Rambling around my ancestral Hainan

On a motorbike pillion to Xinglong Coffee Factory, Wanning Town

Page 309 - 326:   Xinglong Coffee, 

                           Xincun Monkey Is

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Hainan,

    the 

 island

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 pearls

Xinglong Coffee best in the world  (兴隆咖啡是世界一流的) 

 

Xinglong is the district where waves of overseas Chinese from Indonesia and Vietnam have resettled since the nineteen-fifties as a result of persecution in their homelands.  For example, two thousand Chinese came in 1960 when they were forced from their Indonesian homes while five thousand Chinese came following the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war.  In all, about twenty-five thousand overseas migrants started agricultural enterprises here with virtually nothing, except their skill and determination. 

They nurtured rubber trees and, during the waiting period of at least five years for maturity, they also cultivated coffee berries for short-term returns, the coffee and rubber seeds being imported from their former homeland.  Coffee bushes now occupy more than four hundred and fifty hectares of land.  To their satisfaction, the soil conditions were ideal for coffee and tea, which later became important export items.  In 2010, Xinglong produces forty tons of coffee beans, one-tenth of Hainan’s annual production.

Xinglong ERAN Coffee Factory (海南省兴隆咖啡厂) is a white six-storey modern building.  At the car park are seven or eight coaches.  Crowds of tourists are streaming into the building.  The fragrance of roasted Xinglong coffee permeates the entrance of the factory.  I follow them in. 

Looking lost in search for the ticketing office, I am stopped by a security guard, who explains that admission is only for tour groups, not for individuals.  I apologise.  When I explain my purpose, he refers me to his superior, who in turn refers me to a senior security officer at the gate office.  Sympathetically, the latter assigns a young security boy to escort me to the ground-floor showroom.  

Along the corridor of the showroom is a series of posters about the factory and its products.  I have a quick glance, eager to move on to learn the art of roasting and grinding coffee beans.  Beside the posters is a tall and slender shelf on which is displayed six bottles of coffee beans of various varieties and also sets of teapots, cups, and saucers.  As photography is not permitted within the premise, I struggle to jot down important facts before they fade from my memory.  

The first room discloses the roasting technique.  In a round metallic container with a diameter of about two meters and a height of half a metre, a rotating rod with blades churns the beans for even scorching.  So this is the recipe for coaxing the essence of coffee beans!  So simple, yet so heavenly is the aroma.  According to the youth, this is replicated by identical machines in the factory upstairs.

Later, my mother tells me that coffee beans should be best roasted with maize and sugar.  She says that she has witnessed the process being done by some stall owners in Singapore.  The taste of coffee made by those supersaturated beans is sweeter, and the smell is more fragrant.  The proportion of maize and sugar to be added is naturally a trade secret.

In the next room is a set of pancake-making machines.  Scoops of coffee-flavoured dough are first spread on the open plates and then flattened and baked by the shut heated lids.  When they are hot, the extremely thin pancakes are easily folded (or rolled); and, when they have cooled, they turn crispy and brittle. 

Tiny samples for tasting are handled out by a promoter.  In the name of research, I sample two pieces to get my description right!  They are lightly sweetened.  Because they are almost paper-thin, they melt in my mouth.  They should serve as useful titbits during an afternoon tea with friends.  

Coffee powder is packed to specific weights in the third room.  On the corridor wall adjacent to this packing room are a framed photograph and posters depicting several award certificates.  The security officer points out the owner.  Probably in his forties, the successful entrepreneur is rubbing shoulder with some leading politicians.  His factory was built in 1952.  Initially selling only one type of coffee, it now offers even a variety for reducing hyperlipemia.  Its coffee beans were once manually dried; now, they are being treated mechanically.  

Chinese leaders like Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and Hu Jintao have visited Xinglong and praised its coffee quality.  In June 1960, Premier Zhou Enlai stamped his imprimatur during a visit: “Xinglong coffee is a top grade in the world.  I have tasted many types of coffee from around the world.  Xinglong coffee is the best.”  (周恩来总理说：“兴隆咖啡是世界一流的，我喝过许多外国咖啡，还是我们自己种的咖啡好喝。”) 

At the end of the corridor is a fairly large shop selling the company’s products.  Within that limited space are two or three hundred tourists.  After their purchases, some sit around the tables, sipping their cups of fleshly-brewed world-renowned coffee while relaxing or waiting for their friends to finish their shopping.  According to my escort, one to two thousand visitors pass through its door daily. 

