Hainan, or The Best Business Trip Ever

I know I hurriedly introduced the subject in my last post, but now that it's almost another weekend, I guess I owe a bit more of an explanation than an almost breathless conclusion/introduction.

So, as I said previously, last week was a doozie! Between the interpreting, meeting preparation, and actual meetings, I was looking forward to a weekend away from it all. That is to say that I was excited for a weekend when I wouldn't have to think about work, but little did I know that I would actually get a few days outside of Chengdu and all of its craziness.

My boss called me on Friday morning and told me with surprisingly little ado that he, along with the President and Vice President of the company, would be heading to Hainan from Saturday afternoon to Wednesday morning, and they wanted me to accompany them.

Now, a little background on Hainan. Located off the coast of Guangxi Province in the South China Sea, it is one of the most beautiful areas of China, and world renowned for its beaches, rainforests, and mountains. It has been developing rapidly since casinos were legalized there in the mid-1990s, and my company's real estate development division is in the process of building two major projects on its Western coast. Also, random fun Hainan fact of the day: the Miss World pageant is usually held in Sanya, one of the island's two major cities. 

The purpose of the trip was to have several meetings with the various firms on the project and local government officials, as well as see the existing construction on the Mumian Lake project, which is in the construction phase, and the site of the Qizi Bay Resort project, whose design has just been approved. My job was to learn as much as I could about the projects through the meetings, and then also visit the sites, take pictures, and write some English advertisements for the company to use internationally. That all sounded fine and dandy, so naturally I didn't protest as the flight and hotel reservations were made (surprisingly quickly).

I'd planned a lazy night on Friday, so it was the perfect time to spend packing and preparing by reading up on Hainan and the areas around the two projects. Then I had enough time on Saturday morning to do some reading and more preparation before the car came to pick me up and take me to the airport.

Our flight was at 5:30, so I'd planned on buying a snack before getting on the plane to hold me over until what would ultimately be a late dinner. My boss laughed at me when I told him I was going to buy fast food, and took me to the Air China business lounge, which apparently every executive in our company has access to. There was plenty of good hot food, fresh fruit, and even coffee, so I was overjoyed...especially when our plane got delayed two hours and we had to wait for quite some time. When we did board, I read about half a journal article before falling asleep and not waking up until we'd landed in Haikou, the capital of Hainan and the place we'd be spending our first night.

Getting off the plane, meeting the men from the Haikou office, and driving half an hour into the city was quite a process, and I was relieved when we'd checked in and I could relax in my own room. The hotel was lovely, with a shower blessed with water pressure and heat that my poor Chengdu bathroom can only dream of, so I took a nice long shower and then promptly fell into bed.

The next morning I spent in meetings, learning about the design of the Qizi Bay project. It's huge, with multiple hotels, hundreds of villas and apartments, and four high-rise condominium properties, but I was surprised by how much of the natural flora was incorporated into the design. The villas were incredibly opulent, so all I'm hoping is that I'll one day be able to afford to come back and try out the finished product!

We then went to Hainan hotpot for lunch. Due to the vastly different cultural legacy and traditional food style of Hainan, it was far removed from the oily spiciness of Sichuan, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the simpler flavors. I ate a ton, and then was given three hours to explore Haikou while my bosses conducted interviews for an open spot in the Hainan office. I'd made a list of possible things to do, but as things happen sometimes, a torrential downpour started right before I was set to leave, so I asked the driver to take me to the Hainan museum, which seemed like a safe (and indoor) bet. Unfortunately, the museum had been damaged in the previous weeks' typhoon, and was closed for repairs. The rain continued, so I took shelter in a cafe and drank more coffee while reading for a few hours. Not the best time way to explore Haikou, but a lovely afternoon nonetheless!

Around 4, we left to drive the two hours out to the site of the first project we'd be visiting, Mumian Lake. Everyone else in the car fell asleep, but I enjoyed the green countryside dotted with rice paddies, fruit orchards, and palm trees, so I happily stared out the window until we pulled into a small town by the beach to eat dinner. My bosses went to the restaurant to order, and I took a nice stroll along the beach as the sun began to set.

Keep in mind that every beach is different, and this particular public beach looked something like this:

 Obviously, overrun by chickens, scattered with fishermen's leftovers, and dotted by pipes spewing unidentified liquid is not generally how I enjoy my beaches, but I took a stroll nonetheless, and picked up some small shells and pretty pebbles. Then I picked my way back to the restaurant, which was right on the fishermen's wharf and served amazingly fresh seafood. Once again, I ate probably more than I should have, and took a nice nap on the remaining journey to the project.

Instead of going to the hotel, we went to the newly-constructed poolhouse at Mumian Lake and saw the premises (although the tour was a bit limited in the dark). Although I'd seen pictures, I was surprised at the lovely decorations of the place, which incorporated stone, wood, and water elements, in keeping with Chinese traditional notions of feng shui. I noticed everyone was waiting around for something, and I assumed it was just for our driver to go back to the hotel, but then a group of people that I found out were the architecture team filed in, and we headed up to a conference room.

