Rising out of the South China Sea between Guangdong and Vietnam, HAINAN ISLAND (海南岛, hăinándăo) marks the southernmost undisputed limit of Chinese authority, a 300km-broad spread of beaches, mountain scenery, history, myth and – most of all – the effects of exploitation. Today a province in its own right, Hainan was historically the “Tail of the Dragon”, an enigmatic full stop to the Han empire and – in the Han Chinese mind – an area inhabited by unspeakably backward races, only surfacing into popular consciousness when it could be of use. Han settlements were established around the coast in 200 AD, but for millennia the island was only seen fit to be a place of exile. So complete was Hainan’s isolation that, as recently as the 1930s, ethnic Li, who first settled here more than two thousand years ago, still lived a hunter-gatherer existence in the interior highlands.
Modern Hainan is no primitive paradise, however. After two years of naval bombardments, the island was occupied by the Japanese in 1939, and by the end of the war they had executed a full third of Hainan’s male population in retaliation for raids on their forces by Chinese guerrillas. Ecological decline began in the 1950s during the Great Leap Forward, and escalated through the 1960s when large numbers of Red Guards were sent over from the mainland to “learn from the peasants” and became involved in the first large-scale clearing of Hainan’s forests to plant cash crops. Successive governments have continued the process of stripping the island’s natural resources and abandoning the inhabitants to fend for themselves, in an appalling example of economic mismanagement: while there are skyscrapers and modern factories around the cities, you’ll also see country people so poor that they live in lean-tos made of mud and straw, which have to be rebuilt after each wet season. With the exception of ragged remnants clinging to the very tips of Hainan’s mountains, rainforest has ceded to eroded plantations given over to experimentation with different crops – rubber, mango, coconuts and coffee – in the hope that a market will emerge. Tourism seems to be the sole reliable source of income, and everyone is desperate to be involved. Persistent marketing has made Hainan the place that all Chinese want to come for a holiday.
The most obvious reason to come is to flop down on the warm, sandy beaches near the southern city of Sanya (三亚, sānyà) – as a rest cure after months on the mainland, it’s a very good one. Initially, there doesn’t seem much more to get excited about. Haikou (海口, hăikŏu), Hainan’s capital, bears evidence of brief colonial occupation, but its primary importance is as a transit point, while Han towns along the east coast have only slightly more character and scenic appeal. Spend a little time and effort elsewhere, however, and things start to get more interesting: the highlands around the town of Tongshi, or Wuzhi Shan Shi (通什, tōngshì or 五指山市, wŭzhĭ shān shì), are the place to start looking for Li culture, and the mountainous southwest hides some forgotten nature reserves, where what’s left of Hainan’s indigenous flora and fauna hangs by a thread. There are even a handful of underwater sites off the southern coast, the only place in provincial China where those with the necessary qualifications can go scuba diving.
Hainan’s extremely hot and humid wet season lasts from June to October. It’s better to visit between December and April, when the climate is generally dry and tropically moderate, sunny days peaking around 25°C on the southern coast. Getting to Hainan is straightforward, with flights from all over the country to Haikou and Sanya, trains from Guangzhou and regular ferries from Guangzhou and Hai’an in Guangdong province and Beihai in Guangxi.
Once there, getting around is easy: Hainan’s highways and roads are covered by a prolific quantity of local transport; high-speed buses link Haikou and Sanya in just three hours, while you can easily hop around the rest of the island by bus and minibus. Also note that, as a recognized tourist destination, Hainan, and Sanya in particular, is more expensive than the adjacent mainland – even Chinese tourists grumble about being constantly overcharged.Read More
HAIKOU (海口, hǎikǒu) is Hainan’s steamy capital, set at the north of the island and separated from Guangdong province by the 30km-wide Qiongzhou Channel. For most visitors, Haikou is little more than a transit stop en route to Sanya, but the city and nearby coastal towns are looking more and more to get their own piece of the tourist pie. If you can resist heading straight to Sanya, it’s worthwhile spending a couple of days around here and hopping between towns along Hainan’s east coast – home to some of the few surfable beaches in China. This is the part of Hainan longest under Han dominion, and it’s a good way to get the feel of the island.