Two ladies are serving small plastic cups of hot coffee from two different bean varieties.  The “Pure and Taste Arabica Coffee” is thick, sweet, and also slightly bitter.  A canister of powder weighing three hundred grams sells for 38 RMB.   The “Fragrant Coconut Coffee” is sweet and its coconut flavour is strong.  Fantastic.  A tin canister of identical weight costs 39 RMB.  The shelves stock all sorts of coffee and biscuits.  In fact, there is even coffee chocolate.  Two varieties of whole beans are exhibited for sale.  A jin (or half a kilogram) of one variety costs 78 RMB; a jin of the other costs 68 RMB.  Grinding is free of charge.    

Coffee drinking took off locally.  Sold in both canisters and plastic packets, the powder is affordable, and the preparation easy.  All that is needed is a steel kettle of water for boiling the cloth sieve that holds the powder.

Since local demand outstrips supply, Xinglong coffee is a scarce item abroad.  Although unknown internationally, its flavour is comparable to the flavours of Brazilian and Columbian fine coffee.  The factory now has branches in Guangxi, Shanghai, Yunnan, and Xiamen. 

Resisting the temptation of acquiring a few cans, which will hamper me, I thank my escort, who kindly directs me to the garden adjoining the entrance car park.  I am permitted to photograph the coffee plants here, he says.  I have been quizzing him earlier about the plants - some fifteen of them - that I have seen within the building’s glass-enclosed courtyard. 

Coffee plants were first cultivated in Hainan in 1935 by Chen Xianzhang (陈显彰).  Born in 1889, the Guangdong native went at the age of eighteen to work in Indonesia.  An enterprising man, he became prosperous, owning four coffee plantations and several shops during his sixteen-year residence.  In 1933, he returned home.  Fortuitously, he met a Hainan official, who persuaded him to consider coffee cultivation in the island. 

Examining the conditions in different parts of Hainan, Chen found the Fushan region (福山地方) of Chengmai county (澄迈县) ideal.  It has abundant rainfall, an annual average temperature of twenty-three degrees Celsius, sufficient sunshine throughout the year, and rich volcanic soil.  Thus, he re-located his family from Guangdong and established the Fumin Farm (福民农场) with the four sacks (about two hundred kilograms) of Robusta coffee seeds which he had collected from Indonesia. 

Chen’s business survived the ravages of the 1937-1941 Japanese occupation.  In 1950, his farm had eight hundred mu of land under cultivation.  Besides crops like rubber, lemon grass, Java cassava, and banana, it had 12,500 coffee trees, 6,450 saplings, and 30,000 sprouts.  Today, Fushan Coffee is one of the leading coffee producers in Hainan.

During my 2013 trip, Xue Xing and Cai Hong drive me to Fushan Coffee Cultural Centre (福山咖啡文化中心) at the Duncha Interchange of G98 Hainan Ring Road.  As we enter the estate, I am struck by its spacious layout and four life-size bronze statues.  Spread around a fountain, they depict a local man, who is frying coffee beans in a huge wok, and three local ladies, one carrying a cane basket of coffee beans, another carrying a long stick to pound the beans in the basket at her feet, and the third carrying a tray of coffee pot and cups.

Obviously new, the buildings are spick and span.  The museum entertains us with photographs of Chen’s family and packages of coffee beans.  An interesting trivia I garner from a page of information on the signboard: Chen has five wives, thirteen sons, and six daughters.  Visitors may rest at the coffee café to enjoy their cup of freshly brewed coffee. 

But we have had our cups of Arabica and Robusta coffee, replenished constantly by the waitresses at the picturesque outdoor café of Houchen Coffee across the G98 expressway earlier.  Set beside a small pond of kois in the midst of a large field, the coffee house offers a serene view of the surrounding forest of trees.  Surprisingly, we encounter a group of twenty visitors from Ghana.  Specialising in rubber cultivation, they are researchers on study attachments in Haikou. 

Patiently waiting, Ah Zhong then brings me to the Xinglong Tropical Botanical Garden.  Located about twenty kilometres west of Wanning central at the foot of mountains, and close to both Nanwang Reservoir and the sea, it provides the combined benefits of fresh air and open space to the residents.  Opened in 1957, it has a research institute, which assisted the new Overseas Chinese in selecting the right type of coffee berries for cultivation in Xinglong. 

