Sunday September 20, 2009

Close to home

Stories by LAM SENG FATT

Hainan has everything that will make Malaysian visitors feel welcome – from the weather to coconuts, kuih-kuih and, of course, its famed chicken rice.

MALAYSIANS travelling to Hainan will surely not miss home – there are too many familiar sights, smells and sounds. And, yes, the weather is Malaysian, too.

There you are in hot and humid Haikou, the island’s capital, walking along five-foot ways of old shophouses on De Sheng Sha Old Street and suddenly you realise that you could be in Ipoh, Malacca, Penang or Kuala Lumpur. The shophouses are so much like the prewar ones common in Malaysia that you’ll think you never left home.

The residence of Hai Rui is surrounded by modern flats.

Apparently, in the 1930s and 1940s, rich Chinese traders returned from Nanyang (South-East Asia) and built shophouses along that street in the old part of Haikou in the style which some experts have labelled Straits Chinese eclectic.

There has been so much exchange in trade, food, culture and architecture between Nanyang and Hainan that the island can seem like an extension of South-East Asia.

Chinese coolies and traders returning from Nanyang brought with them coffee plants from Indonesia, four-angled beans, cashew nuts and curry leaves. Hainan is one of the few places in tea-drinking China where you can have a nice cup of coffee and Haikou has quite a few gourmet outlets.

Though others have traced the introduction of coffee to China by way of a French missionary who grew coffee plants in Yunnan in the late 19th century, the Hainanese maintain that coffee reached them via expatriate Chinese who returned from Nanyang some 200 years ago.

Even today, the Hainanese in Malaysia are known for running coffeeshops that brew beans from Java roasted in their special way.

Just a short drive from Haikou are the beaches that the resort island is famed for.

Coconut trees line Haikou’s roads and all over the city you will see people drinking its juice. In restaurants, another type of coconut drink is served – a mixture of santan and coconut water. Coconut is also used to flavour coffee, and glutinous rice cooked in a shell of coconut meat is a Hainanese specialty.

Browse around the fruit stalls in Haikou and you will find mangos, guava, watermelon, jackfruit, bananas, papayas, rambutan, mangosteens and, of all things, durians (some imported from Thailand). Thanks to Hainan’s tropical climate, these fruits grow well there.

It is hot and humid during the summer months and temperatures can hit 35 degrees Celcius. The winter and spring temperatures range from 10 to 17 degrees Celcius. During the winter months, domestic tourists from colder parts of China, South Korea, Japan and Russia head for Hainan, where they can relax in the “Hawaii of the East”.

Being less developed than other parts of the country has its advantages – the island is not polluted by smokestack industries. It air is clean and its unpolluted sea supports a thriving pearl-farming industry. Sea shells are one of its top-selling souvenirs.

The tourism authorities recognise Hainan’s competitive advantages and market it as a resort island with lots of golf courses, beach resorts and an exciting nightlife.

Hainan is already home to 22 golf courses; there will be 50 more in the next five years. While the men tee away, the women can have their hair done or their bodies massaged (RMB50 or about RM25 an hour) at the 20-odd spas in Haikou. For shopping, there are seven major malls to choose from.

The Sugong Memorial Hall is one of the most famous heritage buildings in Haikou.

Muslim tourists can have halal fare at the Xinjiang People Restaurant or Xi’an Ma restaurant, run by the Hui minority group, which serves food that is somewhat Arabic in flavour.

Malaysians who visit the former restaurant will find something very familiar – roti pisang – whipped up by Abba, a chef from Chennai, India, who had worked in a mamak restaurant in Kuala Lumpur before. The sight of him skilfully flipping the roti canai dough in a restaurant in China was quite astounding.

While tourists and the affluent eat at exotic restaurants, the locals hang out at what is called Lao Ba Cha (Old Father Tea), tea shops that serve dim sum and tidbits all day long. There, you can have locally-grown green or black tea, or have it flavoured with kumquat, lo hon kor and rock sugar.

Once again, on the menu are familiar items like kuih koci, ham tan sou and sweet potato ball stuffed with grated coconut.

I always thought kuih koci is a Malay/Nyonya dessert. Now I am not sure whether the Hainanese brought it to Nanyang, or took it home with them. Folded kuih kapit (love letters) and the rolled-up version can also be found in Haikou’s shops.

Foodies will love Hainan. Its restaurants serve all sorts of Hainanese delicacies including taro roots, noodles with strips of beef jerky, bitter gourd with clams (lala) and char chai, a mixed vegetable dish comprising pig skin, chicken gizzard, broccoli, bitter gourd, onion, spring onion, prawns, parsley, capsicum, pork, cuttlefish and Chinese sausage (lap cheong). You can find Hunan and Szechuan food, too, and Northern Chinese-style cooking.

There is great variety in cooking styles simply because of the 8.7 million islanders, only about a million are native Hainanese. Most of the others come from Fujian and Guangdong provinces and other parts of China.

