Happy Birthday Miya!

Miya turned four on Friday.

This is the first time she has had a birthday at home, and she was very excited.  For her first and second birthdays we were on holiday in Beijing, and for her third birthday we were on holiday in London.  So, for the first time, she got to have a real birthday!  On Thursday night, after Miya went to bed, we blew up balloons and stuck them up all around the lounge.

Mulan had given herself the duty of wrapping all the presents, so during the week presents had been slowly piling up in the lounge.  On Friday morning, Miya opened them all.  Mulan gave Miya one of her old, first chapter books, some coloured pencils and a drawing.  Mama gave Miya pencils, a rubber, a pencil-sharpener and a T-shirt that she had bought in Taiwan.  I gave Miya the books I bought the other day [blog entry lost] and some jigsaw puzzles.  A letter had arrived from New Zealand earlier, with lots of little things from the cousins, including a “4” badge.  Miya was very happy.

Yesterday, we had the traditional birthday party.  We invited a few friends to come in the afternoon.  I made a cheesecake (it seems to be our family tradition that I make a cheesecake for the birthday cake), Mama made fairy bread (homemade bread with hundreds and thousands on), and we all jointly made homemade pizzas.

We had planned to have some traditional party games (pass the parcel and pin the tail on the donkey), but just before the party started Miya was sick and had a slight temperature.  We are still not sure whether it was excitement and nerves that caused it, or whether it was a bug, and we were strongly considering postponing the party until next week.  But we couldn’t get hold of people and the friends started arriving, and Miya seemed okay, so we continued.  However, we decided to keep things simple, and just let them have a free play time rather than organising the party games.

Miya crashed into bed last night, one very happy big four-year-old.

Book review: Harry Potter 4

I feel like I am more than ten years behind the rest of the world in discovering Harry Potter.  And I know there is probably not much need for me to say anything more about the series, since almost everyone else in the world has already either read the books or watched the movies (or both).  But, just coz I feel like it, I am going to continue to say a few words anyway, as I finish reading each book.  Each review here is just my immediate response after reading the books.  I am too lazy to do a Google search to find out what other people have said.

(Who knows, maybe in a few more years I will discover and write about Twilight … and then Hunger Games and Game of Thrones next decade.)

The first Harry Potter book is 223 pages [my book review is lost].  The second book is 251 pages and the third is317 pages.  Startlingly, the fourth book, The Goblet of Fire, comes in at a massive 636 pages.  It is as if the book has finally hit puberty, and has had a huge growth spurt.

The book’s content, along with its characters, has hit puberty, too.  The first three books, while getting progressively more mature, still retain a childhood innocence and simplicity to them.  But this fourth book is a much more mature read.  I am guessing I might have been 12 before I was reading books of a similar topical maturity.

(Mulan, who has now completed the third book entirely by herself, is satisfied with not continuing on to read the fourth book.  In her words, she will read the fourth book “after her eighth birthday.”  In my opinion, it probably shouldn’t be too soon after that birthday.  But she has surprised me before, so we will just wait and see.)

In this book, the wizarding world widens … well, slightly, anyway.  Instead of just being primarily an English thing, we are introduced to a more Europe-wide wizard community.  It is the year of the great sporting event, the Quidditch World Cup, and the final is between Ireland and Romania (England, of course, has had an embarrassing defeat!).  We also discover that there are other wizarding schools besides Hogwarts, with at least one in France and another Germanic one.  After the World Cup is over, the three schools get together to have their own “Triwizard” student wizarding competition, and it is this competition that dominates the story.  Each school has its own champion, as selected by the Goblet of Fire, and it is these champions who compete against each other throughout the school year in a series of tasks.

Once again, just like the first three books, the story is filled with plenty of mystery, as we slowly discover whodunit (who done what?, you ask), and a bit more about the history of Harry’s world.

Unlike the first three books, I did not see in this fourth book any single overriding theme.  But perhaps this, in itself, was the theme.  Maybe the theme is the discovery, on reaching adolescence, that the world is more complex than can be explained by a single theme or story moral.  Instead, there were several ideas coming out in different parts of the story.  Many of these ideas were criticising or commenting on aspects of modern society.