The botanical garden occupies about three hundred and forty thousand square metres (or three hundred and thirty-three hectares) of land and has more than one thousand two hundred species of plants like breadfruit tree, cocoa tree, pepper vines, eucalypt, and teak.  These specimens are representative of the trees found throughout Hainan Island.  Some of the plants are rare species in danger of extinction, and many have economic and medicinal potential.

An hour’s run through the park hardly does justice to its beauty but I must move on.

 

Showcasing Xinglong Overseas Chinese  (海南兴隆华侨旅游经济区)

 

Our final stop is Xinglong Overseas Chinese Town, eight kilometres south of Niulou Village.  The road nearer to the town is wide and clean.  New buildings have been constructed in anticipation of more tourists.  The entrepreneurs may be rewarded.  The normal admission fee to the park is 151 RMB.  Without being interrogated on my age, I am offered the discounted 121-RMB rate.  Even though the entry fee may be steep, about twenty-one persons in their late twenties or early thirties are milling near the entrance ticket office.  Unlike me, they arrive in tour coaches.

Descended from generations of Chinese in Indonesia and other neighbouring countries, the industrious new migrants built the Southeast Asian park to illustrate and reminisce over their lifestyles in previous homes.  Burmese, Indonesian, Malaysian, and Thai wooden houses (“Villages”), positioned around a stagnant lake, are open for inspection. 

With a ringed neck, the Burmese lady sitting on the steps of one of the huts is grumpy, shutting her eyes when I attempt to photograph her.  In contrast, another native lady sitting on her chair in the next hut is smiling.  She wears a black dress with three bands of bright colours - blue, pink, and light-red - on its lower half.  Her head scarf is dark-red but her teeth are blackened. 

On the site is a huge gold-painted statue of a smiling low-ranked Thai goddess.  Only the upper half of the deity is depicted and, as visually unsettling as medieval gargoyles, she has three faces and seven long arms.  I visit the amenity room.  It is clean.  On the wall above the wash basins are two framed pictures. 

One is a photographic poster showing the lateral view of a girl sitting on her bicycle and looking backwards.  Her skirt has been “accidentally” hooked up by a fishing line, thus exposing her bare buttock.  The first two lines read: “She came from nowhere.  And nobody knows her name”. 

Like the Rubin’s Vase-Face illusion, another ambiguous picture has the title “What’s on a man’s mind”.  On first glance, the contour of the drawing shows the side of a man’s, perhaps Abraham Lincoln’s, face.  But on my re-inspection, it also reveals a naked woman.  The management is no prude!

A sheltered stage features Indonesian dances like the candle dance, coconut shell dance, fan dance, and umbrella dance.  In colourful costumes like the kabaya and sarong, the dancers gyrate gracefully to the fast strumming of the guitar and vocal of the individual and group singers.  At the end of the show, a beautiful dancer obliges the audience; she poses with them for photographs.

Beginning with a cup of sweet Xinglong coffee and watching tourist participation in a “snake” dance as they line behind one another and dance to the beat is a wonderful way for me to end the day.  It is almost half past five in the evening.  

Without the trishaw drivers and motorcyclists who travel along routes not regularly serviced by buses, I would not have been able to reach many interesting places within a day.  Without them I would be waiting and waiting.  Unfortunately, I do not have time to visit the Xinglong Hot Spring Scenic Area.  With its mineral water at an average sixty degrees Celsius temperature, it is popular with locals and tourists.  Its water is piped into rooms of nearby hotels like Xinglong Hot Spring Hotel.  

Depositing me at Niulou Village, Ah Zhong kindly advises on the specific bus to take.  The fare, if my memory is correct, is 8 RMB.  It brings me to the heart of Wanning town.  My expenditure of about 400 RMB for the day of adventure is not too extravagant.

 

Lingshui (陵水), recent international spotlight

 

Composing the southeastern region of Hainan Island, Lingshui Li Nationality Autonomous County is home to Lingshui Air Base and the 8th Division of the People’s Liberation Army Navy Air Force (PLANAF).  The airbase made international headlines in April 2001 when an American EP-3 spy plane from its Okinawa airbase was forced into an emergency landing after a collision with one of the two Chinese J-8 fighter jets about one hundred and ten kilometres from the Hainan east coast.  Smaller in comparison, the Shenyang interceptor from Lingshui airbase split and fell into South China Sea and the ejected pilot Wang Wei was missing, presumed dead after a fruitless air and sea search.

