Faith Pang's blog

Dear readers,

I did promise that I'll be posting here again whenever I am back in Asia. After five wonderful years in Canada, I find myself in Singapore, the country of my birth. So much has changed and I am currently exploring this tiny island which is going through an amazing economic boom during a time of austerity measures in most other parts of the world.

*This is the final installment of "A Week in Hainan". I managed to recover most of the photos from my old laptop and present to you the last of this photo blog. Nonetheless this will not be the last you, dear APR readers, will hear from me because this will not be the last trip I make to the Asia-Pacific region. Till the next time!*

***
After touring Sanya, I took a cab back to Haikou where I was due to board the plane back to Singapore. I had been in Haikou before in 2008 but was preoccupied with visiting my relatives who lived in the provincial capital. I had wanted to visit the Old Quarter but there was just too little time. Hence, I was determined to check out the old colonial quarter this time around.

Dear APR readers,

I apologize for not updating for a long time and for not completing the final part of "A Week in Hainan". My laptop crashed and then I was busy finishing up my thesis and thus did not have the time to recover all my data.

Sometime this fall, I shall extract the data out of my laptop and complete the last part of this photo blog. Keep reading the APR and for those starting a new semester, enjoy the year ahead!

Best
Faith

After a night in the village, I made my way to Sanya (三亚) where my cousin lives and works. When I was in Hainan in 2008, I was only able to meet him for a dinner and during this trip, I was eager to spend more time with him.

My cousin is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official. Passionate about the island on which he grew up, he was happy to bring me around Sanya.

Sanya is a beautiful coastal city; its tropical climate and 23km long beach draws millions of tourists to its shores annually.

During the 4 days spent in Sanya, my cousin drove me around the city and took me to Wuzhizhou Island (蜈支洲岛). Being a great seafood lover, most of our time was spent at various seafood restaurants.

I arrived in Hainan just before lunchtime and was picked up at Haikou's Meilan International Airport (海口美兰国际机场) by my uncle. When my grandfather left Hainan Island in 1947, his oldest brother stayed behind to take care of the ancestral home and also raised his family there. Nevertheless despite being away, my grandfather always made sure to keep in contact with his family members in Hainan to ensure that they had a comfortable life.

I recently visited Hainan Island (海南岛), China's smallest province located in the South China Sea. This was my second trip to the island; the first was in 2008 when my family and I went to visit our ancestral village close to Bo'ao.

Before I go on to blog about my trip to Hainan, I figured I'll get the awkward first introductions out of the way. My name is Faith and I am one of the publications editors at the APR (do check out Passages 2009-2010!). Besides spending time with the APR, I am also a first year grad student at the University of Toronto where I am currently in the middle of completing my Masters in Political Science and Asia-Pacific Studies, with a focus on Chinese society and politics.