"Ah, America! Bruce Lee! Wo ai meiguo. I love America!" This shirtless Chinese guy greeted me at the hostel front desk, where he had been doing his best to impress the cute receptionist with goofy antics and a mediocre body clad in moose-patterned boxer shorts. I acknowledged my undeniably close relationship with the great Bruce Lee, and fell into my bed dreaming of the beach.
A few freezing nights after the heat was turned off in my apartment weeks ago, I sat at my computer under layers of cotton in various forms—clothes, robe, blanket—and pointed my mouse at Sanya, China's southernmost city on its only tropical island. Last week, while my students participated in an intramural track meet at the university, I landed in Sanya for three days of sun, seafood, oogling fat Russian tourists, and Chinese women going to great lengths to keep the sun from darkening their precious skin while they enjoyed the beach view.
Dadonghai Beach must be the most tactfully developed place I've visited in China. Curvy boardwalks and stone passageways, outdoor barbeque restaurants and classy bars ringed the bay, offering an endless supply of seafood, fresh-squeezed juice, and cold beer on tap. (Cold beer! On tap! It does exist!) Adorable couples in matching Hawaiian-patterned shorts and shirts, clinging to each other under umbrellas to deflect the sun, did add a charmingly tacky twist that reminded me I hadn't left the country. (And then, of course, moose-boxer boy, who wore said boxers and a fanny-pack-inspired man purse when a few of us went out for a drink Thursday night.)
Perhaps it was because I traveled alone, but this was by far the most social experience I've had in a hostel. The crew assembled for a Friday night out included a couple of Indian-English guys spending nine months traveling in Asia, two Swedes and three Americans studying with different programs in Shanghai, another English teacher from Holland, and one of my Chinese roommates. I hate to generalize about entire nations… but they're small, so I don't feel too bad about it: Swedes and the Dutch are my favorite people to meet while traveling. They're impossibly nice and genuine, and always up for a good time.
For good or for bad, the chain-smoking hostel cook acted as our bar guide. "I'll take you to a place where the floor bounces," was the pitch he made to us after we'd downed a bottle of 100rmb Absolut playing drinking games at the hostel. The club, which did indeed have some sort of spring-loaded floor, was pretty normal—with Chinese characteristics. A remix of the "McDonalds, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut" round was worked in with a techno "Glory, Glory Halleluiah," followed by "Take me Home, Country Road." And then a slender, tan, scantily clad transvestite danced to Michael Jackson.
And then I ate a watermelon, and liked it. It's true what they say, I just hadn't had a good one yet.
The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. Get started.
