou.
Each meal those three days was an introduction to new taste sensations. After nearly six months in Zhengzhou, many of the Chinese dishes were now familiar to me but here, each one had its own Hainan Island variation. All of the meals with Ellen’s family were delicious but one day’s luncheon was particularly memorable. Ever since, back in Zhengzhou, we had begun discussing the possibility of a tropical island vacation, I had been talking about enjoying some really fresh seafood. In landlocked Henan - just like landlocked Missouri - truly fresh seafood is impossible. Ellen knew about my cravings and had arranged something very special.
That day, Ellen’s father took us to a dockside restaurant which specialized in local seafood. There, in an airy private room on the second floor, with a wonderful view and fresh tropical breezes sweeping in through the open windows and stirred the floor-length white curtains, we enjoyed a spectacular meal. Everything served was freshly caught – for, after all, you never had to go very far on Hainan Island to get to the ocean - and perfectly prepared.
At the table, we again made our own dipping sauces. Each individual created their own sauce, mixing it themselves in their own small bowl. Thus, each person’s dipping sauce became a unique blend of soy sauce, minced garlic, and (for me) only a single, tiny, fiery red pepper. Next, you added lime juice, selecting from the bowl of freshly picked Hainan Island bitter limes and squeezing it yourself – an act which made your fingers smell pleasant all afternoon too. Everything was mixed according to individual taste preferences. Now, you were ready to begin. You take a bite of the food with your chopsticks and dip it into your sauce. For the adventurous diner, you can press the food directly against the red pepper inferno. For a more moderate dosage of heat, you just swirl it in the general vicinity.
Then, one by one, they brought out the multiple courses - slowly, to allow time to enjoy each dish. Our lunch that day began with a large plate of fried clams and vegetables, then went on to include a platter of steamed crabs, a big bowl of thinly sliced, delicately flavored octopus, another serving dish containing a fried, freshly-caught local fish which tasted similar to Mahi-Mahi, then, best of all, a bounteous platter of huge, succulent boiled shrimp still in their shells, each one at least five inches long, not counting their lengthy whiskers drooping off the platter. All this was followed by a robust clam soup and rice. With the fresh ocean breeze blowing in through the windows, this leisurely feast was enjoyed in good company, with plenty of cold local beer, and in surroundings that could only be described as paradise.
Another evening, we dined outdoors under the canvas canopy of a small, informal neighborhood restaurant where we enjoyed the colorfully named “happy duck soup”, followed by skewered clams grilled over charcoal, white pigeon soup, a clam chowder which featured clams still in their shells waiting to be removed and swirled briefly in one’s dipping sauce before enjoying, lettuce and greens cooked until barely limp in the same clam soup, fried peanuts, freshly caught fish baked with pineapple and a sweet and sour sauce, and a wonderful desert treat of gelatinous rice balls surrounding a sweet coconut center.
One other culinary delight was a special experience for me. For this, the top had been removed from a large fresh coconut. Next, the coconut’s interior was filled with chicken soup, and the top restored. Then the coconut with the soup inside was baked. Brought to the table, the soup, by now a marvelous blend of flavors, was served directly from the toasted, aromatic coconut shell. Was it the food or the ocean breezes or the scenery or the relaxed feeling of being surrounded by friends that made these lingering meals so delightful? On Hainan Island, it was all of them.
I have two additional memories of Hainan Island from my short stay in Qionghai.
The first was of the traffic, especially the motorcycle taxis. From Zhengzhou, I was quite familiar with the darting, fearless three-wheel motorcycle taxis but now I was seeing the Hainan Island variation of that concept. In Qionghai, there were the conventional, four-wheeled taxis of course, but I also saw many local entrepreneurs on motorcycles offering taxi services to the public for even lower rates than the standard taxis. As in Zhengzhou, these motorcycles were small bikes with small engines – usually 90 to 125 cc – but they were sufficient to carry the rider and one or two passengers. The owner/operator would cruise around until someone hailed him. All those I saw were wearing a gold motorcycle helmet. There was no other uniform or taxi designation that I noticed. After a brief negotiating session, the passenger would climb on behind the driver and away they would go. It was not at all unusual to see two female passengers, often in modern dress and high heels, clinging behind the operator as he weaved through the traffic to their destination.
Also, just as in Zhengzhou, Qionghai traffic patterns and driving standards were enough to make me shake my head in bewilderment. For example, at Qionghai intersections, an American-style, ninety-degree left turn was almost non-existent. Instead, it was much more common to see the island drivers make a left turn by simply starting a long approach at a shallow angle quite some distance before they got to the intersection. Doing so meant that they cut across the opposing traffic lanes and were now proceeding directly against the oncoming traffic. But no one seemed surprised; they just swerved to one side or the other and narrowly avoided the imminent head-on collision. Likewise, if they were only going a block or two, the local drivers might travel the entire distance on the left side of the street rather than crossing then recrossing the center median. It was startling to an American at first encounter but one got accustomed to seeing it when it was repeated endlessly.
The second memory is of a young local beauty, approximately eight years old. Ellen and I met this shy lass one morning while having breakfast at another small, outdoor café. She was all large black eyes, lustrous, wavy hair, and radiantly white teeth. Far too shy to talk with a foreigner, she only stood and smiled from a safe distance. After two days on Hainan Island, I thought to myself, “And, if you think she is beautiful, you should see her older sister… and her cousin… and her neighbors.” Ellen claimed the Hainanese girls are so beautiful because of all the papaya they eat - and that fruit grows everywhere on the island.
Most of the islanders I met were Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in China, but several of the smaller ethnic minorities have long lived on Hainan Island where they struggle to maintain their own culture and traditions in the face of increasing pressure brought about by the globalizing effects of modern transportation, communication, and tourism. Perhaps it was only my imagination but I also seemed to detect a hint of Polynesian influence in their Chinese features. Best of all, the Hainan Islanders are open, gentle, and unhurried. I was told that Hainan Island is also famous for its natives living a long life; some claim Hainan Island offers the longest average life span in all of China. With these fabulous surroundings, it is no surprise that they live happily for such a long time.
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Tune in next week for further leisurely adventures and observations. After leaving Qionghai, I still had several days of exploring the rest of the island, including Sanya, the resort city at the southernmost tip of China.
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