The American crew of twenty-four were detained and interrogated for two days before being sent to Haikou, where they were interviewed by U.S. diplomatic officials.  They were released ten days later only after a letter of apology - for entering China’s airspace without permission and for causing the pilot’s death - was issued by the U.S. government.  The collision occurred within China’s exclusive economic zone under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.  China is a signatory while the U.S. is not.  Whether foreign military planes are permitted to operate within China’s exclusive economic zone without its permission is at issue.  The U.S. government insists that their spy planes are free to do so.  The damaged spy plane was on a mission to gather radar frequencies and radio traffic from Chinese military installations. 

President George Bush sent a personal note of condolence to the pilot’s widow.  China refused permission for the damaged spy plane to be repaired and flown out of Hainan.  Thus, it was dismantled and transported back by, ironically, a Russian cargo plane, the largest cargo plane in the world.  The pilots involved in the collision were honoured by their respective governments, one for his “heroism” in manoeuvring and safely landing his craft and the other for being a “Guardian of Territorial Airspace and Waters”.  

Lingshui is my destination.  Its main town straddles both banks of Lingshui River (陵水河), six kilometres northwest from the river mouth.  Lingshui’s coastal region consists of flat plains while its inland consists of mountain ranges with heights of at least a thousand metres.  This county is sparsely populated, having in 2010 slightly more than three hundred and twenty thousand people.  The majority of them belong to the Li (Hlai) ethnic group which, at almost fifteen percent of the general population, constitutes the largest minority in Hainan.  

At Wanning Railway Station, a teenager of about nineteen or twenty has been behaving suspiciously.  He has been loitering behind me.  He carries no bags or luggage; he is not a traveller.  Fortunately, my backpack is padlocked, except for a pouch in which nothing precious is kept.  If my memory is correct, that pouch remains zipped before I board the train.  But after disembarking in Lingshui, I discover that it has been unzipped.  Either it has been tampered with by that teenager or it has been tampered with by the young man occupying the seat facing me in the train.  The latter might be rifling through my backpack pouch while I am focussing my camera on the fields and plantations.  My maternal niece and nephew have earlier warned me about these petty pickpockets in Wanning and Lingshui.  They are annoying but harmless.

Lingshui Train Station (陵水火车站) is about three kilometres north of downtown, and the trishaw fare is 8 RMB.  In downtown, I err, booking into the first hotel.  What I should have done is to have a prior agreement with the lady operator to take me to another hotel if the first is unsuitable for my needs.  At the hotel entrance, two girls are waiting for a three-wheeler.  The three-storey budget hotel at the main Jianshe Road cost 80 RMB a night.  I am allocated a room on the ground floor.  Perhaps I will stay for the night and change to another hotel the following day, I say to myself.  

Leaving my belongings, I then walk along the main road to explore the town.  It is a small country town.  Although the street is six-lane wide, the traffic is light.  Only two motorcycles and three trishaws are moving, and fewer locals are visible.  Some cars and vans are parked in front of the urban buildings, many being four-storey.  A seven or eight-storey building is in the distance.  After a quick lunch, I examine my map.    

Li’an (黎安) is twelve kilometres by road southeast of Lingshui central.  It is located on a peninsula, the eastern section of which faces South China Sea while the western section faces Li’an Bay.  Theoretically, I should be able to compare my perceptions of the two seas.  Seeking directions from a few persons, I encounter an elderly Hainanese man of about sixty-six.  He lives near that coastal town; he accompanies me to the bus stop at the corner of Jianshe and Jiefang Road.  This northern part of Lingshui downtown is alive with people and stalls selling food and fruits.  They intrude into Jiefang Road, effectively turning it into a road with two lanes.  But it is unmarked, thus slowing down the traffic.  Motorcyclists and trishaws are weaving their way around the jaywalkers.  Some trishaws are waiting for passengers.   

The fare to Li’an is 3 RMB in the bus that has the capacity of ten seated passengers.  Bearing sixteen persons and six large baskets, it travels along Jiefang Road, which soon joins the wider 661 County Road.  Except for the crowd, the ride is pleasant and two passengers shortly alight at the nearest village.  The bus then passes a mountain range and green fields that lie on our right.  Crop rotation is evidently practised here because the slightly raised rows of soil unveil varying shades of green, reflecting different vegetable varieties.  Four persons are working in a chilli field.  The country road becomes bumpy.  Along the way, three more persons alight, leaving eleven passengers.  

