Qionghai is the 3rd largest city in Hainan province - it has 440,000 people living there. According to a blurb a journalist uncle gave us, they estimate 550,000 ex-Qionghainese live overseas (especially in vietnam, singapore and malaysia). Wow, that''s an interesting stat, I think they include the 50++ of us wong's living in sydney too.
Anyway, we left the airport to go to Qionghai. On the way, we stopped at a truckers cafe and had, you guessed, hainanese chicken. I was rather disapointed by this since the chicken was tough but at least the veges were nice. The food prep area was, well, disgusting, so we tried not to look at it. At Qionghai, we stayed at the most posh hotel there, the LongWan International hotel (a 4 star, but expensive relative to Aust [Y1180 = A$200]. Weird setup rooms, they had GLASS bathroom walls - slightly opaque but still risque!
We expected a rest arvo since we were really tired, but this was not to be. After a short rest, we were dragged to the village and what did we see - a banner proclaiming "welcome back Choon Peng Wong"and the WHOLE village + headman lined up to greet us. Papa was so excited to see his old house that he was practically incomprehensible - running around proclaiming this fact or some other fact, not letting us see and absorb the sights and history. Here was great Cheow Kengs bedroom, here's the inner sanctum, here's the bathroom, here's the gunports on the surrounding walls, here is the original original house etc etc.
Uncle Yue brought fireworks and ignited them ...when we weren't there. What a sight and sound show! We tried to video/photo it but too many bits were flying around (including part of the floor - concrete chips as missles?).
Many photos plus a speech and more photos. In all, we only spent about 1.5hrs there. Quite annoying. Jen & I tried to make a map, but Papa kept telling us he had one already (which I haven't seen, so I made the assumption he lost it :-). It's obvious that they did a major cleanup before we arrived as the headman spoke to papa and asked for donations to repair the road into the village :-). Not to mention the geese/duck farm inside was too clean :-)
Jen saw a strange butterfly which landed in her hair - the villages ooed and aahhhed over it since it was the largest butterfly they ever saw. Papa thought this might be an approval from the ancestors for us and we all took this as a good sign..
Later we went to the river, papa mentioned that things seemed to have changed a bit. We tried to get a cute village boy for a photo but he was too shy. Biffa had his share of photos too, and even tried to drive a cute tractor/truck thingy.
Trying to rush us away, uncle finally ushered us to the van for a drive to great-great-great-grandmothers grave - this was surrounded by a pineapple field - very peaceful until the fireworks were brought out. Mark almost got exploded by us since he video'd it from, well, maybe TOO close and from hiding behind a tiny vase!!!
It's interesting to note the burial customs here - they bury people EVERYWHERE in large conical mounds with a smoke urn on top. Richer folk have stones or even stiles in front. GGGGM even had a burial marker ( a big stone carved pole). We saw these mounds everywhere in Qionghai.
Finally, exhausted us drove back to Qionghai town where we visted uncle's home - it's an old shop converted into a house - the street was under repairs and was blocked off - yet motorbikes ignored the sign, dodged the earthmover (while under operation!!) and barely missed the kids playing on the dirt. More chaos I guess. Dinner was yet again HCR (Hainanese Chicken Rice) plus a really nice pork dish. Uncle's family were quite shy, the oldest girl knew some english from school but couldn't really converse.
By the way, Hainan is a special admin zone, so families here are allowed to have more than 1 child. If your first is a girl, you can try for more kids till you have a son. Nice scheme eh, helps balance the male/female ratio issue china has.
We wanted to go shopping but were so tired it was lights out at the hotel that night.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
China trip - Sydney 2 China
Even though I am a Qantas club member, flying cathay pacific doesn't give me the privs to enter the Qantas club... but thanks to my bro's friend, we got an invite! YAY!
My family were quite impressed - well... at least Mark & Jen were, Tim got into QC last time we went to china (I was gold FF then). Sadly enough it wasn't up to the standard it used to be - the food was cold, the bar was closed so no beer or booze, but the phone and internet were appreciated. In revenge, Jen & I took almost all the teabags and all of the chocolate drink sachets. I also stole an apple , tsk tsk.
This flight (CX138) was an red-eye special - it was packed and hideously uncomfortable, the plane was an airbus A330 with an short persons seat pitch (mark ain't tall, but his knees were touching the back of the seat). Also the lumbar support was painful (and lacking). Obviously, CX cater for hunchbacked, insomniac dwarfs! At least the food was nice and the inflight entertainment system was good (watched Aeon Flux and bits of Narnia) plus played battleship against Tim. Naturally he thrashed me.
As with all dwarven airlines, there are even smaller dwarflings called infants. One child screamed blue murder and even with my industrial earplugs (used for jackhammering etc) I could hear her. Apparantly mum went awol at the back of the plane leaving her teen daughter in charge. Oh well, most of us couldn't sleep anyway due to compressed spinal injuries. Oh, the airbus also didn't have individual air vents so it was either too hot or too cold. :-) Last time I voluntarilly fly cathay!
We had fun flying into HK airport - low cloud and turbulence. Even I felt a bit green, and when the plane aborted it's landing (a "go around"with full throttle and steep climb), Jen lost her breakfast and quite a few of us felt similar. But at least we got down safely. Actually, the pilot was an aussie and geez once we were out of the cloud, it was a very very smooth landing.
