Chinese characters on billboards?? Do those bother me? Hardly. Russian funkiness, however? Yes, that is a wee bit jarring. For some reason that I cannot explain, I am just not a fan of seeing Russian all over buildings and stuff. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I feel like China is mine, and I don't want any other foreigners having any influence over it, so I get all defensive when I see other languages all over the place, but I realize I need to learn to share. Sanya is basically just a little Russia, after all. Everywhere you go all your menus are in Russian, the buildings are in Russian, the beaches are covered in super burnt orange Russians, and all of the vendors try to speak to you in Russian instead of English.
Actually, that last aspect of it is pretty fun. Charades has become a favorite game of mine these last six months, and it was quite the twist adding Russian to the mix - plus it finally gave me a chance to really rely on my Chinese. Normally, when you want to purchase something in China, the guy selling it to you either already knows enough English to sell it to you or there is something printed in English/Chinese that you can just point to. It just doesn't leave much to the imagination. However, in Sanya it was a happy little game when people, both Chinese and Russian alike, would rush up to you and just start jabbering away in their unfamiliar tongue with the assumption that you would understand them. The puzzled expression on their face was pretty priceless when after a few moments pause you reply to whatever they had said "English, I'm sorry, but I only speak English." From there on out, the Russians walk away to find someone more interesting to talk to, and the Chinese get this jumbo smile on their face and start jabbering away at you in Chinese instead. To my surprise, I found that I understand a lot more than I thought I did. This one vendor in particular and I talked for nearly a half an hour about who knows what - school, america, my life, how I liked China etc etc. Now, granted, there was a lot of charades involved, there was also an abnormally large amount of Chinese as well. I was all by myself and it was up to me to figure out how to say everything; it was a proud moment to realize that I actually could.
All things considered, Sanya really is a little piece of paradise. It was hot, but not nearly as bad as we expected, and the water is so much fun. We met more Chinese friends as usual, and we ate monster freaking mangoes everyday, which I am not ashamed to say was one of my greatest hi-lights. My favorite thing about Sanya, however, was probably just seeing the insane crowd that swarmed the beach Monday afternoon and evening. Within an hour, the beach went from essentially empty, to covered with thousands of luck-seeking Chinese on their happy Dragon Boat Festival Day. Apparently, good fortune is brought to those who are in the water on the Dragon Boat Festival, and when tempted with good fortune you better believe the Chinese will come. Personally, I should be getting super rich or something this year because I was in the water all day. As always, I have a ton more to say, but I don't know how to say it, so instead adieu - I love you all.
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