One repeated idea was a criticism of the media, and especially celebrity gossip columns.  This was clearly intended by the author as a little teaching opportunity to help her readers to be more sceptical of what they see and hear in the media.  The final few pages of the book was a laugh-out-loud moment, when the true nature of the gossip columnist, Rita Skeeter, was revealed.  This was a delicious little dig at the nature of gossip reporters.

Another repeated theme was the danger of procrastinating when one has a task.  It was again a little teaching moment from author to reader, on the need to start one’s tasks earlier rather than leave them to the last minute.

A third theme paralleled and satirised EU unification difficulties.  The Department of International Magical Co-operation produced lengthy reports on standardising cauldron thickness.

There were also some sensitive discussions of initial, clumsy, boy/girl attractions and interactions.  I think the author, once again, did a wonderful job of presenting the characters in a realistic way, complete with awkwardness and misunderstandings.  But unlike some teen novels, it wasn’t presented in a negative, embarrassing way.  Rather, it came across as a positive, encouraging, affirming and non-preachy piece of well-written, sensible advice for young teens.  There was a first formal dance, with the need to find and ask partners.  And then there was the clear difference in thinking between girls and boys on the formal event itself.  Harry and his friend, Ron, did what I remember myself doing at that age at forced-to-attend dances—they sat off to the side ignoring the girls and chatting together the whole time.  Their dates naturally got a bit huffy.

Finally, in this book we were confronted with the first, direct, death of a character.  In previous books we had learnt about people dying in the past (Harry’s parents, etc), but no one had actually died in the direct telling of the story, and with the consequent emotional heaviness.  All the action in those earlier books had been clearly written with some child-friendly protections in place.  But here, towards the end, one of the secondary characters dies directly, as part of the telling of the story.  A fair bit of what follows is how the characters deal with the death of someone they personally knew.

So, all-in-all, once again, some thought-provoking themes tied together by a cracking good read.  It is not a young child’s story, but anyone from tween upwards will appreciate, enjoy, and quite possibly even learn from this fourth Harry Potter story.

(Update: my review of the fifth book is here.)

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Note: Mulan has now finished Peter Pan, and has started What Katy Did.  I haven’t read any of the Katy Did books, but I recall hearing that they were good.

UPDATE 5/11/2016: Mulan read Harry Potter 4 several month ago (maybe around her ninth birthday), and enjoyed it a lot.  She is still satisfied not to read number 5 just yet.

Hong Kong

We have just come back from four days in Hong Kong.

Crossing the border from Mainland China to Hong Kong always feels as if the desperation in the crowds just eases away.  Strangers in the streets, on the whole, seem far less tense in Hong Kong than they do on the Mainland.

In Hong Kong, people seem much more relaxed about queuing and waiting.  They leave bigger gaps and they (far more often) wait their turn for others to go first.  Instead of rushing desperately into a train the moment it arrives, they pull back that split second and enter calmly.  Rarely do people try to jump the queue.  On one occasion, there was a seat free next to me on the train.  There was no desperate rushing by people to grab it.  Instead, a rougher-looking older man smiled at me, and with a gesture asked me if the seat was taken.  I smiled back and gestured that he could take it.  This sort of stranger-to-stranger interaction almost never happens on the Mainland (at least in my experience).

Similarly, people on the street are much more likely to acknowledge strangers.  Our building security guards smiled and said hello, with a cheery wave, to everyone passing.  It is hard to imagine a Mainland security guard doing this.  And you don’t see those blank, stony faces on strangers in the street nearly so much in Hong Kong.

When we were on our way back to the Mainland, at the final train station at the border, Mulan pointed out that people were no longer standing on the right hand side of the moving footpaths.  They were standing all over the place, selfishly blocking people from walking.  In contrast, in the middle of Hong Kong the escalators and moving footpaths are very well ordered in that people only ever stand on the right hand side.  The left hand side is always left free for people who are in a hurry to walk.  I replied to Mulan with a sigh, and said, yes, it is clear that we are almost back on the Mainland.

All in all, then, I enjoy the feel of outside life in Hong Kong much more than I do in Mainland China.  There is a humanity to Hong Kong people that Mainlanders, just a short journey away, seem to have lost.  (I think one of the few things that Mainland strangers do better than Hong Kong strangers is that Mainlanders are much more likely to offer their seats to young children on the public transport.)

