Rambling around my ancestral Hainan

Page 263 - 300


Chapter 8
East Coast - From Wenchang To Qionghai

 

Wenchang relatives and their rustic lives

At eleven-forty on Wednesday morning, youngest cousin Guo Tai turns up shortly after I have settled my account with the Longquan receptionist.  During the journey to our ancestral village, he acquaints me, at my biding, with information on the other members of the family such as their names.  His mother is eighty-two years old.  Guo Ping’s wife has just flown to Singapore to be with their daughter for the impending delivery of the latter’s baby.  She will be staying for two months.     

Travelling from north to south in broad daylight, I can now see that Xiayang Village 我母亲的下洋村 lies on the same left side of 201 Provincial Road as Houling Village 我父亲的后岭村.  Ever since my last visit, I have been under the impression they are located on opposite sides.  The two narrower branch roads leading to them run parallel to each other, and are only three hundred metres apart.  Houling Village is located almost beside the main road while Xiayang Village is located two kilometres east to it.  The road to Xiayang Village is frequently traversed by cargo-laden trucks from southern and southwestern Wenchang 文昌 City to Qinglan Port on the east.  The government will soon be repairing the uneven nameless road, says Guo Tai.

We arrive at one-thirty in the early afternoon.  The slight drizzle has ceased, and the weather is fine.  Lunch is set before us.  Because of their early working hours, the other family members have had their lunch at eleven-thirty in the late morning.  Unlike the previous visit, only the immediate members are present.  No firework is lit to inform the distant relations and friends in the village.  That is my secret wish too.  Before we depart at four, we visit Guo Ping’s pepper farm at the junction of the nameless road and the short unpaved lane leading to Xiayang Village.  Of the two hundred and twenty pepper vines curling around their supporting poles, only about one hundred and eighty withstood the recent destructive winds.  Those weakened stems of collapsed vines however shrivelled and died.  

Second Cousin’s farm is just across the pot-holed road.  He has more pepper vines than his older brother.  Pepper vines occupy about ten thousand hectares of Hainan land.  More than 1.3 million kilograms of pepper are produced annually in Hainan, accounting for half of China’s production.  But other crops take up much more land, some four hundred thousand hectares.  They include cashew, sugar-cane, and tea.  Sugarcanes propagate rapidly in the moist tropical conditions of Hainan.  Lemongrass seeds also thrive.  Used to flavour soup, the aromatic leaves can be harvested six months later.  And, after reshooting, they can be pruned every three months.

Guo Dian lives alone in the patch-work wooden house, keeping a vigilant watch over thousands of frogs bred for sale to restaurants.  Each of the two long breeding pools measures forty metres in length and five metres in width, and is subdivided with partition walls into smaller ponds.  With no prior experience in the business, he bravely dived into it after hearing fantastic financial tales from friends.  He is evidence of the quiet economic revolution gradually taking hold in Hainan.

A jackfruit tree, seven lychee trees, and a couple of fruiting chiku (sapodilla) trees are scattered around the compound.  But having no time to pluck and sell them, he leaves the ripe overhanging chiku fruits for the birds.  These fruits are one of my favourite.  Salivating, I look for a ripe one to taste.  But the birds have beaten me, pecking and destroying many.  Truck drivers sometimes stop and help themselves to the maturing fruits from the trees bordering the road, Guo Dian says.  Fifteen areca palms are cultivated “for fun”.  On the ground is a discarded branch of areca fruits.  That is about ten or twenty RMB worth of nuts, according to my mental calculation.

Life has improved over the last two decades since Hainan became a “special” economic zone.  It was precarious before.  Food was scarce.  Guo Dian’s fourteen-year old daughter drowned during the nineteen-eighties when the overloaded boat she was in capsized during a trip to collect shellfish at the mouth of the tidal river that runs near the back of Xiayang Village.

Five decades earlier, twelve-year old Mum nearly drowned in the same river when her overloaded boat also capsized for the same reason.  Fortunately for her, her mother pulled her to safety.

Guo Tai drives me to the Pang’s ancestral house.  It is still bright at five in the late afternoon.  After surveying the interior of the compound, we move to the front gate, which is now open.  In front of us is a beautiful scene.  About two metres in width, a cement lane connects the other houses on my left to the main provincial road on my right.  Beyond it is a reasonably well laid-out garden of tall trees, beneath which are tables and chairs for the few residents to relax and socialise.  There is a huge tree.  Is that the tree from which I had caught a cicada during my childhood?  After the garden is a large green field, sprouting with creeping vegetables.  On rows of earthen mounts, these vegetables need well-drained soil for growth.  Some banana trees are on my left while on my right is a thick clump of sugarcanes.  Far away are coconut palms.  The villagers here are obviously self-sufficient.

When it is time for us to depart, I feel a sense of sadness.  I do not know when or if ever I will return.  I am sixty-two.  Do I have the time and freedom to travel?  As I recover from my passing thoughts, I ask Guo Tai the name of the two short plants with sections of their branches covered with cloth and soil.  

“Huanghuali.”  (黄花梨)  

The name instantly perks my attention.  These sections will develop roots and the branches will be sheared off for planting, he adds.  I look around; there are nine other young plants in the neighbouring property.  An antique chair made of “Yellow Flowering Pear” wood was recently sold in the international market for more than a million dollars, Ho Wing Meng had earlier remarked as he regaled me with a fascinating chronicle of antique deals and archaeological discoveries in China.  After my first Hainan trip, I had visited him and mentioned the expensive “huali” cups and bowls for sale at the Haikou Museum shop.

Ho Wing Meng is my retired head of Philosophy Department in National University of Singapore (新加坡国立大学哲学系的前任主管), and the author of Straits Chinese Silver, Straits Chinese Porcelain, Straits Chinese Beadwork and Embroidery, Straits Chinese Furniture, and The Emperor’s Loss Treasure.  

I immediately sprung out when he pointed to the chair I was sitting on.  “That is also a Huanghuali antique chair you are sitting on, Hee How, although it has a slight defect.”

We drive south, a kilometre or so, to Huiwen.  The road is wide and not heavy with traffic.  Parking is not a problem.  The best hotel is four-storeyed but it has no lift, which is daunting for a man of my age.  The young boy at the front desk hands us the key to a room at the end of the third floor.  It is spacious.  It overlooks a field.  I like it.  But lugging my bags and luggage up and down the stairs does not appeal to me.  I reluctantly decide not to stay there.  The youth is not unhappy with my decision.  There is that laid-back disposition.  No worries.  We drive to Wenchang city, where I book into the familiar Longyuan Hotel (熟悉的龙源宾馆).


Longlou Space Launch Centre, Qinglan Port

 
Chen Ru Xin quotes me a sum of 350 RMB for the destinations I have indicated over the phone on Thursday morning.  His offer is reasonable and he is a reliable driver.  I rush to the corner bakery to gobble down a cheese toast, a sweet bun, and a cup of soya milk before he arrives.  Chen is punctual, driving us along 203 Provincial Road and through Wenjiao town, the ancestral home of famous Taiwanese actress Lin Ching Hsia’s billionaire husband Michael Ying.

Longlou town (文昌龙楼镇) is still undergoing building development.  But no workers are at the road kerb this time; they have completed transplanting the ornamental palms and trees.  Travelling further on 316 Provincial Road, we reach the dusty road leading to the new Space Launch Centre (中国文昌航天发射场).  The number of houses decreases.  While Chen is pessimistic about our chance of entering into the compound of the Space Centre, I reassure him that my wish is only to go as near as possible to take some photographs for souvenir, even if we are chased off by the guards.  As we approach our destination, the bitumen road changes into a hard sandy road.   It will be rebuilt and widened after the completion of the space centre because any prior upgrading will be futile; for the developed track will degrade under the constant heavy truck traffic, Chen explains.

He stops his cab near the entrance of the Space Centre.  Its surrounding boundary wall is about three metres in height, permitting passersby on the outside to see the upper levels of any tall buildings.  We got out and walk towards the small sentry office.  No one is in.  The entrance is unguarded.  The gate is open for workers.  No warning sign is posted.  We walk right in.  Surprisingly, the site is deserted.  No activity is going on.

Construction of the Space Centre, thirty kilometres east of Wenchang downtown, has begun.  Before us is a huge artificial crater of about one hundred metres in diameter.  In front of it is a billboard measuring about six by four metres, depicting a rocket blasting off from its launching pad against the background of a dark-blue sea and light-blue sky.  I eagerly peer into the round concrete hole, knowing very well that I am among the privileged few to have stepped on this site, where satellite-loaded rockets will roar and soar in the near future.  It is historic.  (During my third trip, Zhang Guo Hao drives my younger brother Hee Hung and me here to re-live my amazing experience.  We are delighted to observe a beautiful hoopoe searching for insects among the grass near the entrance.)

Conceived during the nineteen-seventies but subsequently shelved because of the vulnerability then of the southern island to foreign military attacks, the space project was ultimately approved by the Chinese State Council and the Central Military Commission in August 2007, five years after a feasibility study.  During the interim, a sub-orbital rocket launch site was built here, which saw five ZhiNu sounding rockets being successfully launched between 1988 and 2006.

At the foundation-laying ceremony in September 2009 on Tonggu Peninsula, director Wang Weichang of the Hainan Space Launch Center Project Headquarters said that the site would be used for launching synchronous satellites, heavy satellites, large space stations, and deep space probe satellites.  Originally scheduled for commission in 2013, the centre was completed in 2014 and ready for its first launch in 2015.  

Compared to the launch centres in heavily-used Jiuquan in northwestern Gansu Province, Taiyuan in northern Shanxi, and Xichang in southwestern Sichuan, this fourth centre possesses advantages, which will enable China to compete for more international commercial launches.  First, a satellite launched from Wenchang at only nineteen degrees north of the equator would use less fuel to advance from “transit” orbit into “geosynchronous” orbit, thereby extending its service life by three years, according to Chinese rocket expert Long Lehao.  Alternatively, the payload mass (for example, a satellite) carried by a Changzheng-5 (Long March-5) large-thrust carrier rocket could be increased by an additional three hundred kilograms because of the 7.4 percent increase in performance.  

Second, the Wenchang site is logistically superior.  Near Qinglan Port, it will facilitate the transportation of new-generation Long March-5 rocket stage segments from its factory-testing facilities in Tianjin.  Qinglan Port is one of the sixty-eight ports around the island, and one of its twenty-four major fishing ports.  In contrast, the other three sites are deep inland in mountainous regions, which hinder transportation.  The rail tracks of the inland launch centres are unsuitable for the delivery of the heavy-lift, 5-metre core CZ-5 boosters.

