The period just before Christmas in 2011 was my maiden 5-day trip to China, specifically the island of Hainan, with a bunch of good pals from JC days. On one level, it was quite interesting to experience a microcosm of the booming Chinese ‘dragon’ economy but on another, I can’t imagine living in a place where social norms and attitudes are so different from where I come from. Here are some thoughts/themes I gathered from the trip:
The rural/urban divide
Living in a village called 龙滚“Long Gun” (my friend’s family home) for a few days was quite new for me but it also pointed out some things to me: in a small community everyone knows everyone and yes, the 5 of us foreigners stuck out like sore thumbs (or perhaps in this case, an entire palm) when we were moving around. This was something we were not used to as most of us grew up in rather ‘urban’ settings like HDB flats and there was probably no sense of ‘community’ in which people knew one another.
In the urban or cosmopolitan context, everyone come from different places or even different parts of the world so it is ‘alienating’ to a large extent- people are used to seeing strangers commuting from place to place, no one really finds it ‘weird’ to see different kinds of people compared to say the context of rural places or even villages.
This is not to say that there’s an absolute divide between the rural and the urban. I think China presents an interesting case because there are literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of people weaving in and out between the rural and the urban.
The bigger question I guess is that the assumption of urbanization is that it brings ‘progress’, but really, other than economic ‘progress’, what other kinds of ‘progress’ are being achieved? ‘Progress’ at what cost? Social alienation? Hectic lifestyles?
Road Traffic
What traffic? No rules. No right of way, no nothing. The horn rules. The quote, “the brakes of the vehicles can fail, but not the horn” comes to mind. So most of the time the taxi driver has one hand on the steering wheel (of course, duh) and the other on the horn, which is on the steering wheel. Every taxi ride was heart rate raising and I don’t recommend it for those who have heart-related problems. There was even one taxi driver who drives to the beats of the techno songs he plays in the car. Incredible. Everything also use horn. Change lane? Horn. Make a turn? Horn. Trying to avoid hitting a pedestrian or another vehicle? Horn. Driving into the lane of an incoming vehicle? Horn. I don’t know what the signal lights on the vehicles are for. Decoration, maybe?
Tourism: Preserving or destroying ‘traditional culture’?
On the 3rd day of the trip, we had sort of a one-day tour at 槟榔谷“Bing Lang Gu” (literally areca village) and we were lucky to get a wonderful tour guide named 七妹 “Qi Mei” (7th sister) who was very bubbly and professional in the way she explained about the various tribes and traditions, etc. We were quite shocked to find out that she’s only nineteen this year.
Eugene, me and 七妹！
So we got to learn a bit about the histories, costumes and practices of the minority peoples in this part of Hainan, which is not a bad thing at all. But in the light of all these commercialization and the commodification of the ‘traditions’ of these tribes, what is really preserved? When tradition meets capitalism, what is left of past practices when it is subjected to capitalist values and in the name of making money?
Eventually we sort of get a romanticized notion of what minority village life is like. To me it always fascinating to see how “tradition” interacts with so called “modernity” or “progress”. Somehow usually the latter wins. Perhaps, some semblance of tradition is better than none at all…
A decade of friendship…. and counting
Last but not least, this entire trip wouldn’t be possible without the help of the main man, YK. 2011 marks the 10-year mark of the bunch of us since junior college days. We played with super soakers in JC, went through tough times in army, took some classes together in university and now most of us are in the workforce already.
Someone mentioned that traveling together can make or break a friendship but clearly there were no signs of the latter during and after the trip. The dynamics and idiosyncrasies between some of them never fail to make me laugh, it’s as if we have never changed at all and time just stood by.
Thanks guys for a superb trip!!! 