Seeing as it was already past 9 pm, I was surprised when everyone settled in for a meeting. Apparently I'd missed the memo that the architecture team was supposed to do a dry run of their presentation for the next morning's meeting with local government officials, but that is just what proceeded to happen! I knew that Chinese business meetings sometimes went late, having experienced a 9 pm one myself, but this was something else. By the time everyone was satisfied with the presentation, it was past 11 and I was almost asleep in my chair. I did nap on the 20 minute ride back to the hotel, and then I fell into bed the moment I laid down, dismayed at the early wakeup call the next morning.

We met for breakfast in the lobby at 7:30, and ate a standard Hainan dish of rice noodles in soup with vegetables and eggs. Then we hopped back into the van to head to the local military hotel (which are common in China) for our meeting with the government officials. The mayor of the local town, several of his chief advisors, and one provincial-level official sat at the other side of the conference table as the architecture team and a group from our company's design division explained the Qizi Bay project, and then there was a question and answer session. I had trouble understanding the Hainan officials, since their dialect/accent is quite different from Sichuan or Beijing, but I enjoyed hearing the presentation, and it seemed to have gone well by all accounts.

After the meeting was finished (late morning), we went to lunch at the company cafeteria near the Mumian Lake site. That afternoon, we drove out to the site of the Qizi Bay resort, which is on the western coast of Hainan. The area gets its name from the small pebbles that dot the beaches, which look like Chinese chess pieces, or 'qizi'. Legend has it that there once were two immortals playing chess on the beach, and they became so engrossed in their game that they didn't take the time out to eat or drink anything. Seeing this, the local people brought them food and drink so they could continue their game uninterrupted. To thank them for the hospitality, the immortals scattered their pretty playing pieces on the beach once their game was finished, and Qizi had its name.

True or not, after clambering through the sandy woods in the tropical heat, I was relieved to see the beautiful, wide expanses of sand and clear water. Especially after the slightly disappointing beach experience of the day before, the clean, open beach was a sight for sore eyes! The design team members explained the plans for the beachfront to me, and then I had about an hour to relax on the sand. Although I was still wearing my business clothes from that morning, which precluded swimming or laying in the sand, I enjoyed exploring the various rocks and shells that dotted the shore, and wading in the shallow water.

After only about an hour, we had to begin the trip back to the hotel so that the designers could catch a plane back to Shenzhen, where their office is. So we trudged back through the woods to the van, and I promptly fell asleep on the way back to the hotel. I had a break before dinner, so I checked emails and watched some TV. Then it was back to the company cafeteria for another deliciously fresh meal of seafood and local dishes before I could fall into bed for a good night's sleep.

The next morning, I had to say goodbye to the architecture team, whom I'd really enjoyed getting to know better. We ate breakfast together, and then they started the trip back to Haikou for their flight back to Beijing. I waited around the hotel until one of the Hainan project managers could come pick me up to take me to tour the other project, Mumian Lake.

Mumian Lake is an almost thousand acre project that is already in the construction phase. It includes hotel rooms, apartments, villas, and an amazing range of amenities, including a golf course, multiple swimming pools, shopping, fruit plantation, and tennis. As of now, only the swim center and the model villas are finished, and the first three phases of apartments are under construction. So most of the tour involved enjoying the natural beauty of the place, which I obviously can't complain about, since it looked something like this:

Here's a picture of me in front of the lake, rockin' the sweet hat that the project manager gave me to wear (he was very concerned about my fair skin tanning, and after arguing for several minutes without being able to convince him that I wanted to be tan, I gave up).

The last photo is a picture off one of the balconies of the model villa, which as you can see, is designed to some pretty high standards. Being somewhat of an interior decorating nut, I was pleasantly surprised at the tastefulness of the design. Despite the fact that a large body of luxury housing in China is almost disgustingly overdone in golds and reds, the Mumian Lake concept is tropical and vibrant, with lots of wood and natural light, and I loved it!

I ate lunch after my tour with some of the local executives, and then I had several hours to wait before our trip back to Hainan. Per usual, the three hours turned into four and a half, but I was content in the air conditioned conference room. Of course, this meant that it was past dinner time by the time we got back to Haikou, and I was starving! I walked across the street to a small restaurant to get some food to go, and watched a movie in my hotel room until I fell asleep.

The next morning we had an early flight back to Chengdu, and I was both sad to leave the beauty of Hainan and excited to get back to Chengdu to tell my friends and coworkers about my journey. I have to admit that I was disappointed as I watched the plane dip back into the filmy smog over the city, remembering fondly the clear air of Hainan (which the WHO has shown is the cleanest in China and second cleanest in the world!), but it was surprisingly nice to settle back into my apartment and routine here.

Oh, one last thing before I get back to work for the day: for those of you who didn't believe me when I said that after-lunch naptime is a normal occurrence here, I took a quick photo yesterday around 1 pm of the office adjacent to mine. Don't you agree that this is a tradition we should institute in the US?!