Finally, the Wenchang site offers safety from mishaps.  Situated eight hundred metres from the coast, the launch pad will ensure rocket flights over clear sea for up to a thousand kilometres, thus minimizing the danger of burning wreckages raining upon residents.  At Xichang, a Long March-3B heavy carrier rocket bearing Intelsat 708 veered off-course after launch in 1996, crashing into a nearby mountain village, destroying eighty houses, and killing more than five hundred people.  In 2010, parts of the Long March-3C rocket powering lunar orbiter Chang’e-2 fortunately missed some villagers in Sichuan; in 2013, debris from the Long March-3B rocket carrying Chang’e-3 damaged two houses in Hunan Province.

China aims to land a man on the moon by 2020 and establish a space base there by 2050.  To achieve its ambition, Long March-5 rockets will be tested to deliver geosynchronous communication and weather satellites, polar orbit reconnaissance satellites, deep space detection satellites, space probes, and 25-ton manned space stations.  According to director Wang, the Wenchang space centre has the capacity to program a maximum of twelve launches annually.  Firing off from here will also be the Long March-7 and Long March-11 rockets, currently under development.  The former is the replacement of the older Long March-2F (which carried three astronauts into orbit in 2008 and 2013); the latter is a smaller, solid fuel rocket with a payload of about one ton (conveying, for example, small satellites or reconnaissance spacecraft).    

Huiwen is about eighteen kilometres south of Wenchang downtown, and some forty kilometres southwest of the launch centre.  However remote the danger of a spaceship mishap and falling debris on the little town is, it still exists.  I fear for the welfare of my relatives in the two little nearby villages.  Sichuanese will be sighing with relief: thank goodness, the Hainanese will enjoy the monthly marvels but they must also brave the perils.

One car passes us on our way out.  Chen stops his cab at the nearby village store.  I speak to the gentleman in his early seventies, his wife, and daughter.  They have not been told of any relocation plan.  Many residents of other villages have been resettled.  Each resident is entitled to thirty-five square metres of new housing, he explains.  With a household of nine persons, he is entitled to three hundred and fifteen square metres.  In my mental calculation, he will be given an equivalent of two or three new townhouses.  Being a shop owner, he is also entitled to 100,000 RMB for his parcel of land as compensation for loss of his business.

*  This road is now part of Wenchang Space Centre  *
这条路现在是文昌航天发射场的一部分

While we are talking, his wife attends to a customer, who has just arrived in his car.  Besides us, he is the only person over the last fifteen or twenty minutes.  With mixed emotions, I leave.  I am glad, however, that the family will be receiving new homes, which will appreciate in value over the decades.  But I am also sad to see them alienated from their familiar community, which was once caring and tight-knit but now dispersed.

Along our way, we stop by a row of new and beautiful townhouses in Longlou town.  Walking up to the lady in her sixties standing by the open door of her home, I speak to her in Hainanese.  Her family of five has moved in only two months earlier.  She kindly permits me to look around her home.  Inside, her daughter-in-law is cuddling her four or five-year old daughter, who spontaneously cries upon the entrance of a stranger.  It is spacious and uncluttered.  The usual furniture is in its context: a low coffee table in the centre and some chairs against the wall.  A few toys are strewn on the floor.  The townhouse has three storeys.

Living in a townhouse, I estimate the total area to be more than two thousand square feet (one hundred and eighty-six square metres).  On the ground floor are a small living room, a bedroom, a storeroom, a dining room, a small kitchen, and a garden.  The six-bedroom accommodation is more than sufficient for the small family.  The Chinese government is very generous in its resettlement scheme, I later remark to Chen.  He agrees.  Will these residents regularly hear and see rockets zooming off into space in the near future?

Heading southwest along 183 Country Road to the famous Dongjiao coconut plantations (), our car penetrates the shade of thousands of swaying coconut palms lining the road near Hainan Prima Resort, where we briefly stop.  As far as my eyes can see, the edge near the sea shore is blooming with these generally unesteemed palms.  According to the information posted on the signboard, the Dongjiao coconut grove extends up to fifteen kilometres.  I gingerly feel the sand of Dongjiao beach (Dongjiao Coconut Forest Bay beach文昌市东郊椰林湾海滩) and touch the water, the water of the South China Sea.  The sands are fine, and the water is warm.  Since the May Day school holiday is over, the beach is not crowded.

Leaving the resort, Chen points to a Yuan Chang Qing Hei Dong Gua (Benincasa hispida [Oblongata group]) farm on my right.  Some tiny yellow flowers are on the creepers covering the wooden frames.  A dark-green oblong winter gourd (or melon) can balloon to sixty centimetres in length and forty-five centimetres in diameter.  Its fresh is white in colour but its skin is thick and looks dirty.  Its hollow centre holds the beige seeds.  Sliced into small chunks, its slightly transparent flesh flavours stewed pork-bone soup.

Dongjiao is an old town.  One road, or rather lane, is so narrow it seems to be made for two trishaws moving abreast.  At the end of the main road awaits the Qinglan harbour ferry that transports buses, cars, trucks, and passengers to Qinglan town on the opposite side of the bay, eight hundred metres apart.  Cars and trucks are queuing to slowly board the open-air ferry, which departs only when it is full and profitable.  Passengers are patiently monitoring the inching vehicles.  When all have wormed in, they follow.  Their fare is 2 RMB each.  The fare for taxis is 30 RMB.  Its passengers are exempted.  The last ferry departs at six in the evening.  Fifteen minutes is all it takes, enough for me to photograph the surrounding scenes.  

A year and a half later, my brother and I ride on the same ferry from Dongjiao to Qinglan town.  Half a kilometre to our right, the two-way six-lane Qinglan Bridge with a length of 1.828 kilometres has just been completed and is open to traffic.  (Crossing Bamen Bay on a ferry; Qinglan Port Bridge on the right我正渡过八门湾渡轮; 清澜港大桥在右边) Its design is identical to that of the Haikou Century Bridge.  Unfortunately, the unique ferry service for motor vehicles will soon end.  Perhaps the elderly lady who is lugging her basket of clams to sell at Qinglan town will have to find another means of transport.

 Bamen Wan (八门湾; Eight-Door Bay) has clean blue waters.  A few fishing boats criss-cross the bay.  As I stand beside the cars and trucks on the slow-moving ferry (in 2011), my mind travels back to the late nineteenth century.  I visualize Charlie Soong’s father toiling on one of the wharves, painfully recalling the sad farewells of his two young sons, especially nine-year old Jiaozhun, bound for Java.

Two white six-storey buildings in Qinglan town are situated close to the bank; they are probably offices.  Behind them in the distance are two twenty-storey residential apartments.  Our ferry soon reaches the town’s ferry terminus, where passengers and vehicles are waiting.  A few hundred metres to our left is Qinglan Port.  

Excitedly, I bolt out of the car to inspect the fishing vessels that are tied to the wharf as well as the several that are tied to one another because of docking space shortage.  So here I am, standing at one of the few deep-sea fishing ports in Hainan, and witnessing huge blocks of ice sliding down a transparent plastic tube from a truck into the hull of a large trawler.  Wearing only shorts, some of the nine physically fit men ranging from about twenty-five to thirty-five years of age are assisting the loading.  They are preparing for a prolonged trip and a bounty perhaps from the Xisha (Paracel) islands, about three hundred kilometres to their south.  They will reach their fishing ground in ten hours if they cruise at a speed of thirty kilometres an hour (or 15.6 knots).  When the fishing season is over, their boat and boats of numerous others will return and anchor in this harbour.

 
*  Qinglan Port, full of deep-sea fishing trawlers  *
海南省文昌市清澜港有许多深海捕鱼拖网渔船
Wenchang Coconut Grand View Gardens
海南省文昌市椰子大观园
 
Surrounded by deep sea and ocean, Hainan Island is endowed with a rich fishing ground.  The many fishing ports dotting its shore provide bounteous fresh seafood to its citizens.  What a lucky island, I mumble to myself.  Driving back to Wenchang, Chen kindly stops at Coconut Grand View Garden.  This is a coconut park, he says.  The admission for seniors is 10 RMB.  Two groups of six or seven-year old students, some in yellow shorts and others in yellow track pants, but all in T-shirts with stripes horizontal stripes of yellow, white, and grey are escorted by three teachers.  They are on their way out and home.  They have finished their excursion and picnic by the lake.  

At the playground, some park employees are clearing the empty drinks bottles and food packages from the tables and ground.  Besides coconut trees, which are abundant, other plants and trees are widely distributed throughout the park.  Crescentia cujete L., Eugenia javanica Lam, Excoecaria cochinchinensis Lour, Ficus microcarpa var. pusillifolia, Manilkara sapota L., Veitchia merrilli (Becc.) H.E. Moore, and Wodyetia bifurcata A.K. Irvine are some of the species represented.  These plants are thriving, thanks to the astounding care and diligence of those looking after the trees and those looking after the ground.  Although it is not a very big park, I decide to return to the hotel, satisfied with the day.


Confucius’ Temple;

Fengjia Bay’s snail-breeding Zhan family


Confucius Temple (文昌孔庙) is only two hundred metres from the back of Longyuan Hotel; yet I did not realize it earlier, despite the Chinese characters 孔廟 on the ornate archway across the narrow and short lane.  On Friday morning, however, the first character stops me in my track when I make my way to Dongfeng Road (201 Provincial Road) from my hotel.  Is that character identical to the first character in Confucius’ name?  I hastily dig out the pocket dictionary from my backpack.  Yes, “Kong”, which means “empty”, is the first character of Confucius’ name.  

“Kong Miao?”  “Empty Temple?”  I stammer to myself.  

I scratch my head.  A sudden flash kindles an insight in me: the name on the archway is an abbreviation of “Kongzi Miao” (“Confucius’ Temple”).  But that revelation leaves me in perpetual perplexity; for Confucius’ name in Mandarin - 孔子 - literally means an “empty child”!  How did the great teacher receive an incongruous name like that?