Business centre, main port and first stop for newly arrived holidaymakers and hopeful migrants alike, Haikou has all the atmosphere of a typical Southeast Asian city. There’s a smattering of French colonial architecture, a few parks and monuments, modern skyscrapers, broad streets choked with traffic and pedestrians, and the all-pervading spirit of commerce. An indication of the ethos driving Haikou is that nobody seems to be a local: officials, businessmen and tourists are all from the mainland, while Li, Miao and Hakka flock from southern Hainan to hawk trinkets, as do the Muslim Hui women selling betel nuts – all drawn by the opportunities that the city represents. More than anything, Haikou is a truly tropical city: humid, laidback, pleasantly shabby and complete with palm-lined streets, something particularly striking if you’ve just emerged from a miserable northern Chinese winter.
The old quarter, boxed in by Bo’ai Bei Lu, Datong Lu and pedestrianized Deshengsha Lu, is the best area to stroll through, with its grid of restored colonial architecture housing stores and businesses. Jiefang Lu and Xinhua Lu are the main streets here, especially lively in the evening when they’re well lit and bursting with people out shopping, eating and socializing; there’s also a busy market west of Xinhua. Otherwise, Haikou Park (海口公园, hăikŏu gōngyuán) and its lake are small but quite pleasant, particularly in the early morning when the park comes to life with martial-art sessions, dancing and games of badminton.
The South China Sea islands
The South China Sea islands
Chinese maps of China always show a looped extension of the southern borders reaching 1500km down through the South China Sea to within spitting distance of Borneo, enclosing a host of reefs and minute islands. These sit over what might be major oil and gas reserves, and are consequently claimed by every nation in the region – China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have all put in their bids, based on historical or geographic associations. Occupied by Japan during the 1940s but unclaimed after World War II, the Spratly and Paracel islands are perhaps the most contentious groups. Vietnam and China both declared ownership of the Paracels in the 1970s, coming to blows in 1988 when the Chinese navy sank two Vietnamese gunboats. Then the Philippines stepped in in 1995, destroying Chinese territorial markers erected over the most westerly reefs in the Spratly group and capturing a nearby Chinese trawler. Ongoing minor brawls encouraged the nations of the region – including China – to hammer out a landmark agreement in November 2002, which basically allows access for all, while territorial disputes are settled one by one. This is likely to be a relief to companies such as the US conglomerate Exxon, who – despite the fact that guaranteed oil reserves have yet to be found – are already investing in the region.
Li and Miao
Li and Miao
Hainan’s million-strong Li population take their name from the big topknot (li) which men once wore. Archeological finds and traditions shared with other southwestern Chinese peoples point to their arriving on Hainan from Guangxi about 200 BC, when they occupied the coast and displaced the aboriginal inhabitants. Driven inland themselves by later Han arrivals, the Li finally settled Hainan’s central highlands (though a few remained on the coast) and spent the next two thousand years as rice farmers and hunters, living in villages with distinctive tunnel-shaped houses, evolving their own shamanistic religion, and using poisoned arrows to bring down game. Li women have long been known for their weaving skills, and the fact that, until very recently, many got their faces heavily tattooed with geometric patterns – apparently to make them undesirable to raiding parties of slavers from the coast, or rival clans. The latter form five major groups – Ha, Qi, Yun, Meifu and Cai – and they have never coexisted very well, quarrelling to this day over territorial boundaries and only really united in their dislike of external rulers.
Though actively supporting Communist guerrillas against the Japanese, the Li have no great affection for the Han as a whole, and there were fourteen major rebellions against their presence on the island during the Qing era alone. Superficially assimilated into modern China, the Li would probably revolt again if they felt they could get away with it. They are, however, pretty friendly towards outside visitors, and though traditional life has all but vanished over the last half-century, there are still a few special events to watch out for. Best is the San Yue San festival (held on the third day of the third lunar month), the most auspicious time of the year in which to choose a partner, while in more remote corners of the highlands, funerals are traditionally celebrated with gunfire and three days of hard drinking by male participants.
Touted as Hainan’s second “native minority” by the tourist literature, the Miao are in fact comparatively recent arrivals, forcibly recruited from Guizhou province as mercenaries to put down a Li uprising during the Ming dynasty. When the money ran out, the Miao stopped fighting and settled in the western highlands, where today they form a fifty-thousand-strong community. The US adventurer Leonard Clark, who traversed the highlands in 1937, reported them as living apart in the remotest of valleys, though they now apparently intermarry with the Li (for more on the Miao).