At Li’an town, the shore of the bay is practically inaccessible because several brick houses are built near the tidal edge, some extending even into the sea.  Thus, the length of beach left between these houses for me to stroll is negligible.  I would not wish to swim in the sea either; for its water is contaminated.  The small brick building on concrete stilts two metres from shore is, I suspect, the public toilet.  The beach is strewn with glass bottles, tree trunks and branches, plastic sheets of all colours, old bricks, and discarded broken bricks from construction projects.  It is an eyesore.  The stretch in the distance appears cleaner; its sand is white.

Li’an Bay is home to many fishing boats and trawlers.  I count about a hundred.  They are anchored throughout the bay, some nearer to the shore.  A five-metre boat slowly steers and stops two metres from the site where I stand.  It has a crew of five, all males.  Four are workers, whose ages range from twenty to thirty.  Their large straw hats shading their shoulders, their gloved hands unload thirty bales of seaweeds onto two pontoons made from discarded polystyrene foam boxes netted tightly together.  When they have completed the task, they jump into the water and drag the pontoons to the beach.  A small truck materialises and carts them away.  Often served in hot soups, seaweeds may be pickled and served cold.

Intending to see the scenery at the peninsular tip, I walk along the narrow and solitary road lined with houses but it is deserted, except for an occasional passing pedicab.  Despite my desire to venture further, I stop, concluding that discretion is better than valour (or the better part of valour).  I am carrying 12,000 RMB, the equivalent of at least six months’ wages for an average employee in Hainan.  I have no desire to be robbed at this juncture of my adventure. 

Re-studying my map, I note that Fenjie Zhoudao (分界洲岛; Boundary Island) roughly marks the northern border of Lingshui County.  This hilly two-hundred metre long islet is about eighteen kilometres northeast of Lingshui town.  I should have gone there instead.  Two kilometres off the coast, it looks like a saddle because the ridge consists of two hills about one hundred metres in height.  The isle is popular with tourists.  A ferry ride from the jetty should take only fifteen minutes. 

Chiselled by grit blown from wind and waves over the ages, the cliffs on the eastern face of the ridge are spectacular.  They are advertised on tourist brochures.  In contrast, the western face of the ridge is gradual.  And the flora and avian life is said to be flourishing.  A narrow strip of white sandy beach surrounds the island.  The water is translucent with corals and tropical fish.  As the tide ebbs, the crabs surface from their burrows, scavenging for food.  Shells are abundant.  These are all evidence of a pristine environment.  Alas, I miss out on this unspoilt part of Hainan. 

Beside the bus stop is a coffee shop, where twenty or more people, mostly middle-aged men, are sitting around their tables, noisily gossiping.  The tea house is a unique Chinese and Hainanese institution, just like the English pubs where workers congregate after work to bond and share their joys or woes.  Here the farmers or fishermen exchange ideas and tales of bountiful or poor harvest over a cup of coffee or tea before commencing their new day in their farms or at sea.

As I linger, I ponder over the open-air stage built on a concrete platform ten metres from the beach.  I suppose the residents here celebrate the traditional festivals with not only boisterous modern song-and-dance but also classical Hainanese operas.  This dramatic art is, however, in danger of extinction because fewer local children are absorbing the dialect at home, especially when they are expected, in line with the modern school curriculum, to excel in Mandarin and English so as to effectively communicate with foreigners and globalising Chinese from the mainland.

Opposite the stage is a small temple.  Without any big shop or shopping complex, life here is quiet and tranquil.  The bus soon arrives.  I hop on.  Heading to town, it carries nine passengers, including an old lady with two baskets of mussels for sale in the urban market.

At the end of my journey, I enquire about the nightly rates at Yijingwan Hotel, an eight-storey hotel with a magnificent view of Lingshui River.  It is situated at the corner of the main Jianshe Road (223 National Road) and Binhe South Road, the latter running beside the river. 

Flowing under the bridge, this river is approximately one hundred metres in width.  At the riverside walkway, a recent construction, some people are fishing.  I approach and look down into the river and I am impressed; the water is clear and clean, without flotsam or debris.  I decide to try my luck in fishing since my reel of fishing line is in my daypack.  I return to the shops and stalls along Jiefang Road for fresh prawns to use as bait.