Standing under the arch, I mistake the visible temple on the left of a yellow-wall compound at the end of the lane for Confucius’ Temple.  I walk towards it.  Behind the locked galvanised grille gate, the lady caretaker indicates the adjoining property.
Confucius Temple is hidden within the yellow walls.  I move right until I reach a small inconspicuous entrance.  Hanging under its straight-inclined roof are two red lanterns, which are slightly out of my reach.  On the ground are two dark-brown earthen pots of figs, whose branches and leaves have been precisely trimmed to form round balls.  On both sides of the entrance are small plaques and framed information.  The one that I can decipher is “Wenchang Kong Miao”.  The two characters against a maroon background above the entrance probably say “Entrance”.  Unable to read the others, I curse myself for my limited vocabulary.  I enter.  Some middle-aged ladies are talking in the reception room.  The admission fee is 5 RMB for seniors and 15 for others, one answers.  I need to pay only 5 RMB.  That is cheap, I whisper.

First built during the eleventh century, this temple subsequently underwent renovations until it appears as a modern construction.  With a boundary of about seventy metres in length and sixty metres in width, the compound is divided into three sections, two of which have rooms and amenities for its caretakers.  Looking at the partial dividing walls, I get the feeling that the caretakers’ sections on both ends were once private residences, later acquired by the authorities for expansion because of the temple’s increasing popularity.  But today I am the only visitor.  

As I stand near the entrance in the middle section, looking at the life-size statue of the sage perched on a short square pedestal in front of the open shelter with its traditional roof about thirty metres distant, I am struck by the symmetry of the layout (文昌孔庙对称布局): the vertical and horizontal columns of the intervening rectangular archway running parallel to the vertical pillars and horizontal roof of the shelter.

Four ceramic pots of beautiful mature bonsai figs are placed near the archway.  I cross the two-metre long (or rather short) miniature bridge to see Confucius.  In ancient robe, he is covered with bright-yellow gold paint.  His hands are clasped before his chest in greeting.  His hair is tied into a bun.  Despite his long beard and three wrinkle lines on his forehead, the statue depicts him as a man in his fifties, although he died at the age of seventy.  Under the maroon shelter behind him are an ancient bell about a metre in height and a large drum, perhaps equally ancient.

Going through the shelter, I face the inner sanctum, an empty quadrangle at the end of which is the temple itself.  A large censer is at its entrance for devotees to insert their lighted incense sticks.  Inside the temple are a small altar and a statue about a foot in height.  Almost everything is coloured red: the curtain, pillars, altar tables, and fortune sticks hanging on a panel.  While the hall on one side of the quadrangle is closed, the hall on the other is open, exhibiting photographs.  Some books are housed in showcases.  An hour is sufficient for my visit as I head for my lunch.

Along Dongfeng Road is the Do and Me Restaurant (by the Doremi Group).  Its Five-Treasure Rice (Wu Bao Fan) looks very appetizing. Indeed, it is very tasty.  Well presented, it consists of three slices of fried tofu, four pieces of beef tripe in oyster sauce, two leaves of cai xin, half a hard-boiled egg in boiled soy sauce, four slices of char siew (although half of each roast pork piece is fat), and a whole chicken wing (from limb to tip) cleaved into three parts.  The steel cup-size container of herbal soup contains two large mushrooms flavoured with slow-cooked wolfberries and dried dates.  Costing 21 RMB, the set could be sold in Singapore for more than 30 RMB ($6).  (Cheap but delicious food in Wenchang town
便宜，但美味的食物在文昌镇)
 
Walking along Wenxin Road to discretely photograph shops that will be transformed into brothels after sunset, I am unfortunate to be hailed by the proprietress of the laundry when she sees me at the opposite side of the road.  When I cross over, she asks for my destination.  I tell her.  She advises me to wait for the bus at the stop in front of her.  She is a nice and friendly lady.

From the inland province of Hubei, she came to Wenchang about seven years ago.  She is the joint owner of the laundry with her brother, she says.  When she asks for my next destination, I reveal part of my itinerary.

She jokingly enquires if she can accompany me during my trip around Hainan.  Fortunately, my wit abides with me.

 
**********

Jovial Hubei beauty jokingly enquires if she could accompany me around Hainan
湖北美女开玩笑地询问她是否可以陪我去海南旅游

 **********

“Cannot.  You are too beautiful.  If my wife finds out, she may wring my ear.”  I playfully wring my right ear with my right hand.
“Can.  She won’t find out,” she replies.
“If you are an ugly, elderly woman, I will certainly take you with me.  But you are very beautiful.”
Deeply flattered, she is pleased. “Where are you staying?”
“Longyuan Hotel.”  I point to the other end of the road.  
“Can I visit you?”
Thinking that she is teasing me, I jovially respond, “Can”.
“I want to introduce some girls to you.”
I am getting nervous.
“Ni de fangjian, shenme haoma?  (What is your room number?)” She continues.

Oh... oh...  this is getting serious.  Fortunately, my poor grasp of Mandarin saves me.  “Shenme haoma?  Bu zhidao ni shuo shenme.”  (What number? I don’t understand what you are saying.)
She replies, “Haoma shi haoma.  Ni bu zhidao?”  (Number is number.  Don’t you understand?)
“Shenme shi haoma?”  (What is ‘haoma’?)

She turns to the pimp sitting at the neighbouring doorway, and requests her Hainanese translation.  Dressed like any ordinary woman in the street, Brothel Proprietress in her late forties tried to explain to me.  But I blame my poor grasp of Hainanese, which is true.  In exasperation, Laundry Lady turns to a young school girl, and bides her to do the same.  Again, I plead my ignorance of the term “haoma”.  For once, I am thankful for my illiteracy in Mandarin and Hainanese.

By now I have been secretly praying for the arrival of that elusive bus to rescue me from my predicament.  When I express my intention to move to another road to seek direction, she stops a passing pedicab and explains my destination.  He takes me about two hundred metres to the sharp corner of Xinfeng and Yexiang Road, and asks the driver of the waiting green-and-white bus if it is travelling to Huiwen and beyond.  It is.  I pay the pedicab rider the 2 RMB he charges.  The earlier quoted price is 4 RMB to a bus stop further off.  

Carrying about twenty persons, the small bus is proceeding south to Qionghai via Huiwen.  (我在公共汽车，从文昌市区到冯家湾 On the bus from Wenchang downtown to Fengjiawan [Feng Clan Bay]) The fare to Fengjia Bay is 7 RMB, comprising 6 RMB to Huiwen and 1 RMB for the extra six kilometres to the beach.  I get a seat.  The bus travels west along Yexiang Road, then south along Wenchang Expressway, and east along Heping South Road, and finally south along the main Wenjian Road, which joins 201 Provincial Road.  After a few stops where it receives more passengers, some of whom are standing, it passes the railway line.  From then on it rolls almost non-stop, halting only when the driver sees passengers by the roadside.  An elderly gentleman enquires if the bus is going to a specific destination.  It does not.  At Huiwen, some passengers disembark, while some board.

“Feng Jia Bay”, the three words in English, below the Chinese characters 冯家湾, painted on a large brown metal sign that is attached to the top of a tall steel pole reassures me the driver has dropped me off at the right place.  The white arrow below the words is unnecessary.  Feng Jia Bay.  The name of that bay is literally “Feng House Bay”.  If it is really “Feng Clan’s Bay”, can I stake a small ancestral share over it?   

The two-hundred metre side road leading to the beach is undergoing upgrading.  On my right is a resort owned by a private company, which opens its room only to employees.  The small drink stall on my left is owned by a lady and her husband Lu Lie Hong (吕列红).  They have operated the business for eight years.  Chen Yi Zhen (陈贻贞) is only thirty-nine and already a grandmother.  She and her daughter married during their teens.

Her father is seventy-three, ten years older than me.  He has five children.  In Hainanese, he reminisces over the hard times during and after the war.  During the nineteen-sixties, the family members subsisted on only a daily bowl of rice each and, occasionally, some vegetables.  I express my sympathies for his hardship.  Residing nearby, he regularly visits his daughter.  (A year later, during my third Hainan trip, I hear to my sadness that he has passed on.)

 
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Translation of the two following paragraphs;
courtesy of May & Ken Cheung and their Hong Kong friends
 
在冯家湾
 
通往海滩的两百米小巷正在进行维修，右边的是一间私人公司的度假旅馆，只开放给公司的员工入住，而左边的饮料小摊档则是由一位女士和她的丈夫吕列红经营的，经营已八年了。只有三十九岁的陈贻贞女士已成为祖母了，她和她女儿都是很年青时便结婚。

她的父亲七十三岁，比我大十岁，有五个儿女，他用海南话诉说着战时和战后困难时期的回忆，六十年代时，家里每人每日只能吃一碗米饭，偶尔能吃些蔬菜，我对他那时候的艰苦表示十分同情。因为住在附近，所以他经常会探望他的女儿。（一年后，我再回到海南时，我很遗憾得知他已经过世了。）
 
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 Unlike many beaches, which slope, the one here is flat.  The tide has receded, exposing about a hundred-metre width of shoreline.  Below the thin veneer of brownish-white sand is greyish compact clay.  First Cousin later tells me that, after a distance, the beach declines steadily.  The beach is more than three kilometres in length.  Afar from the salty water, coconut trees form a neat line as far as my eyes can see.  Scattered on my left and right are a few houses.  To my immediate right two persons are dipping in the waters while further off two more are scouring for perhaps shellfish.  A motorcycle is parked near the two swimmers.

I turn left and walk.  The shore is alive with different species of hermit crabs.  Some are scurrying across the sand; some are lying still in shallow trapped pools of clean, transparent seawater.  I count.  Within a square metre are at least ten of them.  I playfully turn one on its back.  It quickly retreats into its shell for safety.  After a few seconds, it bravely emerges, repositions itself, and flees to the water.  I am not able to obtain a closer look at the tiny crabs.  As I approach, they dash into their narrow holes, vanishing deeper and deeper into some hidden tunnels as I try to scoop out the surrounding sand.   (Fengjia Bay beach is ecologically rich with marine life  冯家湾海滩拥有丰富的海洋生物)

Almost deserted except for some people working about half a kilometre distant, the shore is safe.  Curious, I walk towards them.  The seven men are laying blue plastic pipes, which I infer are for conveying uncontaminated sea water to pools on the elevated ground to my left.  I scramble up the thirty metres.  The pools belong to an aquaculture farm.  Walking along the narrow village track shaded by overhanging branches of tropical trees and coconut palms, I spot a lady standing near the entrance of a similar venture among the few scattered fenced compounds.  

She is rearing “lay”, she replies in Hainanese to my query.  “Lay”, I take to be “shellfish” or “clams”.  She has been in the business for about ten years, she adds.  I request permission to have a peep at her “lay”.