From my perspective, we were in Hong Kong for two main reasons:

Firstly, we were there to escort Mama off the Mainland.  Mama is in Taiwan at the moment.  She decided to have a women-only holiday with one of her friends (and without me or the children).  She said bye-bye to us in Hong Kong on the 10th, and she will arrive back home here in Guangzhou on the 18th.  So, the children and I are on our own for eight days.  If I get around to it, I may write here about my solo dad-ing experiences.

Secondly, while in Hong Kong we had a look at the cattery that we are going to put Maggie and Kitty in.  For those who don’t know, we have decided to take our two cats with us when we move to New Zealand later this year.  It is a bit of a complicated procedure, and they need to spend six months in Hong Kong before moving to New Zealand.  Hence the need for the cattery stay there.  If I get around to it, I may write here about the details of how we are sending the cats.

Another thing we did was meet up with one of Mama’s old friends, who works in Kowloon on the 75th floor of a very fancy building.  The girls loved getting visitor cards each, which we needed to swipe to access the lifts.  Needless to say, the view from Mama’s friend’s office was spectacular.

Also, while we were there, Mama took the girls to do a bit of sightseeing.  (I didn’t go with them because I was feeling a bit adrenal fatigued.)  From their reports, it sounds like they had a very nice time.

On our last day in Hong Kong, after Mama left, the girls and I played a Hong Kong version of Monopoly.  Mulan loved it, and Miya willingly played for a couple of hours before gradually getting bored.

Book review: Harry Potter 2 and 3

Mulan and I have been a bit sick lately.  For most of the day yesterday, we lay side-by-side on the big bed, silently reading our books.  I had the third Harry Potter book, The Prisoner of Azkaban, while Mulan had the second book, The Chamber of Secrets.  We both finished our respective books last night.

After completing the first Harry Potter book [my book review is lost] a few weeks ago, I had been reading a chapter of The Chamber of Secrets to Mulan most days, and we had got about two thirds of the way through it.  But while in Hainan Island I got a cold and so stopped out-loud reading for a while.  Instead, while sunbathing on the beach, I sneakily finished the book on my own.  Meanwhile, impatiently, Mulan had also read a couple more chapters on her own.

After reading one more chapter out loud to Mulan yesterday (with lots of coughs and pauses), I asked her if she would like to finish reading it herself.  She said yes, and reassured me both that she could understand it independently, and that it was not too scary for her.

So, yesterday, Mulan read (with no problem) the final four chapters by herself, and is now keen on starting book number three.

If the theme of the first Harry Potter book was love, friendship, loyalty and family, then the theme of the second one is the fight against discrimination and the acceptance of those who are different.

In this book, we are introduced to the idea that some wizards come from ancient and continuous wizarding families, while others have been born to non-magical parents.  In addition, occasionally a non-magical person is born into magical families.  For some people in the wizarding world, there is an elitism that comes from being a wizard with a long wizarding family history.  They look down upon non-magical people or families.

With this as the background, tensions run high when the Chamber of Secrets is opened and there are “racially” motivated death threats and discrimination against those who are not from pure wizarding families.

Harry Potter and his friends, naturally, fight against this discrimination, in the same exciting and dynamic way that made the first book so enjoyable and not-put-down-able.

Coincidently, a few days ago, this article came out in the news.  The article tells us that there has been a series of academic studies done on the attitudes of children to gays, immigrants and refugees, both before and after having had parts of The Chamber of Secrets read to them.  Apparently, after several weeks of listening to this story there was a reduction in the children’s prejudice, and their attitudes to these groups of peoples improved.

With the Harry Potter characters being a year older (and the presumed reader also being a year older), the writing style and storyline of this second book is also slightly more mature.  There is not quite the same amount of silly physical humour as was in the first book.  There are the first hints of girl-boy attractions.  And the more tensely exciting parts of the story last longer and are more intense.

In my opinion, it is the mark of a brilliantly aware writer, to be able to make clever and subtle adjustments to the writing style to acknowledge and reflect the gradual maturing of the readers.  Most series of children’s books don’t do this, and they all carry on at the same level.  I think this was a wonderful idea for readers when the books first came out, and obviously it worked well to maintain the readership and turn the books into bestsellers.  But in our case, with a young reader, it complicates things a little.  Mulan is very eager to keep reading more books in the series, but I still don’t know how far to let her read before the maturity of the books has gone beyond her developmental level.  I can understand it will be a little frustrating for Mulan to have to stop at some place.