A shop proprietor points the direction to the nearby market.  I am pleasantly surprised that the market is still open, especially when it is almost evening.  Stalls selling cooked food like roast pork, roast duck, Hainan chicken, and intestines stand between stalls selling raw meat like pork and poultry.  Here, the residents are obviously immune to cross-contamination.  Fresh seafood and vegetables are on sale too.  However, only one stall is selling prawns, and they are large Tiger Prawns.  For 10 RMB ($2), the young lady, to my astonishment, hands over half a kilogram.  $4 for a kilogram of large Tiger Prawns!  At that price, I could be eating prawns daily.  In Australia, it would cost at least A$15.

“If only I have some cooking utensils, I would be frying them for a delicious dinner,” I lament silently.  

Along the section of walkway that is under the shade of the bridge, about twenty navy trainees and their leaders are amusing themselves during their break.  They range from eighteen to thirty years of age, the older ones probably being the instructors.  They came in three small boats, each capable of seating about eight persons.  Some are smoking and talking.  Some are playing card games.  One of them has a short seine of about three metres in length and one metre in height, which he throws and retrieves occasionally.  The fishes he caught are tiny – about five centimetres in length.  Seeing my plastic bag of prawns, he asks if I have a spare plastic bag.  I give him one, which he uses to keep his catch.  After an hour, I have not hooked anything.  In disgust, I gave him the bag of remaining prawns.

Back at the budget hotel, three or four mosquitoes are buzzing around the room, reinforcing my reservation about spending the night there.  I decide to move.  The receptionist offers a mosquito coil to repel the pest.  But I do not want to risk malaria infection, especially when I have barely completed half of my trip around Hainan.  Mosquitoes can be a nuisance here, I now realize.  I have anticipated their presence in the central highlands, where any unattended vassal is a breeding ground.  As I volunteer to forfeit the whole sum paid earlier, the receptionist generously offers to refund me half.  I cheerfully decline.  What, in my mind, is 40 RMB?  It is only $8.  

At Yijingwan Hotel, I get the room on the fourth floor that overlooks the main Jianshe Road, the bridge, and Lingshui River.  Even though the traffic is slightly heavy with buses, cars, trishaws and pedestrians in the day, the noise quietens towards the end of the evening.  I sleep soundly.  My mosquito and malaria phobia has dissipated.  The price of about 150 RMB per night is a small sacrifice for that.  

 

Macaques lord over Monkey Island, Xincun  (新村南湾猴岛; 在岛上，猴子是国王)

 

Nanwan Houdao (南湾猴岛; South Bay Monkey Island) was established in 1965.  At one thousand hectares, it is China’s largest nature reserve for Chinese rhesus monkey.  The name “Monkey Island” must be taken figuratively because there is no physical island.  The two thousand and five hundred Guangxi macaques live as an “island”, as an isolated colony on the hilly tip of Lingshui Peninsula facing Xincun (新村; New Village).    

The peak of the ridge is about one hundred and eighty metres above sea level.  With a life span of twenty-five years, the monkeys feed on buds, fruits, seeds, and invertebrates in the reserve that is rich in wildlife.  Indeed, this reserve is home to approximately one hundred kinds of animals and almost four hundred species of plants.  With ample food supply, these pampered monkeys are living in a primate paradise.

Monkey Island reserve is located about ten kilometres south of Lingshui town.  Visitors with ferry or height phobia may shuttle by car or coach along the circuitous and remote country road to the park.  Most, however, take the shorter and interesting route: travelling by car or bus to Xincun and change to the cable car. 

As directed by the receptionist, I stand in front of the hotel entrance.   But no bus stand or shelter is there.  Nervously, I strain my eyes towards the bridge.  Not long after, the bus arrives.  Numberless, it has three destinations, one of which is Xincun, printed in Chinese on its windscreen.  I quickly wave.  As more than twenty-five people are packed into the bus, I sit on the square platform beside the driver, sharing it with three other persons, including an old lady of seventy-five.  The fare is 4 RMB.  

On the way out of town, some passengers drop off as some board.  Along 223 National Road, the view on my right is scenic: the undulating mountain range and the lush green grasslands.  Occasionally, the road narrows. 

After thirty minutes, the bus stops at a roundabout before turning left into 23 Provincial Road. 

On a spur of the moment, I follow some passengers down.  Some of them then wait nearby, perhaps for the bus to Sanya, which is about sixty kilometres southwest.  I am about two kilometres from my destination, and I have sufficient time since it is only ten-thirty on the Friday morning.