Unfortunately, she has just sold her lot.  I am disappointed in my lost opportunity of determining the species of shellfish that is being bred here.  She is one of the many enterprising ladies I will meet in my travel.  With people like her, marine aquaculture is fast catching up as a major contribution to the Hainan economic success.  I walk out of the isolated track, slightly scared by the occasional but continuous barking and howling of suspicious free-range dogs of quiet Changlang Village (昌郎村).   (A seaside village at Fengjiawan 家湾一个海滨村)


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My 3rd trip in 2012:

I met the Zhan (Hainanese: Chiam) family in Fengjia Bay
2012年我的第三次旅行: 我在冯家湾遇到了詹家

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 During my third trip, I trample along the same stretch of beach until a narrow stream obstructs my path.  Then climbing up the slope again to the fringe of that village, I stumble upon another aquaculture farm.  Its chest-high parameter wall consists of brown bricks laid out with spaces that permit free-flowing air through the compound.  Aeration of the three long rows of concrete rectangular troughs is its primary aim, not the exclusion of robbers.  Each row is about fifty metres in length, six metres in width, and half a metre in height.  It is subdivided into eleven or twelve smaller troughs, making a total of about thirty-three.  These pools are sheltered from the harsh sunlight by a high and huge overhead canvas “roof”.

With thick bushes, tall wild grasses, and running creepers hemming the sides of this large compound, there is no other way for me to reach the village lane except through the grille gates.

Looking through the back gate, I see a man and some ladies feeding the watery inhabitants with contents from their hand-held plastic containers.  Two of them are standing on the ledges that subdivide the three troughs.  In desperation, I meekly solicit in Mandarin the nearest lady for permission to pass through her compound.  She is friendly.  She smiles as she unlatches the lock with her clean left hand.  I ask if they are Hainanese.  

“Yes.”  
I switch to speaking in Hainanese to create a rapport.  “Are you rearing fish here?”  
“No, ‘Lay’.”  
“Can I have a look?”  Now I will have a chance to see and identify the “lay”, I mutter to myself.  
“Certainly.”

I peer into the nearest pond.  I am stunned.  I anticipate clams or cockles.  But the crawling creatures huddling together at the bottom of the pool of water are actually snails.  So the “lay” (Hainanese pronunciation) is a sea snail.  Except for their smaller size, they look very much like those that leave their secret crevices in my backyard garden after a heavy rain.

“How can they live in the water?”  I ignorantly ask.   
“They are sea snails.”  Madam Liang Shao Mei (梁少媚) replies.
“What are you feeding them with?”
“Fish.”

The snails are fed twice a day: in the early morning and in the evening.  The unconsumed remnants like fish bones are removed before re-feedings.  Shao Mei explains the life-cycle of her brood of sea snails, the Dongfeng Luo (东风螺; literally, East Wind Snail or Spiral Shell).  Babylonia formosae is a species of sea snail in the Babyloniidae family.  Hatching from tiny eggs, the snails mature for harvesting after nine months.  I peer into the water again to have a look at the French culinary delight.  The three or four-centimetre creatures are fighting for a space on the fish carcasses.  The fish eyes seem alive, staring at me pitifully.

  Shao Mei is about fifty-five years of age.  But she looks young for her age.  She is slim; she is about my height.  She is beautiful too.  The business is family-owned.  Her husband Zhan Zhong Fu (詹忠甫) is out on an errand.  They manage the operation with the assistance of their son and two daughters.  

Like her mother, the younger daughter Qiu Chan (秋婵) looks very young.  She is also very friendly, putting me at ease to raise, rather indiscreetly, the question of her marital status.  No, she is not married, she unhesitatingly answers.

“I suppose you are still young.” I say as a matter of fact.
“Guess my age.”  
“Twenty-four?”  I truthfully guess, without any intention of flattering her.  
“No.  Twenty-nine.”
“Twenty-nine?  But you look only twenty-four or twenty-three.”

She thanks me for the compliment.  Her sister Qiu Ping (秋萍) is married.  As I squat to photograph the slow loris under the rippling water surface, Shao Mei kindly picks and places one on the ledge.  I thank her.  I am fortunate.  I quickly snap as many pictures as I can.  Fearing for my safety when I relay that I will be walking to the main road, she insists that her son take me on his motorcycle because of the ferocious village dogs.  As I hang onto the pillion sides, Xiao Shuai (孝帅) tells me, amidst the occasional angry barks, that he is twenty-three years of age and will shortly be finishing his tertiary education.  He is fortunate to have a caring and tight-knit family living on the serene bay that bears my family name.


* Zhan Xiao Shuai and his bride *
詹孝帅和他的新娘

 
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 Translation of the following paragraphs on the Zhan (Chiam) family;
courtesy of May & Ken Cheung and their Hong Kong friends

 冯家湾 - 詹家 (Page 277-279)
 
从后门往里瞧，我看见一个男士和几位女士手里提着塑料桶，正在喂养水生动物。有两个人站在三个水池中间的分隔墙上。我用普通话温和的询问 靠近我的那一位女士，是否允许我通过她们的场地。她友好的微笑着，用她干净的左手拉开了门闩。 我问他们是不是海南人。
 
"是。”
我觉得似乎用本地话交谈更亲切，于是用海南话问："你们在喂鱼吗？"
 "不， ‘蕾' [海南语音]"
 "能让我看一看吗？” 现在我可有机会看一看 “蕾” 究竟是什么东西， 我轻声嘀咕着。
 "当然可以。”

往最近的水池一看，我惊呆了，我原以为大概是蛤或蚶之类，但看到的是水池底部拥挤在一起的爬行动物竟是蜗牛。除了个头小一些外，它们看起来真像大雨过后我家后花园里的蜗牛。

"它们能活在水中？"  我茫然问道。
“它们是海蜗牛。” 梁少媚女士回答说。
 "你们喂它们什么呢？”
"鱼。"

"这些海蜗牛必须每天清晨和傍晚喂食两次。第一次吃剩的残食要把鱼骨头等挑干净，留着第二次喂食。" 少媚解释说， "这种海蜗牛学名东 风螺，小蜗牛从细小的卵孵化出来后要等九个月才能成熟收获。" 我再次 往水中瞧瞧这些法国名菜，这些3到4厘米长的小蜗牛正在争先恐后的抢鱼食。 那鱼似乎还活着，眼睛可怜巴巴的瞧着我。

 少媚大约五十五岁，但看起来比实际年龄还年轻，她身形纤瘦，和我差不多高，她还长得很漂亮呢。她的那盘生意是家族经营的，她的丈夫詹忠甫正出差，他们的儿子和两个女儿也有帮忙管理的工作。

较小的女儿秋婵和妈妈一样，都长得很年轻，也是很随和，并容许我轻率问及她的婚姻状况，她很爽快地答了，「不，我还未结婚。」
 「我猜你还很年轻吧。」我说。
「你猜猜我的年龄。」
 「二十四？」我真心地猜着，并没有奉承她的意思。
 「不，是二十九。」
 「二十九？但你看起来像是只有二十三、四岁。」

 她多谢我的赞赏，她的姊姊,秋萍,则已婚了。当我蹲下来为碧波荡漾之下的蜗牛拍照时，少媚好心地帮我捡了一只，还放在壁架上，我感谢她，我真感到幸运，尽快拍了许多张照片。因为路上可能会遇到村里几头恶狗，她担心我走回大道时的安全，所以坚持要她的儿子用摩托车送我一程，我骑在摩托车的后座时，听到偶尔的几阵恶吠声，孝帅告诉我，他现年二十三岁，快要完成他的大学学业。能够有这样的一个亲密又充满爱的家庭，能够住在我家乡这个宁静的海湾，他真的很幸运。

蜗牛养殖对个体户而言是一个高风险的企业，在我2013年的旅途中，我从少媚得知她村里70%的农场因为有年幼的蜗牛死亡而收入大减， 如果当 时没有其他经济援助，他们将不得不等待其他农场的蜗牛长至成熟阶段，才去买来重新培育。
 
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Snail breeding is a risky enterprise for self-employed entrepreneurs.  During my 2013 trip, I learn from Shao Mei that as much as seventy percent of farms in her village have suffered loss of income as a result of the recent death of their young snails.  Without other means of financial support, they would have to wait for stocks of fortunate breeders to reach maturity and then buy the adults to restart the process.

{On a subsequent trip, I have the pleasure of meeting Zhan Zhong Fu’s niece and her mother.  Pretty Zhan Su Dan has recently completed her university degree in graphic design in Guangzhou.  I readily accept their invitation to see their fish farm close to the junction of 201 Provincial Road and 201 County Road.  Sitting on the pillion of Shao Mei’s bike, I trail them along a meandering sandy lane to their village.  Their double-storey brick house overlooks three square ponds, each averaging about a hundred square metres.  Mrs Zhan drips a pan and a net into one pond and lifts out some fingerlings and juveniles.  Their convex tail fins and brown colour suggest that they are groupers (cods).  Interestingly, a grouper weighing about one hundred and thirty kilograms was caught in Hainan Province in early 2016.  It was sold for twenty-six thousand RMB (slightly over S$5,000).}

 
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The following paragraph is my translation (以下段落是我的翻译)

Pretty Zhan Su Dan and her mother at their fish farm
漂亮的小姐詹和她的母亲在他们的养鱼场

{在我后来的旅行中，我很高兴见到詹忠甫的侄女和她的母亲。漂亮的詹小姐最近在广州完成了平面设计大学学位。我立即接受邀请，在201省路和201县路交界看到他们的养鱼场。我坐在梁少媚摩托车的后座，我沿着一条沙路跟着他们的村庄。他们的双层砖房俯瞰三个池塘; 每个池塘约一百平方米。 詹太太把一个锅和一个网滴到一个池塘里，抬起一些幼鱼和少年。鱼尾的凸尾鳍和褐色表明它们是石斑鱼（cods）。有意思的是，2016年海南省,石斑鱼的鱼被抓，重约一百三十公斤.鱼出售二千六百元（略高于五千新元）.}

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Back to my May 2011 trip: the fare to Wenchang in the Haikou-bound air-conditioned coach from Changlang Village is only 6 RMB.  Crowded, with six persons standing, it enters Huiwen.  After passing the railway line at the outskirt of Wenchang downtown, it takes the expressway, and I have to alight at Heping North Road, a kilometre from downtown.  A small park lies outside the gate that encloses a complex of condominiums like those in Singapore.  Their design is modern and classy.  I ponder, is a new generation of rich Hainanese emerging?  Or is there an influx of mainland Chinese investors sensing the true value of Hainanese land?  The wall and gate prevent me from entering to conduct a survey of the living environment.