The third Harry Potter book, The Prisoner of Azkaban, tackles yet another social issue—that of justice and the criminal system.  We learn in this book that the wizarding world is sometimes corrupt.  Judges and political decision-makers apparently sometimes ignore the evidence and are swayed by those who use blackmail and money to achieve their power.  So, we learn, it is likely that sometimes the innocent are wrongly found guilty.

We also learn that the prison system is pretty horrific in the way the prisoners are treated by the guards.  At one point one of the characters asks Harry if even the truly guilty deserve to be treated in this way.

Harry and his friends are drawn into the issue of justice when one of the prisoners escapes the previously inescapable wizard prison and seeks out Harry at school.  In parallel to this, one of the beautiful and exotic school animals hurts a student during a lesson, and there is an investigation as to whether the animal should be put down.

Reflecting on these two incidents, the storyline pushes Harry and his friends to make decisions about whether to themselves break the rules, to help protect the innocent.  It raises the question of whether, when society is unjust, one is justified in breaking the rules of that society.  How much loyalty should we have to an unjust system?

In contrast to this, Harry and his friends, as young teenagers, are starting to be inclined to rebel.  For the first time they are starting to yell back at adults, and they continue to disregard the rules to do their own thing.  But Harry is gently rebuked by one of the good teachers when he breaks the rules to sneak out merely to have fun.  The teacher points out that the rules were there to protect Harry, and he is letting everyone down when he puts himself in danger just for a bit of silly fun.

So, the underlying message for the reader is about the appropriate questioning of authority and when to go so far as to break the rules.  It is about gaining the wisdom to understand why the rules are there, and learning to following them when they are just, even if they are personally unpleasant.  But it is also about gaining the wisdom to know when the rules are unjust, and knowing when and how to break them if doing so helps the innocent.  It takes time and the occasional mistake to gain this wisdom, and one needs to be helped along the way by good and wise teachers.

I have said to Mulan that she can independently read The Prisoner of Azkaban after she has finished all 48 Magic Tree House [my book review is lost] books that we have got here.  At the rate that she is reading them, this will be in the very near future.  Mulan agrees that this third Harry Potter book will be her last one for a while, and she won’t try the fourth book just yet.  I’ll read the fourth book in the near future, and have a think about when to reintroduce the series to Mulan.

(Update: my review of the fourth book is here.)

Book review: Chrome Yellow

For those of us whose sense of humour is a bit drier and somewhat pointed, Aldous Huxley’s ChromeYellow is an amusing little read.

It is a story in which not much happens.  Eight main characters, and a few more occasional visitors, sit around, in post-First-World-War English countryside comfort, eloquently expressing their feelings and thoughts about life, the universe and everything.

The story follows things from the perspective of Denis, an existentially angst-ridden 23-year-old poet, as he arrives from London at a countryside manor for the summer, stays for a time, expresses his unrequited love for a fellow guest, and then departs back to London and his future.

But by chapter three we know that even this innocent, gentle little English genre isn’t going to come out the other side unscathed:

For some time past Mary's grave blue eyes had been fixed upon him [Denis]. "What have you been writing lately?" she asked. It would be nice to have a little literary conversation.

 "Oh, verse and prose," said Denis—"just verse and prose."

 "Prose?" Mr. Scogan pounced alarmingly on the word. "You've been writing prose?"

 "Yes."

 "Not a novel?"

 "Yes."

 "My poor Denis!" exclaimed Mr. Scogan. "What about?"

 Denis felt rather uncomfortable. "Oh, about the usual things, you know."

 "Of course," Mr. Scogan groaned. "I'll describe the plot for you. Little Percy, the hero, was never good at games, but he was always clever. He passes through the usual public school and the usual university and comes to London, where he lives among the artists. He is bowed down with melancholy thought; he carries the whole weight of the universe upon his shoulders. He writes a novel of dazzling brilliance; he dabbles delicately in Amour and disappears, at the end of the book, into the luminous Future."

