Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya,

The 2013 'Tropical Hainan Island’ Beers N Noodles Adventure has begun!

For those who have completely no idea where I am, I was going to put together my own ‘history thing’ on Hainan Island that was until I came across the information below. It was obviously written by a Chinese graduate so believe it or not, I had to actually tone down the ‘English’ quite a lot as it read like a Penguin Classic.

Some Guys Historical Overview

History can’t make up its mind about the Hainan Island.

Sitting off the southern coast of China and to the east of Vietnam, it has been both eulogized as the Hawaii of the East and condemned as the Gates of Hell. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between. Originally considered by the Chinese to be the place where the civilized world officially ended and fit only to send convicts, the Hainan of today is conversely overrun with Chinese tourist and espoused by many as China’s idyllic island paradise.

Human activities on Hainan Island can be traced back between six to ten thousand years.

Written history, however only begins after 200 BC when Hainan Island fell under Chinese Control during the Qin Dynasty. Subsequent dynasties like the Tang, Song and Yuan (6th-14th centuries) set up special administrative offices on Hainan Island and began incorporating it into the country’s central government. Han Chinese moved in and the indigenous tribes retreated further inland.

According to ancient records, Hainan Island was nicknamed the Tail of the Dragon, the last unexplored frontier of China and civilization. Because of its remote and forbidding location, many renegades were exiled to its sandy shores, including the famous Poet Su Dongpo, who was banished there during the Song Dynasty.

In more recent times, Hainan Island was used as a strategic military outpost in 1890 to combat the French in the Qing Dynasty. Similarly, the Hainan people later helped the Communists to battle the Japanese in the 1930-1945. In 1950, the PRC officially established the Hainan Special Administrative Area. Finally in 1988, Hainan Island officially became a province, the youngest and smallest province of China in Land and the biggest in ocean area with Haikou established as the capital. At the same time, Hainan Island became a special economic zone. Free market economies quickly took root and Hong Kong investment began pouring in. Since then, the local government and people have both caught the tourism bug, seeing the tourism industry as the easiest way to make a quick buck and advance the economy. Their motto is to promote the ten major tourist resources: blue sea, bright sunshine, sandy beaches, hot springs, tropical climate, tropical rainforest, grottos, minority culture, clean air and beautiful scenery.      

Hainan’s inarguably most attractive feature is its sandy beaches and bays which are the ideal venues for all manner of water sports, from windsurfing to scuba diving to kayaking. 

Sanya city was a favorite haunt of the former Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, himself an avid swimmer. It was also very popular with the Russian elite during the Soviet era, which earned the city the title of the "Vladivostok of the East". Sanya is now increasingly popular with tourists from Japan and Korea. In fact, to this day, one meets a myriad of signs round about the city that are written in Russian, and some of the service personnel also still speak the lingo, and for these reasons perhaps, plus Hainan's proximity to Russia's Pacific coast, many Russians still frequent Sanya.

Hainan Language (LP)

Hainanese is a broad term for the bakers dozen local dialects of Hainan Min, most of which are also spoken in Guangdong. There is also a large population of Hakka speakers. While some Li and Miao can speak Mandarin, they prefer to use their own languages.

Beers N Noodles toya…..shane
The photos for this blog were taken from ‘construction walls’.
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The soundtrack to this entry was by DORO
The album was ‘Love Me In Black’
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