An auto rickshaw drops off a passenger.  I hail him.  His fare to downtown Do and Me Restaurant is 4 RMB.  A dinner set there consisting of a whole deep-fried chicken, a small basket-bowl of chips, and a tumbler of Coke, cost only 39 RMB, less than $8.

   
Qionghai and the liberation ladies


Checking out at eleven on Saturday morning, I catch an auto rickshaw for 10 RMB to Wenchang Train Station.  The fare to Qionghai is only 15 RMB, unbelievably cheap - $3 - for a distance of about fifty kilometres.  In the assigned carriage, which is uncrowded, an empty seat is on my left, allowing me to unburden my two heavy backpacks.  The ride is smooth, taking about fifteen minutes.       

At the Qionghai exit, I stand still momentarily, awed by the wide open courtyard, the size of a football field.  It is neat and tidy and almost devoid of obtrusive features, except for a few lamp posts and pots of flowers at the far end.  By the road kerb about a hundred metres ahead, palms have been evenly spaced in a straight row, their evergreen fronds drooping in all directions.  Buses, cars, and pedicabs are waiting there.

Looking backward, I note that the facade of Qionghai Train Station is identical to that of the Wenchang station because buildings were mass produced during the state’s infrastructural modernisation.  Individuality has been sacrificed, justifiably, for speed in delivering intercity service.  Except for some floating white clouds, the sky is bright-blue.  I feel heartened.

Eldest Cousin’s son greets me.  Driving his friend’s van, Fa Geng takes me downtown in search of a hotel.  Jiaji (“Chia-chi” in Wade-Giles and “Kachek” in Hainanese), the name used by locals, is only about two or three kilometres off.  As the crow flies, it is about thirty-five kilometres southwest of Huiwen.  Founded seven hundred years ago during the Southern Song era, it is now the fourth largest town after Haikou, Danzhou, and Sanya.  It has approximately one tenth of Qionghai City’s population of 483,217 (in 2010).

Most of the overseas Hainanese could trace their ancestral homes to Qionghai and Wenchang City.  Thousands had escaped during the Japanese invasion.  They had sufficient time because the invaders, who had easily conquered Haikou, Ding’an, and Qiongshan on the tenth of February 1939 and Sanya City on the fourteenth, did not march inland to Wenchang and Qionghai until the twenty-second of February and fifteenth of April respectively.

Qionghai downtown is busy on a Saturday afternoon with residents coming out for shopping or lunch.  228 RMB per night is the minimum charge at the first hotel situated along a main road.  The price is reasonable for its central location and perhaps 4-star rating.  But I do not need luxurious living; a comfortable bed for the night suffices.

 We readily find another along Jiaoyu Road.  Dongyuan Hotel charges 128 RMB.  At a less than perfect location, it is none the less safe.  The intersecting streets and lanes nearby are crowded at night.  The hotel is only two lanes from the main Aihua East Road, where a laundry is thriving.  Its charges are cheap: 3 RMB for a T-shirt and 4 RMB for a pair of jeans.

After depositing my belongings in the room, we head, at my prompting, for a typical Qionghai village near Zhongyuan town, about twelve kilometres south.  Branching off from 223 National Road, the village road with space for two cars abreast is initially coated with a bitumen surface.  On both sides are some old brick houses, widely spaced apart between small farms or fields.  One is crumbling or undergoing renovation.  The houses and farms appear abandoned.  After half a kilometre, the road narrows into a single-car cement lane that is thickly fenced on both edges by bushes and trees.  It then turns into a gravel lane, which splits into two walking tracks large enough for bicycles, motorcycles, and trishaws.  Perhaps there are houses and farms beyond but we do not get off because of the problem in parking.  We reverse.

 Red Women Detachment Memorial is seven kilometres southwest of Qionghai downtown.  As a senior, I pay 25 RMB, half the normal admission price.  A group of thirty-three Chinese tourists is posing in front of a huge irregular-shaped monument formed by numerous interlocking granite boulders.  These boulders have been carved to show a bugle, a pigeon, a straw hat, and a link of chains, items familiar to the members of the legendary Red Women Detachment.  The tourists range in age from the teens to the mid-thirties, obviously born after the Second World War.  Some of them are wearing sporty water-blue shirts and shorts, decorated with prints of fishes, shellfish, and starfish.  Are they proceeding to the beach soon after?

Propped in front of the museum is a 6.8-metre high white statue of a young woman in khaki uniform.  Her right hand clutches the sling of a rifle that reposes on her right shoulder.  On her back is her straw hat, which will protect her from the searing sun during her jungle mission.  With her left leg slightly raised on a small rock, she is leaning against a stone support on which her left hand falls.  She is a member of the gallant band that stoutly resisted the evil landlords.

Because of the museum’s concrete frontal design, the large greenish-blue tinted-glass panels that are fitted to it assume the shape of the national emblemic star, an apt background for the statue of the girl in khaki.  Visible through these panels is a white sculpture of five beautiful young girls also in khakis within the temporarily closed museum.  While one is holding upright a huge flag, three are eagerly charging forward with their now-antiquated rifles that seem too heavy for their slender frames.  Their contorted facial expressions, their dynamic postures, the tilt of their guns, and the firmness of their stand signal their determination to confront, unyieldingly, the onslaught of superior forces and ammunition.  Armed only with a handgun, their leader is urging them on.  The plaque in Mandarin states: 豆蔻年華 (Dou Kou Nian Hua; “Maiden Years” or “Budding Beauties”).  How many had died during that period?

When more than one hundred women joined the Chinese Red Army in 1931, the legend began.  With barely a month of training, these Qiongya Red Army guerrillas, together with the Third Red Army Regiment, fought several battles in Hainan against the enemies.  Wearing red armbands, these spirited ladies were eventually honoured as the Red Detachment of Women.  Between 1994 and 2001, the number of surviving members dwindled from eighty-four to twenty-three.  In 2011, only three were left: 101-year-old Wang Yunmei, 98-year-old Lu Yexiang, and 96-year-old Pan Xianying.  Their heroism and courage was glorified in the 1961 classic The Red Detachment of Women.  

Set in Qionghai, the film also portrays a young fighter carrying her new-born baby on her back, a character based on young Wang, who had given birth during the early stage of the revolutionary struggle.  With little food, her infant died from malnourishment, a tragedy depicted in the movie.  Scenes of Wuzhishan and Wanquan River enhanced the climatic emotions.  Heroine Wu Qionghua was a poor peasant’s daughter constantly battered by her cruel capitalist landlord and his henchmen, who had killed her father three years earlier.  Fortuitously freed with the aid of an undercover Communist posing as a wealthy overseas businessman, she joined the revolutionary underground.  During a survey of her former tormentor’s compound, she impetuously triggered an unsuccessful attack, which enabled his narrow escape and retaliation.  The rebels were surrounded and their leader caught and executed.  Finally, a well coordinated rebellion succeeded, in which the matured heroine, as the new leader, killed her vicious enemy and liberated the land.

In the memorial park about the combined size of four or five soccer fields are a Second World War fighter plane (a Shenyang J-6) and an obsolete battle tank on display.  I stroll around, passing the rows of living quarters of the lady warriors.  Their rooms are small.  A stage is in the centre of a tranquil pond.  Four youths – two male and two female – in Red Army guerrilla uniform perform a ten-minute dance, which entertains the crowd of about fifty people.  A leisurely tour will take about two hours but I have to rush.  Fa Geng is waiting.  He has to return the van to his friend, who is managing a business.  

Sitting later on the pillion of his motorcycle, I feel nervous as he weaves me in and out of the oncoming traffic and traffic overtaking from my rear along the main road to his flat, where his father Guo Ping has prepared dinner.  Along the way my mind wanders.  Is it safe to be a pillion rider?  The two-kilometre journey back to my hotel is on his bike too.  Unknown to me then, my first experience on a motorbike turns out to be a confidence-building exercise for my travel around Hainan.

 
Bo’ao, where world economic leaders congress


Responding to my ten-thirty morning call, Fa Geng fetches me to a nearby Aihua East Road double-storey coffee shop, where he has just finished his breakfast with his friends.  On the ground floor are nine or ten tables, some occupied by carefree diners gossiping in familiar Hainanese.  I feel at home.  I would like to linger to listen to their stories, to the reassuring tone of their voices.  But I am eager to leave for Bo’ao to feel the pulse of the financial world.  Hurriedly slurping the cup of locally brewed coffee and gushing down a plate of noodle fried with small pieces of chicken meat as my early lunch, I hop onto his bike for a bus stand not far off.  

While we are conversing, the driver of a private car approaches us, offering to take me to Bo’ao for 40 RMB ($8).  I politely decline.  I prefer the joy of a leisurely ride in the local bus to the speed of a car.  It is cheaper too; the fare is 6.5 RMB.

Bo’ao is about twenty kilometres southeast of Qionghai town.  Not many people are heading in that direction; so I am fortunate to secure a window seat.  As the No. 2 red-and-white bus speeds on, picking and dropping straggling passengers along the journey, we pass the regular parades of coconut palms.  The traffic is not heavy, and the country scene is soothing.  Every now and then, a bus with identical colour combination flashes by in the opposite direction.

After thirty minutes, we cut through Bo’ao town.  The same trip from Meilan International Airport, eighty-two kilometres to the north, would take about an hour and a half.  With only a supermarket, a hospital, a police station, an elementary school, a middle school, two banks, some hotels and restaurants, and a few night clubs around for distraction, a visitor should have enough time for relaxation here.

When the bus terminates at the entrance of a huge Buddhist temple complex (博鳌禅寺; Bo’ao Chan Si), only five of us are left.  After alighting, four walk off in different directions.  I check my map: Bo’ao Oriental Culture Courtyard (海南琼海博鳌东方文化苑) is located at the junction of Wenshan Expressway and Bowen Road.  I note the time: 12.30 pm.  Although it is Sunday, no one is at the entrance to the temple.  An admission fee does not seem to be a requirement.  Perhaps the ticket office is about thirty metres from my position.  A temple visit is not part of my plan.  None the less, since I am here by fluke, I might as well make the best of the circumstance.  I later note that this temple was constructed only in 2005 at the cost of one hundred and thirty million RMB (about $26 million) from generous public donations.