 Denis blushed scarlet. Mr. Scogan had described the plan of his novel with an accuracy that was appalling. He made an effort to laugh. "You're entirely wrong," he said. "My novel is not in the least like that." It was a heroic lie. Luckily, he reflected, only two chapters were written. He would tear them up that very evening when he unpacked.

 Mr. Scogan paid no attention to his denial, but went on: "Why will you young men continue to write about things that are so entirely uninteresting as the mentality of adolescents and artists? Professional anthropologists might find it interesting to turn sometimes from the beliefs of the Blackfellow to the philosophical preoccupations of the undergraduate. But you can't expect an ordinary adult man, like myself, to be much moved by the story of his spiritual troubles. And after all, even in England, even in Germany and Russia, there are more adults than adolescents. As for the artist, he is preoccupied with problems that are so utterly unlike those of the ordinary adult man—problems of pure aesthetics which don't so much as present themselves to people like myself—that a description of his mental processes is as boring to the ordinary reader as a piece of pure mathematics. A serious book about artists regarded as artists is unreadable; and a book about artists regarded as lovers, husbands, dipsomaniacs, heroes, and the like is really not worth writing again. Jean-Christophe is the stock artist of literature, just as Professor Radium of 'Comic Cuts' is its stock man of science."

Each chapter is similarly packed with delicious little digs at ideas, social conventions and personal idiosyncrasies.  The absurdities of life are satirically held up, showing us how ridiculous we are, how seriously we take ourselves, but how unable we are to change, even when we cringingly see them in ourselves.

Chapter 24, showing Denis’ reaction after opening Jenny’s private diary, exemplifies one recurring theme in the story.  After seeing Jenny’s private thoughts on display, Denis finally realises the rather obvious, but all-too-often forgotten, fact that other people are as fully conscious and deep as we are ourselves.  And yet, even while articulating it, and priding himself on his discovery of this fact, Denis still fails to practically act according to this obvious truth.  His conversation with Mary, where he expresses this fact, but fails to apply it, is especially amusing.

And Chapter 20 is a laugh-out-loud moment.  It helps if you don’t know the meaning of the word “carminative”, and so, at the end of the chapter, have to look it up in a dictionary.

Chrome yellow is not a book for children.  I wouldn’t bother suggesting it to Mulan or Miya until they are at university.  But I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys literature and can appreciate, and laugh at, the absurdities of life (and can laugh at themselves).

Ten years

Ten years ago today, Mama and I met for the first time.

It was in Malaysia, on the island of Penang.  I was there doing a bit of a post-university holiday OE.  Mama was there for a short holiday break during her teaching work in Thailand.

The previous day, I had already noticed Mama while wandering around George Town.  She stood out because she looked like a very competent and confident solo traveller, with her backpack and Thai-style pants.  I only noticed her for a minute or so as she walked in front of me before she turned a corner and I continued on straight ahead.

So, I was surprised when I saw her again the following day.  I had caught a bus out to the funicular railway that goes up Penang Hill.  I had gone to a nearby temple first, and was walking up to the railway entrance when I saw Mama in front of me.  When I got there, I discovered that the railway was closed for repairs, so, after looking around the station for a bit, I wandered back out again.

Outside, once again I saw Mama in front of me, so I walked a little faster to catch up to her.  As I drew alongside her, I smiled at her, but I couldn’t think what to say.  Luckily, Mama spoke first, and we started chatting as we walked.  She asked me about the nearby temple.  Since I had already been there, and I wanted to keep talking with Mama, I told her it was just so-so.  I said I was planning to catch a bus to Batu Ferringhi, which was supposedly a nice beach area.  I can’t remember who said what, but Mama decided to come along with me.

After spending the rest of the day together, we decided to meet up again the following morning to do a 20 km walk along the length of the island.  By the end of the day, Mama had impressed me with her strength and quiet confidence.  Catching the return bus, I think I was the one whose legs were aching the most.  During our walk, Mama informed me that she was a university academic.  I concluded to myself that here was the perfect woman.  (Clearly, I still didn’t know her that well!!)

We spent the next few days together, before I had to catch my flight back to New Zealand on the sixth.  Needless to say, we kept in touch.  Mama came to visit me in New Zealand a few months later, and less than a year later I had moved to China to live.

