四海为家 » hainan

Wuhan against the man

Maria — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:01:54 +0000

For those of you who (like me) have your Google Alerts set to Wuhan, you probably noticed the articles last week (and here) on the most recent food scandal in China, pesticide-poisoned cowpeas from Hainan (a tropical island paradise in southern China) that were discovered in Hubei province by the local agricultural department. What makes this scandal different is that instead of trying to cover up the mistake while consumers continued to eat the contaminated food (which was what happened with the melamine-poisoned milk two years ago), the authorities in Wuhan alerted the public, which in turn upset the local government in Hainan.

From China Daily:

The local agricultural department in southernmost Hainan province has blamed its counterpart in Wuhan, capital of Central China’s Hubei province, for breaking an unspoken rule by letting the public know about toxic cowpeas.

Hainan’s vegetable sales have suffered a setback after a highly toxic pesticide was detected in cowpeas grown in the area and sold across the country.

The Wuhan agriculture bureau released the information on Feb 21, saying that 3.5 tons of toxic cowpeas, from several counties in Sanya of Hainan, had been seized and destroyed.

Later, toxic cowpeas from Hainan were also found in markets in Guangdong, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces.

However, faced with such a big food safety scandal, Sanya agricultural authorities said they could not understand why Wuhan released the information, because such issues usually remain internal, China National Radio reported on Monday.

“It (the release of the information) did not save face for Sanya, nor save face for the Ministry of Agriculture,” Zhou Qingchong, deputy director of the law enforcement team of the Sanya agricultural bureau, was quoted as saying.

According to unspoken rules, Wuhan should have just informed Sanya, and the latter would have sent out investigation teams to find the source, Zhou said.

“Wuhan is really not enough of a friend,” he was quoted as saying.

For the sake of all of us who are eating food in China, I hope that more local governments follow Wuhan’s example in the future, face or no face for local governments of other provinces.

Picture-perfect 大东海 beach

Maria — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:36:58 +0000

Shivering away the evening in my unheated Wuhan apartment, all I have left of Sanya is the volleyball we bought on the beach, some sand in my backpack, and a folder on my computer with photos of glistening white beaches. For anyone else thinking about escaping the cold for a vacation in the sun, do you need any more convincing than this?

Warm safe prompt: when in Sanya, beware of getting pillaged

Maria — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:35:55 +0000

I hate getting pillaged

Sunbathing with Chinese characteristics

Maria — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:25:35 +0000

Want to spend time on the beach, but worried about darkening your pearly-white complexion? In Sanya, the whities showed no fear for the sun (which we eventually paid for dearly with awkward sunburns), but Chinese beachgoers were endlessly creative in finding ways to keep the sun off their skin. Here are a few of my favorites:

The classic: An umbrella can always double as a parasol, temporarily folded away when it's time for pictures

Full coverage: If you want to sit on the beach and umbrella-protection isn't enough, the next step in sun-protection is to sit under the coconut trees wearing a wide-rimmed hat and mask that fully covers your face

The camper: Tents are for sale everywhere along the beach, and provide another sun-proof but very warm option for full protection from the sun

The ostrich: Having your friends bury you in sand may be a creative but less effective way to keep your skin safe

The alternative: Some beachgoers decided to embrace rather than fight the sun, and joined the sizeable group of darkly tanned nudists at the far end of the beach

Selling fruit

Maria — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:50:14 +0000

Tourist trapping

Maria — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:45:47 +0000

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!