As I enter the gate, which has the large traditional characters 通慧門 (Tonghuimen; Well-versed in Wisdom Door) in black painted above, I am surprised to see a symmetrical line of four buildings, one behind the other, the last of which is an octagonal-shaped pagoda.  Like a traditional Chinese house, except for its orange walls and red doors, each building is itself a temple, built on a higher floor than the one in front so that the last overlooks them all.  A design pleasing to the eye was obviously the primary aim on the architect’s mind.

Best viewed from the height of the pagoda, this lineal layout is a traditional Chinese architectural style, also seen in the imperial buildings of Beijing Forbidden City from the peak of nearby Jingshan (Coal Hill).

Facing the entrance in the spacious courtyard is a stone screen about five metres long, two metres high, and one metre wide.  On it are craved in exquisite bas-relief more than thirty-six miniature personages from Buddhist history or mythology.  In separate groups, ranging from one to six, they are standing or reposing on floating clouds.  In the centre is the Buddha himself.


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Five-metre long, two-metre high stone screen,
carved in exquisite bas-relief
海南琼海博鳌禅寺:
五米长，两米高的石雕雕刻精美的浮雕

**********


Flanked by two disciples, the round-faced smiling teacher is sitting cross-legged on a large lotus leaf.  His left hand rests on his left knee while his right hand is bent but raised with his palm facing the onlooker.  His thumb and index finger touch, forming the letter “O”.  This gesture of a circle, known as the Vitarka Mudra, signifies the “dharma chakra” (literally, the Wheel of Law), the teachings of Buddha.  Is the monk wearing a distinctive Buddhist “crown” and sitting in the “lotus position” Xuanzang of Monkey Goes West fame?

Where are the monks?  Or nuns?  I remark to myself.  Neat and tidy, the area is unoccupied.  Have they gone for lunch?  Or are they meditating?  The few trees visible to me are not very tall.  The banyan is only about five metres in height; yet short aerial roots are dangling from its branches.  It is healthy, its luscious leaves showing.  Banyans have a special significance in Buddhist history.  One shaded the contemplating Buddha.

About eight metres, the tallest tree was probably replanted here from a nursery.  It has a huge trunk but all its thick branches had been lopped off much earlier.  Slender branches with new light-green leaves have emerged, imparting a lesson, the illusion and not reality of a giant bonsai.

I swiftly stray into the three temples.  Each hosts an icon of a Buddhist deity.  The temple in the middle contains a gold-gilded standing Guanyin.  She is plump.  Her left hand holds a small vase with its mouth pointing downwards, symbolically pouring out the nectar of enlightenment.  Her right hand has a posture similar to the Buddha on the stone panel.  On her sides are two smiling disciples.

Capturing my interest is the tallest structure.  (Bo’ao Temple octagonal pagoda琼海博鳌禅寺八角塔) At the pavilion to its right is a young visiting couple, who are admiring some plants.  I enter the pagoda.  The circular hall is cluttered.  In the centre is a statue of a standing bodhisattva of almost seventeen metres in height, and there are several red pillars supporting the ceiling, or the second-storey floor.  At one “end” of the room is a smaller statue of Buddha seated behind an altar table on which are five cloisonné enamel ritual vases fired with a predominant heavy-blue colour glaze.  A few rows of padded cushions are neatly arranged for kneeing supplicants, who may insert their generous gifts into a box provided.  By the sides of the altar are two winding flights of stairs, leading up to the other levels.

I ascend one.  Except for probably a worker, who is walking briskly to one section of the pagoda on the second floor, I seem to be the only person interested in viewing this temple.  Without any particular interest, he glances cursorily at me before moving off.  It is strange to share this temple with only one other.  Nothing special is on this level.

It is on the third storey that I gain a closer view of the different facets of the dark-brown bronze statue in the heart of this pagoda.  A thought flashes through my mind: the pagoda was built only after this huge and heavy statue of an unusual Guanyin had been installed.

So jarring is the vision of her many faces or heads that I am initially perplexed.  Is her body attached to a head with three faces?  Or is it attached to three conjoined heads?  Puzzling too is the presence of the three heads, one above the other, on the crown of her “three-faced” head.  The lowest is a similar but smaller lady’s head with three “faces” or three conjoined heads; above it is the male head of Avalokitesvara, her Indian manifestation; and the highest is apparently the head of the Buddha.

With her eyes shut in meditation and hands in a praying position, she is standing just out of reach from eager hands desiring a touch for karmic fame and fortune.  On her back is a “fan”, which - on my inspection - consists of layers of outstretched hands.  Each of the larger hands on the first layer is holding an object: a sword, an axe, a bottle, a lotus, a stalk of wheat, a medallion, and so forth.

So, I murmur, this must be the “Guanyin with Thousand Arms” (千手观音), who was given innumerable arms by Amithaba Buddha so that she could better help the poor and suffering.  Her eleven heads enable her to hear more pleas or cries for help.

From the fourth-storey circular corridor of the pagoda that stands at seventy-seven metres in height, I enjoy an unimpeded and unforgettable view of the surrounding landscape.  Much is green plain, filled with vegetable or fruit farms, and the meandering last lap of the Wanquan River.  Ten-thousand Springs River is the third longest river in Hainan.  At one hundred and sixty-three kilometres in length, it has carved its ways down from the central highland of Wuzhishan City.

Exiled Mongol prince Tugh Temur explored this river on many occasions with a kind gentleman.  On his recall, Wang Guan and other local residents sent him off, wishing him: “Everything propitious (wanquan) for the Crown Prince.”  When he became emperor, he rewarded the kind official and renamed Duo River to Wanquan (Ten-thousand Springs).  Countless coconut trees dot the expanse.  What a serene scene, I say to myself.  I am disposed to live the remaining years of my retirement here.


**********

Bo’ao Temple octagonal pagoda, panoramic view
琼海博鳌禅寺八角塔, 全景

 **********


A small boat is tugging upstream four flat rafts, each carrying about ten persons secured in their bright-orange inflated life-buoys.  They are on their way to the upper reaches, where their versatile rubber rafts will be released and they will paddle their way with the swift downflowing cold water to this river mouth.  Fortunately for them, no crocodiles are lurking, or they would be feast.

Filled with passengers, a pleasure boat cruises past them, heading for the ferry terminus.  In the distance, Bo’ao town is inhabited with many tall buildings.  Patches of barren earth are close by.  Perhaps some hotels or houses are being planned.  The famous Bo’ao Square is a tiny speck.

Below me is a gigantic white statue, again of Guanyin.  At about ten metres in height, this female divine has four facets, each facing the four points of a compass.  She perches on a square platform at the edge of Wanquan River.  The four pillars at the platform corners are equally tall in height.  What is their significance?  The large nine white sheets fixed to the huge circular “dish” near them are “petals” of the white lotus, a Buddhist symbol for purity of mind and spirit.

Beside the metallic icon, lush green lotuses are thriving in the two ponds with slightly greenish water.  Aesthetically aligned with the tops of the three progressively smaller temples is the majestic entrance to this temple compound.  Wow, what a splendid view!

While I am waiting for a bus along Wenshan Expressway, a cab from Dongyu Islet approaches.  Since it is two-thirty, I hail it to save time.  The driver drops me off at the ticket office at the end of Longtan Road.  The fare is 9.5 RMB.  Although not a Chinese national, I am still offered the “Senior” admission fee of 101 RMB, a discount of 27 RMB.  The price includes the buggy cart ride to the Bo’ao Economic Forum Hall precinct and the ferry ride from there to Jade Belt Beach.  Three tourists from mainland China join me in the battery-powered tourist cart, which has three rows of seats capable of transporting nine persons.

We cross the bridge to Dongyu Islet (通往东屿岛的路).  In the middle of the Wanquan estuary, this islet and also others were created from the sand deposited over the millennia by the confluence of the Wanquan, Jiuqu, and Longgun.  Slowly, we roll pass the championship golf course on our left.  Owned by international luxury hotel resort Sofitel Boao, it was designed by Australian PGA professional Graham Marsh.

 Where none was available a decade earlier, more than twenty golf clubs have sprung up in Hainan.  Spurring the aspirations of young Chinese was the addition of golf to the 2016 Olympic Games.  Golf-loving executives too are organizing their year-end conferences in the sub-tropical island, the cold winters of northern China being a deterrent.  Anticipating the trend, American golf course designer Schmidt-Curley Design opened its China main office in Haikou.

Land in Hainan is cheap, the weather is fine, and the sun shines almost throughout the year.  Of course, local lives were disrupted when farms and homes were acquired by developers for clubs.

Ornamental palms (perhaps Bottle Palms) adorn the roadside of Dongyu Islet.  When viewed from afar, they can be mistaken for coconut palms.  The reason is obvious: they all belong to the Arecaceae (palm) family.  Both have tall and slender brown trunks and radiating green fronds at the top.  Coconut palms are flourishing everywhere, alongside the decorative palms.  They are also scattered on the golf course itself.

Only low shrubs comprise the border hedges: Marsh has great confidence in the golfers.  But I would duck if any appears.  A golf ball could be flying over the hedge!  The sky is aquamarine and the land is green, except for the patches of white sands, the contrived traps or “challenges” for amateur golfers.  

Two dragons face each other, forming a square arch, the entrance to the park exhibiting stone maps of sponsor countries of the Economic Forum.  From here is a short walk to the ferry dock.  Together with twenty others, we board the ferry across the narrow channel.  The water is calm.  Few high buildings punctuate the gentle coastline.  Our boat is the only moving object.  (Ferry to Jade Belt Beach 渡轮到玉带滩)  The scene is picturesque.  Sadly, the ride lasts only ten minutes or so.

That stretch of Jade Belt Beach is flat and barren; yet it is crowded.  Posing in front of Shenggong (Sacred Lord) Rock, a reef outcrop partly submerged near the shore, merry couples, groups, and individuals are photographing one another.  (众多的游客正在欣赏圣公石 Tourists admiring the Sacred Rock)  Professional photographers are happy, with roaring profits from those unequipped with cameras or composition skill.  As well as donning straw hats, these ladies also veil their face from exposure to the blazing sun with a small towel or piece of cloth wrapped around their nose and mouth.

Their kiosks are demountable canvas tents.  Costing 10 RMB each, a print of me with my back facing the maritime horizon is publishable; the other is of me in “soft focus”!  Perhaps I am not photogenic?  Although hot, the weather is pleasant and not humid.  The temperature is about twenty-four degrees Celsius.  Under their huge beach umbrellas, three men in their forties are fishing at the calm lagoon.