The shophouses in the old part of Haikou look very much like the pre-war buildings in many towns in Malaysia.

Hainan may lack the grand monuments and ancient structures of mainland China – there is no Great Wall or Forbidden City – but its attractions are charming in their own way. Long regarded as a remote outpost to which out-of-favour officials were banished, its key attractions (perhaps unsurprisingly) are temples and buildings linked to exiled officials.

The top draw is the Wugong Temple (Temple of the Five Lords), five kilometres from Haihou centre, constructed during the reign of Emperor Wanli (Ming dynasty; 1368-1644) and renovated during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

The simple, two-storey wooden building was built to commemorate five famous officials – Tang Prime Minister Li Deyu, Song Prime Minister Li Gang, Zhao Ding, Li Guang and Hu Quan who had been banished to Hainan during the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties.

They are represented by five stone statues outside the temple and there are couplets on pillars inside that sing praises of them.

Beside the temple is a building that houses rare cultural relics of Hainan such as the Forbidden Bell from the Ming Dynasty, an ancient copper drum, and the Xuande Stove of the Lizu people.

The Sugong Temple, built in the Ming Dynasty to honour the great Song Dynasty writer, poet, artist and statesman Su Shi (1037–1101), is also beside it.

Su Shi, often referred to as Su Dongpo, was banished to the island because of politics in the royal court. There, he helped the locals by digging the Fusuquan (Floating Millet Spring) and the Xixinquan (Cleaning Heart Spring) – during a drought. The locals still use water from the first well.

In the centre of Haikou beside a modern training school for teachers is the Qiongtai Academy, built in 1705 in memory of an important Ming educationist, Qiu Jun. It was at the academy that the bright sparks of Hainan studied for the Imperial exams.

The serene place was also the setting for a real-life love story during the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty. A student fell in love with the maid of the local governor, who was fuming mad when he found out about their relationship. The maid sought refuge in the academy. When the governor wanted to search the premises, the schoolmaster denied him entry and instead, told the maid to slip out and leave the city at night.

The young lovers eventually married and the student passed his Imperial exams. Their romance is depicted in a Yue Opera play.

The beautiful gate that leads to the Qiongtai Academy, built in 1705.

Another ancient attraction is Hai Rui’s tomb and residence. Hai Rui (1514-1587) was a Hainan-born official in the Ming Dynasty who was famed for being honest and upright.

One story has it that when he could no longer tolerate the emperor closing one eye on corruption among the court officials, he prepared a coffin for himself and bade farewell to his wife before confronting the ruler. He was not killed, but jailed instead.

There are accounts of how, when Hai Rui worked for the court, he could not afford servants and had to write articles or inscriptions to earn money. When he died, he left behind only eight taels of silver and some clothes.

Hainan’s other attractions are natural – China’s first volcano-themed national geo-park, and beaches. The park is centred around a dormant volcano 15km southwest of Haikou, which last erupted 13,000 years ago.

Today, visitors can walk on a cemented path and steps along the rim of the cone, and down to the vent. Trees and bushes have grown lushly on the rich soil and it can be quite difficult to visualise what the volcano looked like. The remaining vent looks like a cave. Visiting the volcano park can be quite strenuous as the climb is challenging.

Holiday Beach, perhaps the most popular in Hainan, is only 15 minutes by car from the city centre. There are lots of pretty stretches, such as Xixin beach park.

You will know where the good beaches are when you spot stalls selling swimsuits beside the highway parallel to the beach. Near Holiday Beach is where the latest tourist attraction in Hainan is located.

Inside an auditorium shaped like a flying saucer with a curved roof to protect the audience from the elements and a stage end that opens out, thus making the beach and sea part of the props, Zhang Yimou presents his latest musical, called Impression Hainan Island.

Just like the famed film director’s show for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics last year, be ready to be mesmerised by dance, colour, lights, bikini-clad girls and, of course, nature.

If you wonder how beach towels, special sandals with light-bulbs, deck chairs, beach umbrellas, roller bladers and cute gals can gel into one magical performance, wait. What’s even more stunning is when a pool of water appears seemingly out of nowhere.

Not everything in the script worked though. I thought the inclusion of a golfer, men in green suits to depict either Mother Nature or coconut trees, and propaganda in the form of a short skit on the Communist revolution and the role of local heroine Wu Qiong Hua - whose story as leader of a Red Detachment of Women has been depicted in a movie and a ballet – were out of place.

Token reminders of China’s past, like the bust of Mao Zedong which greets diners at Mao Jia restaurant – a chain of eateries founded by Tang Ruiren, 76, a peasant-turned-restaurateur – that serves the Chairman’s favourite dishes Hunan style, seem at odds with the new China that is so visible in freewheeling Haikou.

But such juxtapositions just add to the charms of the country today.

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