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JISHOU, HUNAN — So, here’s a more detailed travelogue to follow up on the post I sent from my cell phone last week.  Yalong Haijiao in Sanya, Hainan As I mentioned, students here in their next-to-last year take a class trip, so four groups of students were planning trips to Hainan 海南, a tropical island in the South China Sea, Beihai 北海, a tropical seaside southern resort city, Guilin 桂林, a picturesque city nestled among mountains and rivers in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region 广西, and Fenghuang 凤凰, the ancient city about two hours from Jishou 吉首. All four groups asked me to join them.
Oy, decisions, decisions!
The Beihai group asked first, but their trip was only four days long. With a half-day on the train each way, they really only had two days in Beihai. The Hainan group asked me, too. Their trip was seven days, with almost four spent in Hainan. The Guilin group asked, but later canceled their trip — some joined the Beihai tour, and the rest went to Fenghuang.
In all, about 100 students went to Fenghuang, primarily because it was much cheaper than the other trips, and required less bus travel. (I’ve noticed that a relatively higher number of Chinese than American students have motion sickness problems, at least from anecdotal evidence. This discourages a lot of them from traveling.)
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SANYA, HAINAN — University students here take a class trip — “practical experience” in local educationese — in their penultimate year. So here I am vacationing — facilitating their practical experience — with 23 juniors, and two other faculty.
So far, our practical experience has including visiting a botanical garden and three beaches, swimming, eating so-so food, and sitting through sales pitches (more about that later).
My own personal practical experience was to take my first scuba lesson. More about that later, too.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — OK, so I guess I need to finish the story of my Winter Holiday, with an account of my trip to Hainan, China’s Hawai’i.
My companions for this trip were my neighbors, Grisha, Anya and their son, Nik, 9. Grisha and Anya are Ukrainian piano teachers here on a three-year exchange. I’ve been teaching Nik English twice a week. In December they asked me to join them on a week-long trip to Sanya 三亚, on the southern tip of Hainan.
Hainan is roughly the same latitude as Hawai’i, with a very similar climate. Formerly a neglected part of China (criminals were once banished there), mainlanders realized it was prime vacation spot about 20 years ago, just because of its location. Now it’s the site of scores of hotels and resorts, including swanky places like Sheraton, Hilton and Ritz-Carlton properties.
And Russians. Lots of Russians. Some have settled there, like our tour agency owner, Tatiana , while most just come to bask in the sunshine and swim in the still-clean ocean. There are so many Russian tourists that menus are bilingual, and many shops boast bilingual signs.
Of course, there also many, many Chinese, even at the ultra-swanky places. (We could use the Sheraton’s beach, but not the facilities — officially — so I can speak authoritatively on this last point.)
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