I squat to feel the water: it is cool, clean, and clear.  The seawater here is the cleanest, being replenished daily by the boundless fresh tides of South China Sea.    The sand is fine.  It is slightly brown, unlike the white sand of Bondi Beach.  I look up.  A thought.  Then a tingling sensation ripples through my skin: a boat, sailing eastwards for only a thousand kilometres will reach Luzon, the northern island of the Philippines.  So close.  No intervening island or reef hinders its path.

Looking across the river mouth, I spy the small sleepy fishing town, recently made famous throughout the world.  I can now comprehend the logic of hosting a global forum here.  Given the opportunity, I too would like to construct a rustic hut right on this northern tip of the sandy peninsula some eight kilometres in length and less than a kilometre in width.  I walk along its thinly vegetated coast, which is bereft of hermit crabs, limpets, mudskippers, or other marine creatures.  Has the daily stampede of visitors induced them to flee south, to the safer parts of the peninsula?  Good things must end.  With sadness I join some others, leaping onto the next ferry back to the jetty.

A tiled walkway runs parallel to the raised waterfront of the landmark, the Bo’ao Economic Forum Hall.  Between the walkway and waterfront is a four-metre stretch of uneven grassland, where a clump of palms stands apart from a young mangrove tree and the short pruned frangipani has only three or four leaves.  A waist-high hedge composing of carefully-clipped hibiscus shrubs prevents visitors from trampling on the narrow nature strip, and accidentally falling into the deep sea.  I stand by the hedge, admiring a protruding bright-red hibiscus flower saved from the gardener’s shearer.  


* The fearless long-tailed shrike *
棕背伯劳（黑色型）

 
Inclining precariously by the river edge is a stunted palm.  A brownish-grey bird perches on one of its dancing green fronds.  I whip out my instant camera and adjust the distance.  Suddenly, she glides down and lands on the grass, about two metres from the hedge.  She glares up at me.  I am totally surprised.  But I am also pleased.  Here is a bird that is fearless of me, a human being.  And she is not a Myna.  Her subsequent action also amazes me: she flies and wavers on that naked frangipani stump, barely two metres from my face.  Looking towards my right, she then flaps her wings and turn, facing towards my left.  She is “masked”: she has a black eye band.  She is showing off.  Yes, I know: you are indeed a beauty.

“Miss Bo’ao.”  I silently christen her.  Only later do I learn from Professor Liang Wei that she is also a long-tailed shrike, the species “Lanius schach”.  Unlike the long-tailed shrike belonging to the Lanius schach erythronotus race at Wanlu Park, she is from the Lanius schach fuscatus.  This beauty is deadly too; she impales her prey on thorns and sharp metal spikes.  An insect or a lizard may be hanging on a spine of the slanted palm, and her quivering wings are warning me to buzz off.  She is not sharing her meal with anyone.


* Ao the mischevious turtle *
鳌, 淘气龟


Bo’ao Economic Forum Hall and Sofitel Hotel mount on the back of Ao.  That is the local fable.  Ao was a very mysterious but clever animal.  It had a dragon’s head, turtle’s back, and a qilin’s (kylin’s) tail.  Roaming its habitat in South China Sea, this mischievous ninja turtle often wrecked havoc among the coastal people.  After their intercessions, the Goddess of Mercy tamed it, transforming its body into Dongyu Island.  Thus, here I am, tickling its back with my leather shoes in motion.

A stone statue of Ao the Turtle is in front of me.   At only two meters in height, the statue weighs an unbelievable eight tons.  On the sixteenth of September 2006, a ceremony was held to lodge this statue in the plaza.  If I had not heard the story, I would be puzzled by its presence.

 Sofitel Hotel is a beautiful concave building that seems to cradle the BFA (Bo’ao Forum for Asia) International Convention Center.  Its swimming pool faces the sea and Jade Belt Beach.  From their rooms, the global economic ministers enjoy their bird’s-eye view, relishing their idyllic moments as well.  In the morning, they take a thirty-metre walk to their seats in the great hall to pontificate on the economic issues perplexing the world.  The low but distinctive beige and brown exterior of the building does not adequately reflect the profound discourse electrifying its auditorium of elite audience.  

Still occupying the wall at the stage, the banner “Boao Forum For Asia Annual Conference 2011” reminds me of their presence; the centre has orchestrated its tenth annual dialogue the previous month (April).  I stand and feel the aura of the hall, which is school assembly-sized except for its furnishing.  The high ceilings, gilded chairs cushioned in golden velvet, and yellow glow of the lights enhance the solemn air.  I am inspired.


**********

Bo’ao Forum for Asia  博鳌亚洲论坛

 **********


Bob Hawke, Morihiro Hosokawa, and Fidel V. Ramos, former government leaders of Australia, Japan, and the Philippines respectively, advanced the idea of an Asia-Pacific forum to facilitate discussion on socio-economic issues pressing in the Asia-Pacific region.  Formally inaugurated in February 2001, the non-profit, non-government organisation and its annual gatherings received enthusiastic support from political leaders, businessmen, and academics.

To vicariously experience the emotions of the participants, I exit and approach the great hall from another entrance, this time gingerly hopping up the stately flight of steps leading to the reception desk and the main entrance.  On either side of the stairway are four white pillars.  The first three pairs are clad with deep-blue banners tied around them.  Also in English, the words announce the April 14th to 16th annual conference.  

As I stand near the reception, I look downwards at the circular pool of shallow water.  The short jets of this fountain have not been switched on; otherwise, the shooting waters would constitute a fascinating sight.  Beyond this fountain pool is a huge hollow globe statue of the world made of steel.  It reminds me of a rattan ball.  Between them are the road and a group of forty-three Chinese tourists taking photographs while waiting for their tour bus.  Hidden behind the globe is a security officer in dark-blue trouser and light-blue shirt, its sleeves covering his arms.  Some tourists are also sitting on a bench nearby while some are dallying.

Upon my exit from Dongyu Islet, the driver of a private car approaches me, quoting 40 RMB for a drive to Bo’ao town.  When I refer to the cheap 10-RMB cab fare from the nearby temple to the ticket office, he reduces his offer by 10 RMB.  At my hesitation, he finally agrees to take me for 20 RMB.  Along the way to my intended destination in the small town, he enquires about my next destination.  After a brief haggle, he is willing to also drive me to Qionghai town for a total of 40 RMB.  


**********

Bo’ao Mazu Temple  博鳌妈祖寺

**********


Two Caucasian ladies are leaving Mazu (Matsu) Temple, which is small and unexceptional.  They disappear around the bend when my concentration is diverted.

Mazu has thousands of devotees in hundreds of temples throughout southern China and Southeast Asian countries.  A temple dedicated to her in 1857 lies within the Singapore Hainan Association building (Qiongzhou Huiguan; Hainanese: Kheng Chiu Hwee Kuan).  A similar temple was built in Penang around 1866 by the local Hainanese.  Honoured as “Ancestral Mother” (“Mazu” 妈祖), “Heavenly Consort or Princess” (“Tianfei”), and “Empress of Heaven” (“Tianhou”) was a young maiden of the Lin family from Fujian living towards the end of the tenth century, attested by fishermen and sailors as performing miracles, especially in rescuing them from maritime disasters and certain death.

In the middle of the main hall of the Bo’ao temple is a small statue of her in a sitting position on the altar.  With a plump, pink face of a lady in her forties, which is strange since she died during her late twenties, she is draped in a light-brown upper robe and a dark-brown skirt.  Covering her shoulder is a brown shawl with red edges.  Behind her is a white altar screen on which is painted a yellow sun above the mythical Turtle Ao.  From my frontal position, the fiery orange chromosphere of the sun appears as a halo of the goddess’ head.

Painted on the four mauve-coloured walls of the room is a beautiful flowing scene against a white background in the style of an unfolded scroll, depicting some Chinese adherents offering prayers to Buddha, holy men and numerous boats sailing under the guidance of some celestial constellations, the protective Mazu standing on a monstrous fish whose mouth opens in anguish, the seated Mazu as “Heavenly Mother” flanked by the White Tiger of the West (a constellation symbol) and the Vermillion Bird of the South (another symbol), and the legendary Ao.

Brown Ao’s angry face stares at the heat-radiating red sun.  Below Ao is a man in light-green shirt and pants and dark-green sash, his shovel scooping up four watermelons of different colours and two huge red carps while three fishermen nearby are preparing their net.  To the left of Ao is a lady in light-purple gown holding and consoling a man who is in light-blue gown and inclining in pain.  Perhaps the painter is suggesting that life was pleasant until Ao’s mayhem.

 Driving northwestwards for about twenty kilometres, we reach Qionghai downtown after thirty minutes.  Fa Geng calls.  Meeting me at Wanquan Bridge, he takes me across the bridge, intending to treat me to the famous Jiaji duck.

Unfortunately, it has been sold out.  The steamed thick but tender meat of the specially-fed thin-skinned duck must be the residents’ favourite.  While the cost of a plate of roast goose is 48 RMB, that of boiled goose is only 12 RMB.  The great discrepancy in price may be due to the skill and care in preparing the former.  The bill amounts to 80 RMB.

Built in 1970 across the river that drains into the South China Sea at Bo’ao, the four-hundred metre Wanquan River Dam is a popular sporting zone for locals and tourists.  Eleven persons are swimming in the dam; many are fishing along the dam wall; and still many more are just watching.  Four species of carps breed in the river: Xi, Jing, Qian, and Phoenix-Tailed.  The Phoenix-Tailed Carp has red scales.  Some of the carps caught by his friends were thirty centimetres in length, Fa Geng says.  We leave.  At a nearby garden is a statue of a half-bodied lady with a rifle.  

**********

Horse Treading on Flying Swallow  马踏飞燕

**********

By now it is almost dark.  At my request, Fa Geng takes me to the park beside Qionghai People’s Government Building at the intersection of Yinhai and Xinghai North Road.  I wish to see the elegant statue shown on tourist brochures of a life-size horse running on a globe that sits on a tall pedestal.  The park is crowded and lively with people of all ages.  Moving around in slippers, most men and boys are casually attired in shorts and T-shirts or singlets.  Some children are playing while some are driving their plastic battery-powered toy cars rented from an enterprising operator.  Parents are guiding their toddlers in basic walking skills.  Couples are cooing passionately on their separate benches.  Hawkers are selling drinks and cooked food.