Two years to the day after we first met, or eight years ago today, we returned to Penang Hill together.  This time the railway was open.  At the top of the hill, I proposed to Mama, and she accepted.

Hainan Island

We’ve just recently returned home from a one-week tropical island holiday.  And to rub it in a little more, we spent two of those nights at a luxury holiday resort right on a beautiful private beach.

There and back, between Guangzhou and Hainan, we took the overnight train.  It is mostly comfortable this way (ignoring the disgusting, overused toilets, the smelly, cancer-causing smokers, and the second-hand, unchanged, beds from passengers who alighted at Guangzhou).  We chose trains both ways that left after dinner, so after boarding we jumped straight into our hard-sleeper beds (which are not at all hard, but rather are three-layer bunks and in contrast to the soft-sleepers which are only two-layered) and drifted off to sleep as the train gently rocked out of the station.  Waking up in the morning, we just had time for breakfast and a bit of scenery-watching before rolling into the station at our destination.

For those who are puzzled about how a train can take us to an island, for the over water part our train is split into multiple sections and pushed side-by-side onto a ferry.  We stay inside our carriages and, deep within the ferry, we don’t even get to see the water.  It is smooth, too, and unless we are observant we may not realise that we are on the water.

We spent four nights at Mama’s uncle’s home in Haikou, which is the main city on Hainan Island.  This was the real reason for us travelling to Hainan—when we move to New Zealand we won’t get much chance to see our Chinese relatives.  So, Mama and the girls spent as much time as possible with Uncle, Aunt, and Aunt’s soon-to-be-married daughter.  Since most of the conversation was happening in Mandarin or, even worse, Cantonese, I was mostly excluded from the family socialising.  Consequently, I got to enjoy some relaxing me-time sightseeing and sunbathing on my own.

If you have read the news lately, you may be aware that just before we arrived in Haikou there was a huge typhoon in the area.  It had moved on by the time we arrived, and the weather was perfect the entire time we were there, but we certainly saw a lot of the destruction and the middle stages of the cleanup.

Trees had been knocked about very badly, and quite a few had fallen over.  But interestingly, it was the foreign trees that had suffered the most damage, and there were comparatively few local tropical trees lying down with their roots up.  The local trees had mostly just lost some of their fronds and were looking a bit roughed up.

Signs, too, had been knocked over.  While in the car, we even saw one huge three-sided motorway billboard that had completely toppled over and crushed itself into the ground.  Most other billboards were bent out of shape and had had their advertisements ripped off.

At Uncle’s home, his building lift had been damaged and for the first couple of days we had to use the stairs.  Luckily, his home is only on the fourth floor, so we weren’t as inconvenienced as many people.  I imagine that it can’t have been too pleasant for those on the higher floors, especially when, during the typhoon, they had no water and no electricity (I hear they took water from the communal swimming pool to flush their toilets).  Sadly, too, the swimming pool at Uncle’s apartment complex was still being cleaned the whole time we were there, so we couldn’t get the use of it like in previous visits (this was my third time in Hainan).

We visited soon-to-be-married daughter’s future apartment.  It is in a new building, and is still just bare concrete inside.  Water was ankle deep in some parts, blown in during the typhoon.

But overall, the typhoon didn’t affect us too much.  Most importantly, we got in lots of beach-time, and, much to Mama’s disappointment, got a bit of colour to our skin.  (What else is there to do on a tropical island?!)  Uncle’s apartment is less than ten minutes walk from one beach.  To be honest, it is a pretty disgustingly polluted beach, but beggars can’t be choosers and us Guangzhou-ers certainly are beggars when it comes to beaches.  So down there we went at every opportunity.  I took a book down there once and sunbathed on my own for a couple of hours.  The girls and I had swims there each day, though Mama didn’t bother.

The local bathers, who looked a little more working class, were intrigued by us foreigners.  I people-watched them, too.  It was interesting to see an old fishing boat come in each afternoon.  One time, a very fit and strong young man was exercising at the beach, energetically pushing the rubbish into piles on the sand before diving into the water, doing underwater headstands and punching the water.  The local children, too, looked like they have a wonderful life, splashing about in the warm water every afternoon.  Most didn’t bother with proper togs, but just wore their usual clothes in or, if they were young enough, stripped off naked.