We got to HK airport at 5:15am, and all the shops in the transit area were closed, so I made the executive decision to leave the restricted zone and pass thru immigration. We wandered around (Biffa the toy dog got some photo ops) till 8am, but the check in counter was still closed. So at least the shops were open at 7:30am, and I bought a prepaid SIM card from "3". An interesting stall we saw was the "Ice Crispy Dragon Beard Candy"shop - and the nice lady gave me a sample. Quite nice, like freezing candy floss surrounding a peanut/sesame core. Melted on the tounge and what a sensation that was! By now the airport was really buzzing, heaps of people milling around and we checked in finally at what was the emirates counter (the sign kept changing, maybe that's why the checkin dude was slow slow slow).
We rang aunty meilin who was in HK with her father - seems that the old mansion in the New Territories was demolished for redevelopment. Oh well.
After this we went airside again, and found an internet terminal, so we surfed and emailed till time to leave. By the way, I couldn't find our gate (12) on the map so it was with a sinking feeling that we got to the gate via downwards escalators - yep, it was a bus trip to the tarmac.
Packed in like sardines, and no seats. But at least Biffa got a photo op on the ladder much to the amusement of the ground staff - who actually waved at us as we left :-)
Not much view due to cloud and haze, but at least on landing had glimpses of Hainan (Haikou city). The airport reminded me of Honolulu or Cairns - that open, warm, sticky feeling as you leave the airconditioned plane plus the tropical plants everywhere. Pretty seamless immigration and customs and we were met by a horde of relatives - from my grandmother and great-great-great-grandfathers generation(s). Lots of teary welcome (not that we understood Hainanese) but we shook hands and hugged anyway.
Eventually the circus got underway and we left in a van with Qionghai uncle (Ye?) and his brother (?) who was driving the van plus their mother (pawpaw) heading for the ancestral county, Qionghai on the east coast of Hainan, 1.5hrs away...
My family were quite impressed - well... at least Mark & Jen were, Tim got into QC last time we went to china (I was gold FF then). Sadly enough it wasn't up to the standard it used to be - the food was cold, the bar was closed so no beer or booze, but the phone and internet were appreciated. In revenge, Jen & I took almost all the teabags and all of the chocolate drink sachets. I also stole an apple , tsk tsk.
This flight (CX138) was an red-eye special - it was packed and hideously uncomfortable, the plane was an airbus A330 with an short persons seat pitch (mark ain't tall, but his knees were touching the back of the seat). Also the lumbar support was painful (and lacking). Obviously, CX cater for hunchbacked, insomniac dwarfs! At least the food was nice and the inflight entertainment system was good (watched Aeon Flux and bits of Narnia) plus played battleship against Tim. Naturally he thrashed me.
As with all dwarven airlines, there are even smaller dwarflings called infants. One child screamed blue murder and even with my industrial earplugs (used for jackhammering etc) I could hear her. Apparantly mum went awol at the back of the plane leaving her teen daughter in charge. Oh well, most of us couldn't sleep anyway due to compressed spinal injuries. Oh, the airbus also didn't have individual air vents so it was either too hot or too cold. :-) Last time I voluntarilly fly cathay!
We had fun flying into HK airport - low cloud and turbulence. Even I felt a bit green, and when the plane aborted it's landing (a "go around"with full throttle and steep climb), Jen lost her breakfast and quite a few of us felt similar. But at least we got down safely. Actually, the pilot was an aussie and geez once we were out of the cloud, it was a very very smooth landing.
We got to HK airport at 5:15am, and all the shops in the transit area were closed, so I made the executive decision to leave the restricted zone and pass thru immigration. We wandered around (Biffa the toy dog got some photo ops) till 8am, but the check in counter was still closed. So at least the shops were open at 7:30am, and I bought a prepaid SIM card from "3". An interesting stall we saw was the "Ice Crispy Dragon Beard Candy"shop - and the nice lady gave me a sample. Quite nice, like freezing candy floss surrounding a peanut/sesame core. Melted on the tounge and what a sensation that was! By now the airport was really buzzing, heaps of people milling around and we checked in finally at what was the emirates counter (the sign kept changing, maybe that's why the checkin dude was slow slow slow).
We rang aunty meilin who was in HK with her father - seems that the old mansion in the New Territories was demolished for redevelopment. Oh well.
After this we went airside again, and found an internet terminal, so we surfed and emailed till time to leave. By the way, I couldn't find our gate (12) on the map so it was with a sinking feeling that we got to the gate via downwards escalators - yep, it was a bus trip to the tarmac.
Packed in like sardines, and no seats. But at least Biffa got a photo op on the ladder much to the amusement of the ground staff - who actually waved at us as we left :-)
Not much view due to cloud and haze, but at least on landing had glimpses of Hainan (Haikou city). The airport reminded me of Honolulu or Cairns - that open, warm, sticky feeling as you leave the airconditioned plane plus the tropical plants everywhere. Pretty seamless immigration and customs and we were met by a horde of relatives - from my grandmother and great-great-great-grandfathers generation(s). Lots of teary welcome (not that we understood Hainanese) but we shook hands and hugged anyway.
Eventually the circus got underway and we left in a van with Qionghai uncle (Ye?) and his brother (?) who was driving the van plus their mother (pawpaw) heading for the ancestral county, Qionghai on the east coast of Hainan, 1.5hrs away...
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