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Published: September 25th 2010
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We went to a tropical beach paradise tourist town called Sanya for three days. Sanya is everything you'd expect of a tropical beach paradise resort, with a weird twist. In comparison to our non-westernised university town, where we get fascinated stares and cheery shouts of 'HERRO! hehehe' everywhere, in Sanya we were barely granted eye contact from miserable fruit sellers as they overcharged us for unripe bananas.
When they did talk to us, it would be in Russian. The place is full of rich Russian holiday makers who act a lot like the English in Ibiza, and chinese couples posing in wedding outfits on the beach for photographs a few years before they actually get married.
The Chinese hate to be exposed to sunlight, so the whole concept of going to the beach to lie there in the middle of the day just doesn't fit with their culture. For that reason, they all crowd the beach for an hour just before it gets dark, when the Russians have realised they are sunburnt and gone home.
Many Chinese can't swim either, so when a 25 year-old girl was aimlessly floating a few meters away from me out to sea,
shouting to me from her cartoon dinosaur rubber ring and a scarecrow hat, it took me while to realise that I shouldn't have laughed at her as if to say 'nice outfit'. When I understood the words, it turned out she was in a panic saying that she can't swim and wanted to go back, and I had to clumsily drag her back on my surfboard as she nearly got overturned by each wave that hit her.
For me, the surfing was the best part of the trip. With great luck, the first decent waves in ages came on the day we arrived, and completely disappeared on the day we left, as you can see. We got to know some really nice guys working in the (only) surf shop (in China). The sport hasn't really taken off amongst the Chinese yet, due to the practicalities of taking a sun umbrella out to sea, so the scene is mainly made up of chilled out westerners who have formed a nice little community there, having realised how good the beaches are.
There are a couple of sponsored Chinese riders, who are completely down-to-earth and friendly. There's none of the snobbery
that you get amongst locals in famous surf spots, the sea is empty so no-one gets in anyone's way, the water is warm and turquoise, and the backdrop is a tropical mountain. They all seem to know the people who are running the snowboarding scene in the north as well, and the boss was kind enough to give me an awesome book of 5 years of Chinese snowboarding history. Exactly what I've been searching for for ages.
As for the nightlife… I'll begin at the end. Ben came into our room at 5am saying that he had just woken up from sleepwalking, having found himself standing up in the middle of a street 20mins away from our accommodation in his underwear! He had left our dorm in the middle of the night, and we assumed he was awake and just nipping to the toilet, but was obviously completely asleep on his way out on some adventure that he will never know the events of… freaky but hilarious.
Chinese nightclubs are funny. Even in famous party-city Sanya, they just don't seem to have got it right yet. However big and flashy the nightclub, there's never a dancefloor and rarely
a bar. Instead, they have loads of little round tables that you stand up at in your little group and wait for a waitress to come with a drinks menu. She scuttles off with your order and you wait 20 minutes for her to come back with your drinks and your change, both of which are wrong because the music is ridiculously loud and she didn't hear you.
The tables arrangement is frustrating because you can't hear anyone except the two people either side of you, so there's no group conversations or mixing up and getting to know anyone, let alone dancing around. Instead, you can shuffle on the spot and watch the employed singer on stage attempting hilariously to look like a western pop star with dyed ginger hair and bling bling. Other than that, the club always puts out this boring game on the table that involves dice, strategy and maths. You take it in turns to guess numbers all night with hand signals (because you can't hear each other) and drink if you get it wrong. You end up pissed, deaf and wondering what the person standing opposite you all night was called.
They have
no less than four DJ booths in one room, three of which contain girls not DJing at all, just employed to stand there acting with headphones, looking attractive and cool. To make up for all of this, each table has a bowl of fresh fruit and you get glowstick lollypops. The DJing and remixes are actually of a really good quality, with an amazing light show and all night in synchronisation. Occasionally you get caught out when everyone starts taking 90s boy-band music really seriously, or the lights go dim and some slow, romantic ballad kills the mood for a few minutes, at which point everyone feels awkward and doesn't really know where to look.
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kevin
non-member comment
holy cow!
they must be translated by some kind of crap translation software, totally make no sense. especially,"various types approve sa", the guy knew it's wrong, but maybe he just wanted to make fun, since English speaking people will love them.