23 Provincial Road is an old two-lane road with no dividing line.  Some shallow potholes have dented one section, evidence of its heavy usage.  Soil subsidence has also done the same along a short stretch.  On both sides of the road, coconut trees stand in straight lines.  And there are no houses nearby.

At the corner of this road and 223 National Road is an unkempt pasture where nine cattle are scattered.  Nearer to the road, the black bull is securely fettered to a stake with a rope running through its nose.  He looks ahead, his two sharp horns on his head pointing backwards.  Further away, the brown cows and calves may roam freely.  But they are rapt in feeding on the luxuriant green grass.  The bull is indifferent, not stirring even as I walk close to photograph its profile.  These creatures are a lovely sight to behold.  

Trudging along the main road, a brown bull heaves a see-through cart, an ingeniously fashioned framework of welded iron pipes that balance on a pair of old car tyres.  Two of the upper pipes extend to the sides of the bull and are tied to the yoke pressing upon its neck.  The heavy skeleton supports a large wooden plank on which is seated an elderly man and his wife, both wearing straw hats. 

On that slow-motion locomotive, the lady fills her time repairing a piece of clothing while her husband guides the bull through a rope tied to its nose.  A pedicab and a motorcyclist overtake, providing a stark contrast between the old, transitional, and new worlds.

Lying almost parallel to 23 Provincial Road is New Port Avenue (Xingang Dadao), a new road.  Between these two roads, about ten metres apart, the government has created a long and narrow park, a park that has initially arrested my attention.  The aesthetically arranged ornamental palms of various heights, tall native trees, shrubs, beds of flowering plants, and mown grass lawn manifest an interesting tender care of a hosing gardener.  Xingang Avenue is a four-lane road, marked in the middle by only a neat row of young coconut palms.  The roadside walkways are paved with brown tiles, also conscientiously arranged in a symmetrical pattern, even though few pedestrians may pause to admire the handiwork of the workers.  Sadly, I do not have the time to walk further.

I return to 23 Provincial Road, and proceed to the next bus stop.  Near it are three buildings.  Two display signs with English translation: “Lingshui Li Nationality Autonomous County People’s Court” and “Lingshui Xincun Haisheng Aquatic Products Refrigeration Factory”.  What the latter does is beyond my comprehension.  Is it a seafood factory? 

A bus soon appears.  As it terminates about two hundred metres from the cable car station, I have an early lunch at a local stall, where the owner enlightens me on the fare - “2 RMB is sufficient” - for the pedicab ride to the station.

Including the cable car ride to Monkey Island, the admission fee is 163 RMB, which may be expensive for locals but reasonable to me.  The journey across the two-hundred metre channel is breathtaking.  The destination seems to be the summit of the peninsular knoll.  I am fortunate.  Being the only occupant of the carriage allows me moving space to shift for vantage view, especially when a vast floating aquaculture market and industry appear below.

Words cannot describe my experience of that bird’s-eye view of the beautiful blue-water bay and countless fishing boats and contiguous cages of captive sea lives.  The inhabitants, including a large community of Hakkas, living in Xincun are lucky.  The cable car ride takes me over the hill and then descends to the entrance, a distance of two thousand one hundred and thirty-eight metres.

Monkeys romp freely in the park.  Near the entrance, I photograph a pregnant mother and her two youngsters.  She is placid and contented, sitting there quietly.  Feeling thirsty, I purchase a bottle of maroon-colour grape drink at a drink stall.  After sipping half, I stow the plastic container in the right pouch of my backpack, which I carry in front of me as if cuddling a baby.  A few minutes later, I fish it out and unscrew its cap.

Meanwhile, Pregnant Mum, now walking nearby, notices and runs towards my hand.  Intuitively, I swing my hand behind my back; and she swiftly follows the bottle.  When I immediately re-position my hand to my chest, above my backpack, she leaps onto my backpack and attempts to snatch the bottle.  In panic, I instinctively release it.  She dashes off with the booty into the nearby shrubs.  Hiding behind a short bush, she punctures a hole with her sharp teeth and gulps its sweet content.  (猴子偷了我的一瓶葡萄味水。)

Beholding the unfolding drama, a bemused tourist relates that the primates here have acquired a taste for flavoured drinks, ignoring bottles of transparent plain water.  The monkeys are evidently not “monkeys”; they have grown wiser, distinguishing brand labels and colours.  Indeed, here at the park, some have been trained to be crowd entertainers.  The three different performances reveal their agility.  The first is the Guard of Honour; the next is the balancing act; and the final is the comical show.  