Gracefully balanced, the slender horse is supported only by its right hind leg fixed onto the globe.  An artistic creation that is truly magnificent, I say to myself.  About seven metres distant, the horse is, however, too far for my digital camera to capture on photograph, especially at night.  This statue, I later discover, is an enlarged replica of a smaller one, the famous Leitai Bronze Galloping Horse, known in Chinese as “Horse Treading on Flying Swallow” (马踏飞燕; Ma Ta Fei Yan).  Weighing seven kilograms, this unique and widely acclaimed national treasure was unearthed in 1969 from an Eastern Han general’s tomb and kept in Gansu Provincial Museum.  Local farmers in Gansu stumbled upon the tomb under an old locust tree.

Without travelling too far, Qionghai residents can now appreciate a piece of historical antiquity and the swallow-like speed and stamina of the Central Asian Ferghana stallion that contributed tremendously to Genghis Khan’s conquest of continental Asia.  It was in search of such energetic “blood-sweating” steeds that Han emperor Wu despatched an army to the western regions two millennia ago.


 Fengmu (枫木; Maple) Deer Park,

preserving native deer

 
Finishing an early lunch that cost only 10 RMB at the hotel cafe, I walk a kilometre to Qionghai Bus Station (琼海汽车站) at the corner of Dongfeng and Yuanxiang Road, where buses head to major towns like Ding’an, Haikou, Qiongzhong, Tunchang, and Wenchang.  The fare to Fengmu is 22 RMB.  The travelling distance, as it transpires, is circuitous at one hundred and twenty-eight kilometres, double the distance of a crow flying from east to west.

Both Fengmu Deer Nature Reserve and Fengmu Deer Feeding Farm are located on the shore of a small lake (木色湖; Muse Hu; literally, Wood-Colour Lake) midway between Tunchang and Qiongzhong, the two towns in the heart of Hainan Island.

Leaving with nine passengers from Gate 5 at eleven forty-five, the small light-green bus with two-seat rows on either side of the aisle runs north for forty-five minutes until it reaches a roundabout (perhaps near Baitang Reservoir) where it picks four passengers and then turns west to Tunchang.  Lined with trees, the road to Tunchang is two-lane wide.  Entering Tunchang, the bus turns south.

Fengmu is about thirty kilometres from here.  In this slow-moving bus, the urge to take notes is irresistible.  The curious conductress looks condescendingly at my notebook, and beseeches me to read its content.  To prevent misunderstanding, I dutifully comply.  

In my gibberish Mandarin, I say roughly the following:

“The bus leaves Qionghai Station with nine passengers.  It is air-conditioned and has two seats on each side.  It goes north along the highway at the speed of fifty kilometres per hour.  After forty-five minutes, it reaches a roundabout and turns left.  It picks four passengers.  Then it turns south.  The road becomes one-lane and lined with trees.”
 
At that juncture, Ye Qui Lin interrupts, telling me to write that the bus is travelling very slowly because sixty kilometres per hour is the speed limit and the fine is 200 RMB for exceeding.  Since numerous traffic cameras operate along the way, avoiding unnecessary fines is important, she adds.  She then shows me her register of passengers and day’s collection.  Her tally reveals only 165 RMB, which is insufficient to pay even a fine and would be an operating loss for the trip if one is paid.


 **********

Green bus displaying red
“Qionghai Central-Tunchang” destination sign
绿色公共汽车显示红色“琼海中-屯昌”标志

**********


I am very impressed with the meticulous auditing of the bus company as well as her financial accountability.  With honest staff like her, Hainan will surely prosper without being tainted by the graft and corruption so prevalent in many modernizing economies.  Qui Lin is actually a very nice lady; she gives me her phone number and the phone number of her bus company, advising me to call the company for information on the approximate departure time of the last bus from Fengmu to Qionghai.

When we reach Fengmu at one-thirty in the afternoon, only two other passengers are left.  We have travelled for an hour and forty-five minutes.  I have not checked my map before leaving Qionghai, which is a mistake.  I ask to be dropped off at the Fengmu Deer Feeding Farm, instead of Fengmu Deer Nature Reserve.  The latter is about one kilometre before the former.  Indeed, I have seen a crowd of students near its entrance but it has not occurred to me to alight.  I land up staring at a fairly unpopulated village.


 **********

Tunchang Fengmu Bitter Gourd Demonstration Region near Fengmu Deer Farm
屯昌枫木苦瓜示范区, 近枫木鹿养殖场

 **********


“State-owed Hainan Fengmu Deer Farm”: that English translation beneath its Mandarin version painted on the dark-green billboard on the flat roof of the office building captures my interest.  “State-owed”?

Enjoying a siesta on her bed in the room visible from the reception table, the receptionist awakes upon my shout, dazed but unfazed.  After receiving the requisite admission fee which, if my memory is correct, is 20 RMB, she dutifully brings me to the gate of the enclosed park and directs me to lock it after finishing my tour.  She entrusts me with the key.  The sole visitor, I am very pleased and honoured to be ranked as an honest and responsible person in her mental evaluation.  I am now a privileged temporary custodian of all the deer in there.  I will not allow any to escape into the wild.

Before the entrance is a graceful three-metre stone statue of a stag and his family - his doe and fawn.  In their midst stands a young boy, implying a bond between animals and humans.

**********

In Hainan humans and deer lived side by side for thousands of years
在海南岛人与鹿共同生活了数千年
Sika or Spotted Deer 梅花鹿
 
**********


Within the park, a flock of about twenty-three deer is moving freely.  They are Sika (or Spotted) Deer.  As their name implies, they have white spots throughout their brown bodies.  They are shy, slowly drifting off upon my approaches.  My eager hope of stroking them instantly vanishes.  They may be does; for they have no horns.  A row of walled and sheltered cages with a few plain, dull-brown stags in each cage is in the centre of the park, which I estimate at about ten thousand square metres in size.  An hour is sufficient.

A Spotted Deer is distinguishable from a Hainan Eld’s Deer (Cervus eldi Hainanus).  The former has white spots throughout its body while the latter has a dark-brown strip on its back and two parallel lines of white dots on the sides of the strip, making the Eld’s Deer very distinctive from other species.  In addition, the stag of the Spotted Deer has its antlers curved inwards while those of the Eld’s stag are curved backwards (or outwards).  

To learn that Hainan Eld’s deers were once very bountiful throughout the island is disheartening.  A sub-species of swamp deer, these indigenous deer almost became extinct five decades ago because of their natural habitat shrinkage.  They have lived here for more than four million years.  In the nineteen-fifties, some five hundred Hainan Eld’s deer remained but subsequent poaching took a heavy toll.  Fengmu Deer Farm was thus established in 1964 as a breeding centre after their extinction in the wild.  They were reintroduced into reserves in western Hainan.

Besides the Hainan Eld’s Deer and Sika Deer, two other species of deer are often displayed in Hainan zoos and farms: Pere David’s Deer and Red Deer.  Pere David’s Deer (Elaphurus davidianus) became extinct in the wild in China towards the end of the nineteenth century.  But conservation effort enabled its successful breeding in captivity and reintroduction into Beijing Milu Park and Dafeng Milu Natural Reserve.

Of the seventeen varieties of deer in China, the Hainan Eld’s Deer is the most valuable for research and medicine.  To conserve the last group of twenty-six Hainan Eld’s Deer, a thirteen square-kilometre reserve was created in Dongfang City in 1976.  After a decade of recovery, the one hundred and fifty-one deer in the Datian Nature Reserve were separated into two experimental groups.  The group that was protected within an enclosure had a lower mortality rate.  As a result, the two groups were merged.  They were listed by the government as endangered in 1988.

Fortunately, by the end of the century, the number rose to more than seven hundred, enabling some to be distributed to seven other reserves for breeding and conservation.  By 2003, when more than a thousand were roaming the reserve, adjacent woodland was added to their habitat.  To ensure the species’ survival, the Datian Reserve aims to produce at least two thousand five hundred deer.  

Although the propagation rate of deer is fifteen percent (or about one hundred fawns) annually, the actual number is however smaller.  Besides human population threat, the increase in number of pythons in the Datian reserve also poses as a threat because deer remains are found in pythons’ manure and bellies.  Each female python produces between twenty and fifty eggs annually.  The irony is that pythons are also on the endangered roll.  They are regularly captured and transferred to Hainan Python Institute.  According to Zhang Liling, the head of Hainan Python Institute and professor in the Animal Science Department of Hainan University, pythons are necessary to help control the number of wild boars and rabbits, which might otherwise deplete the food of the deer.


* Fengmu conducive green environment *
屯昌枫木乡村环境优美

 
Regular batches of Eld’s Deer were transported to Mihou (Rhesus Macaque) Mountain, about thirty kilometres southeast of Datian Reserve.  In their natural and wild state, they roam in small groups of three to five members and are active during sunrise and sunset.  They mate during the early part of the year, and their young are born before winter.  With keen hearing and sight, they are fast runners.  They are adept, capable of jumping across five-metre wide gullies.  The stags protect their developing antlers by avoiding the dense forest.  Blossoming on the lower slopes of the mountain range, the two hundred species of plants with their fruits provide ample food supply.  Fresh grass shoots and leaves sprout during the raining season from April.  Water is in constant supply in the streams from the mountain range.
 
Thankfully, deer conservation is gaining wide recognition in Hainan.  Local Miao villagers have been enlisted to assist in the conservation program through workshop training, and cultivation of leucaena is promoted since the deer also feed on them.

Standing opposite the gate of Hainan Deer Farm, I ask a man and his youngest daughter if I am correctly positioned for the bus journey to Qionghai.  “Yes.”  We board the same bus.  About my age, he has lived and worked beside the deer farm for over twenty years.  Two older daughters are residing in Haikou, one with a son and the other with two daughters.  The youngest has a daughter.  Both of them are travelling to Haikou for a birthday function.

* Road sign: Hainan Province Fengmu Forestry Station *
海南省枫木实验林场
 
(During my fourth trip in 2013, I return to Fengmu Deer Farm from the same Qionghai bus station.  Standing near the Deer Farm is Yang Yun Xian (杨云仙), a fresh university graduate who has just arrived from Lingshui.  Carrying a backpack, she has been waiting, as previously arranged, for an employee to bring her into Fengmu Deer Nature Reserve.  A gentleman in a house nearby suggests that she might be standing at the wrong entrance since another is further up the main road.  But up this street is an entrance to the reserve, say the two young local primary school girls, who are playing along the narrow street beside the Deer Farm.  It is not far away, they add.  They offer to show us the way.  We follow as they lead, walking about five hundred metres.  Unfortunately, the gate to the reserve is locked, although two pens of deer are beside it, each holding at least thirty deer (does and stags 雌鹿和雄鹿) and a young gentleman is feeding them with grass in turn.)

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