Behind the Red Curtain

---

Because I rarely get more than a long weekend off in my work, I decided to take 3 weeks between my old job and my new one to visit James in Hainan—a lovely tropical island in China. I knew practically nothing about it when he told me that he accepted a job here, and not much more when I landed a week ago, but so far, it has proven to be full of fun surprises.



After several days of some pretty sweet jet lag (I was in transit for nearly 2 days!), we managed to get out and see a bit of the city. The university where we’re staying (and James is working) is on the south side of Haikou city, and there are several interesting things in the area to do and see. One thing high on both of our lists was a local market which is known to deal with some wildlife trade—something that James has a special interest in, and I’m curious about from a conservation perspective. This obviously isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and you may want to skip the next paragraph if you think that details of what is being eaten and utilized in traditional medicine may upset you.



The market is by no means trading in excessively endangered animals, but there were, for example, large bags of dried Chinese salamanders—which are rare and, depending on the species, endangered. So rather than being full of red pandas and tiger parts, the market was more an odd assortment of animals. In the bird section, for example, there was a heron in a cage with geese—I presume people eat geese, but heron? We saw a bamboo rat which may or may not be used for traditional medicine. There was a large deer in a cage that was WAY too small for it. There were bags of snakes—including spitting cobras. Luckily, we were safely protected from any venom by the netting of the bag itself…oh wait…



After reaching my limit of unusual animals being sold for mysterious purposes, I moved on to the friendly fruit & veg section of the market. Sorry botanists, but I just don’t feel that bad about killing plants! I do, however, have a great love of colorful produce, especially chilis, and this market did not disappoint. Pumpkins, squashes, and sweet potatoes seem quite popular, and one of the best new foods I’ve had in a restaurant so far are caramelized sweet potatoes—served hot with sugar hardening as they cool…it may sound over the top, but it is sooo tasty…



Our market day was topped off by a trip to a large park where we rented a 4-person carriage bike and pedaled like mad for an hour before watching the stunning array of kites being flown by people of all ages (some of the kites were bigger than me!), and a delicious gourmet meal with James’ host professor that lasted hours and included more dishes than I can count—all of them superb.



This week I’m giving another talk (my first was on Saturday) and I’m hoping to brush up on my language skills. More details of food and adventure next week!



xoxo

---

Photos

Snakes at Market
I'm pretty sure spitting cobras can spit through this netting...