At one in the afternoon I watch the second and third show.  A monkey balances itself on the back of a white goat, which nimbly treads across an ordinary rope tied to two poles.  Demonstrating its innate skill, the goat even makes a turn.  I can now understand how wild goats are able to survive among the steep slopes of inaccessible mountain ranges.  The Comical Theater offers eight performances daily, the first at ten past nine in the morning and the last at five in the afternoon.  The intervals between shows are approximately an hour. 

Before the start of the show, some tourists surge forward to pose for photographs with the monkeys for a charge of 10 RMB.  Silly people, I remark to myself.  At the end of the comical show, I too join the rank of silly horde.

Macaques have brown fur, their adults showing red faces and rumps.  Attaining maturity at six, a female may produce up to ten young during the course of her life.  This species of monkey is used in research.  In the wild, they are very shy.  But here, they are accustomed to human presence.  The sharp snapping of branches signals their presence.  The reward for one is a banana, which a tourist offers.  Boisterously, some of them play among the branches two metres above my head.  Some are even swimming in the small swimming pool.  The tourists are busy, gawking and photographing.  In their natural environment, macaques have been recorded swimming effortlessly for more than a kilometre.  

As I walk along a path, I glance at an adult male lying in a prone position near a hedge while two youngsters are searching through the furs on his back for ticks.  A few minutes later, he sits up.  Amusingly, he fondles his penis until it is erected.  The organ is long, thin, and pink in colour.  The youngsters sit nonchalantly.  I cautiously quicken my pace in case he is signalling his territorial rights through his quirky action.

Fifteen healthy mango trees are the objects of my envy.  They are protected within a small enclosure at a section of the park.  Drooping from the branches, the purplish-green fruits are about to ripen, inciting my mouth to salivate.  Pensively, I linger, wishing one would miraculously drop before my feet.  The monkeys are lucky; they will get to enjoy them.  Spending almost three hours in the park, I depart with much regret, but learning that man and monkey can co-exist.  

In New Village, the narrow road is hemmed with shops and hawker stalls selling drinks and trinkets.  Jo has hinted at chains of pearls dangling around her neck.  In a shop with showcases of pearls, a string of perfectly round milkish-white pearls costs 2,500 RMB (about $500).  I thank the proprietress and promptly exit.  The lady in her thirties at one of the roadside stalls is friendly and patient with her windowshoppers.  I walk over and examine her lots spread on the table and hanging on a wooden bar.  After some hesitant bargaining, I decide on two strings, one which is white in colour costing 95 RMB and the other which is slightly pink costing 85 RMB.  They are cheap because the pearls are not perfect or round.  But they are genuine.

Pearl lady is friendly; so I enquire about the existence of pearl farms.  Lingshui and Wanning have an average temperature of about twenty-four degrees Celsius, sufficiently warm for pearl formation.   Many have closed down, she reveals.  That is unfortunate because Hainan has advanced pearl breeding technology.  For example, the Sino-Japanese Nanhua Pearl Breeding Company formed in 1984 was producing beautiful pearls two years later. 

At the end of the short road, a ferry man offers to take me on a tour of the nearby aquafarms.  The cost of the thirty-minute ride, which extends to forty-five minutes, is 150 RMB.  We step onto one of the stationary platforms, each about forty metres in length and ten metres in width and holding several submerged cages of marine life.  (我正在新村渔场周围乘船游览。)

Emerging from his small hut at one corner, the owner-operator lifts up a turtle for me to photograph.  In one cage are a huge grouper and two other smaller groupers.  Between three-quarter of a metre and a metre in length, the former can barely move around.  The second platform is a floating restaurant.  Customers walk around the cages and indicate the fish they fancy.  Armed with a long net, an assistant will scoop and weigh it for a quote.  If they agree on the price, it will be cooked and served.  

Basins of shellfish are displayed.  Ah, I suppose the cook will get to keep whatever pearls she finds when she prises open the oysters before the cooking begins.  

Hainan was known in antiquity as the land of pearls because pearl gathering was an important part of its economy.  (海南在古代被称为珍珠之地。) As the story goes, a native visiting the mainland was freely dishing out a pearl to every person he met!  Believe it or not, even the island assumes the shape of a teardrop pearl.  Perhaps I should live here for a year, cast a net, and snare a handful of oysters to cautiously extract their precious black pearls?  I smile, this time at my greed.

 

 

 

Copyright 2015

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