四海为家

Some describe Hainan as “China’s Hawaii”. A better description, in my opinion, is that this is “Russia’s Mallorca”. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing — it is very touristy, but comfortable hotels, a plethora of restaurants, a beautiful beach and lots of souvenir stalls makes for a very pleasant beach vacation. Every now and then things pop up that remind you that this is vacationing with a Chinese/Russian twist, like the lack of beach towels (it seems that no one uses them), Chinese families hiding from the sun on the beach in camping tents, and the bar strip where almost all of the Chinese tourists who are out are gathered around the karaoke stage, and almost all of the Russian tourists lounge in a Soviet-themed bar called “CCCP/USSR”.

But being in a touristy place also brings the usual dose of scams, especially directed against foreigners who don’t speak Chinese. I suspect that on the whole, the return on investment in the job market for learning Chinese is not huge (despite insistence to the contrary of neighbors and mothers “back home”). But here in Sanya, being able to read a menu in Chinese has saved our group a small fortune, my most solid return on investment to date.

Our hotel is in Dadonghai, a very touristy area, and virtually every restaurant here has one menu in Chinese, with prices that are higher than in Wuhan (but still reasonable), and then another menu that’s fancier, has pictures, lists dishes not only in Chinese but also in Russian and sometimes in English, and has much higher prices than the simpler Chinese-language menu. At some places, the dishes on the two menus seem to be different, and if asked the restaurant would probably say something along the lines of that those dishes use more expensive ingredients or are better quality. But at some restaurants, most of the dishes are the same, and Chinese guests only get one menu while foreigners only get the other. It’s simple price discrimination, an effective way to get more money from the people who point and order.

The restaurant just below our hotel has gone even farther — they have pictures with prices outside the restaurant, and then a menu inside with the same dishes, same pictures, but higher prices. So step one is noticing the price difference and making sure that you’re paying the lower of the two prices. Then they add lots of little extras to the bill — extra charges for rice, napkins, and dishware — which are included in the final charge but not listed on the bill. Things like Coca cola or beer are much more expensive than customers expect, making the bill grow even more. And then at the very end, they round the amount up to add on a little extra, banking on that the customer won’t check the math (and if the final amount hadn’t been twice as much as the cost of the dishes, we probably wouldn’t have noticed). The Chinese group ahead of us apparently had a similar experience (this particular restaurant scammed all tourists equally)… I guess in a place with so many tourists, it pays more to get as much as possible out of every transaction rather than winning over loyal customers.

But for the most part, people have been friendly, the food has been delicious (and much cheaper than in Europe, even with the occasional scam prices), and the weather has been perfect. I still think Wuhan is an ideal place to study Chinese, but for anyone who wants to perfect their Chinese and Russian at the same time and then leave some time in the afternoon for the beach, this is the place to be!