A somewhat cleaner, but also more crowded (and middle class), beach was a bus ride away, and one day we went there for a very pleasant afternoon swim and picnic dinner.  We heard later that the following day a 20-year-old young man drowned in that same area where we were.  We know nothing about the circumstances except that he was swimming outside the patrolled area.

Our final two days were spent at the previously-mentioned luxury resort.  If you want to know the name, it is Horizon Resort and Spa, in Hainan’s other main city of Sanya.  It is a very child-friendly resort, and many of the guests were Chinese families with a young child.  From what I understand, one of Mama’s connections provided us with two rooms for free for those two days (Uncle and Aunt came along with us, too).  The walk-in price for our non-beach-facing room would have normally been 3500 RMB per night (though Mama tells me that we can book online for about half that price).

(Coincidently, Mama tells me that she has been to Horizon a few times before.  One time was New Year’s Eve 2000.  The funny thing is that during New Year’s Eve 2000, while she was frolicking about in luxury, I was working as a security guard (when one is a poor university student, one grabs any triple-pay opportunities).)

The drive from Haikou to Sanya took around three hours.  On the way there, we got caught in a torrential tropical downpour.  The rain was so thick that we could barely see past the end of the car bonnet.  I probably would have stopped and waited the short time for it to pass, but, once again, the local Chinese proved themselves to be car-driving Jedi masters and we continued on, all making it through alive.

Our room at the resort was nice, but in my opinion it was no better than 200 RMB hotel rooms elsewhere.  However, it was the service and location that we were “paying” for.  On our bedside table there was a little note saying that we can request any one of about a dozen different types of pillow (we were tempted, but didn’t bother).  More importantly for us, the swimming facilities were outstanding.  We probably spent about eight of the 44 hours we were there literally in the water.

Of course, the resort was right on the beach, so a lot of the time we swam in the sea.  The water was warm, clean and very clear.  The swimming zones were patrolled and seemed very safe.  There was a bit of a sand bar that took a lot of the force from the waves, so that it was very gentle for children and inexperienced swimmers (and a bit disappointing for body surfing).

Up from the beach there were a couple of big swimming pool areas.  One of these had fairly gentle water slides, which both Mulan and Miya loved (and Mama even grew to like them, too, once we had pushed her on).  A third pool area, which was supposedly seawater, was dusty dry.

During our time swimming, Mulan gained so much in water confidence and ability.  She can now confidently float and kick along unassisted with her head under the water, and she spent a lot of her time happily ducking down under the water and up again.  When we had to leave, she was so very sad.  Miya, too, loved it, and she kicked herself easily around with her swim ring on.

One of the more curious aspects of the resort was the way they were so strict with the swimming times and places.  We were not allowed to swim in the sea between seven at night and eight in the morning (the lifeguard informed us that the resort was merely following the local government rules, but he couldn’t explain the reasoning behind the rules).  The swimming zones were also very narrow, compared with the available beach space, which meant that at peak times it got very crowded.  Sometimes it was impossible to body surf with the waves, or even swim parallel to the beach, as there were too many Chinese tourists standing around and bobbing about with their swim rings on.  I don’t understand why the resort didn’t widen the patrolled swim zones.  And then not only did they rope off the sides of the swim zone but they also roped off the far end of it.  When the tide was out, as it was on the afternoon we arrived, it wasn’t even waist deep at the end rope!

The resort had a few animals in cages outside, including parrots, peacocks and what looked like llamas.

On the morning we departed, I woke up at about 5:30 and wandered on down to the beach on my own.  When I got there it was still dark and I think I saw only two other people on the beach.  People slowly arrived to see the sunrise and less than an hour later it was completely light.  When Mama and the girls woke, we swam for over one hour before going to breakfast (which was a pretty decent free buffet meal in the resort restaurant).

The return car journey to Haikou was uneventful.  We rested at Uncle’s home for a few hours before catching the overnight train back to Guangzhou.  Just as we did previously, we got three hard-sleeper beds, so Miya slept with Mama.  The train was a little late getting to us (it started in Sanya) so by the time we arrived in Guangzhou it was a few hours behind schedule and we’d had to buy lunch on the train.