CHINA NASH HASH 2005

Rail Jerker’s Diary

CHINA NASH HASH 2005, Sanya, Hainan Island
Friday 22 – Sunday, 24 April 2005

THE 4TH ALL CHINA NASH HASH was held in Sanya City in Hainan Island, which is the southernmost province of China. It is the ping-pong ball island you hardly notice on the TV weather map, just below Hong Kong and East of Hanoi. They never mention the temperature there – because it is always a balmy 25C. Sanya is in the southernmost edge of the island and Haikou, the capital, on the northern edge.

HEAVEN ON EARTH
Hainan is known as the “Hawaii of the Orient”. Sanya amazed us with its pleasant weather; clean, coconut fringed, white sandy beaches; clean, calm and warm waters; well kept parks along the beach; and a city that could match Singapore or Seattle in cleanliness, wide streets, greenery, and beautiful modern buildings. The only problem was that the English language is avoided like the SARS, and, though there are innumerable varieties of teas, each with its medicinal and psychic claim, none is English. The latter proved particularly disconcerting to Interhash 2008 Penang bidder, “Mohathir”, as he had difficulty performing his morning rituals.

Emperor Babar, the founder of the Moghul dynasty in India, had exclaimed on seeing Kashmir, ”If there is Heaven on Earth, it is here, it is here!” It is a shame that even though our Prophet (Peace be on him) had preached that one should go even as far away as China to seek knowledge, Babar never made it to Sanya. As if the sublime allusion was incomplete without a sexual nuance, they brought the Miss World 2003 contest to Sanya; and repeated the same in 2004. These brought world attention not only to the flesh, but also to Sanya itself. There is one other leisure activity on which I am equally incompetent to comment, but which nonetheless brought Sanya to the limelight. That is the international golf tournaments that are held there regularly.

Sanya is modestly described as an “international tropical coastal tourist destination, with an area of 1,919 sq km, population of 490,000, having 19 bays and 40 islets lying along a 209km coastline.” The size of Hainan Island is 34,000 sq km and the population 7 million. President Jiang Ze-min, on a visit to Hainan in 1993 wrote, “Blue sea joins the sky afar, Hainan remains spring eternally”.

Ironically, and historically, Hainan Island was a penal colony, out at the edge of the country. Gazing forlornly at the South China Sea, the convicts thought that it was the ‘End of the World’. The Chief Magistrate of the local prefecture officially proclaimed this during the reign of Yongzheng of the Qing dynasty, by inscribing these words in Chinese characters on a giant stone on the beach, 6km from down town Sanya.. This is now a tourist site, and the words are even written on the ribbon of a souvenir straw hat that I bought. Later, their descendents sailed along the coast of Indo-China and settled in the South East Asian countries. Hainan was the stepping-stone. When Hainan prospered, and in recent times became industrialised, the tide turned, and now there are many S. E. Asians settled there, engaged in agriculture and industry. These ties may have been one of the reasons for the large participation at the Nash Hash from Malaysia and Indonesia.

GROUP TOUR
Coming back to hashing, as good luck would have it, my son Shakeeb and I found us as members of the Malaysian Hash Delegation to 4th China Nash Hash. The Chairman of the Malaysian Hash Council, Looi Nai Boon, “Uncle Looi” led the ‘Delegation’. Incidentally, Uncle Looi traces his origin to Hainan. Included in the group were the Vice-Chairman, Murugan Manisamy “MRG”; the General Secretary, Ajit Singh “Muhathir”; 128 other Malaysians; and 2 Bangladeshis, making a total of 133. As no direct scheduled flight between Kuala Lumpur and Sanya exists, the Hash Council arranged a chartered flight for the group from MAS.

The Malaysians proved to be more than a normal raucous hash group. However, the announcement that due to expected turbulence the pre-meal cocktails were cancelled, had a cooling effect. The seat-belt sign kept them on their bottoms for most of the 4-hour journey. I remember our trip to KL for Interhash1998, when meeting other hashers joining the flight from other parts of the world, not only was a private bar kept going at one end, but a ‘run’ took place, with checks and falsies along the aisles – the highest run ever!. Of course, it was a bigger plane and the weather was perfect.

The Tour Operator for the 8-day package tour was Yangtze Cruise & Tour Sdn Bhd of Kuala Lumpur (yangtzesales@hotmail.com), assisted by their local counterpart, China International Travel Service Hainan Province of Haikou City (fax +86-898-66742021). Yangtze sent along three Tour Leaders, William, David and Lily, and the local agent provided three Tour Guides, one English-speaking. The 133 were divided into three groups based on hash chapter and size of buses. On our boarding the buses at Sanya airport at around 2 PM, the TL’s announced that since the meal on board the plane was light and the drinks insufficient, they would treat us to lunch at a restaurant direct from the airport. It turned out to be a 4-star restaurant and a 12-course Chinese lunch, with beer! This was an ‘extra’ from the TO. Their service for the duration of the tour always remained ‘extra’ and excellent, with the TL’s attending day and night to every need, group or individual.

NASH HASH
The venue of China Nash Hash was the International Asia Pacific Convention Center & HNA Resort, alongside the beach. We were accommodated there in villas. The Nash Hash turned out to be a big international gathering, with participants from other Chinese chapters and abroad – 3 to 4 hundred more Malaysians came in other groups and individually; not to speak of the Indonesians, of whom 100 came from Bandung alone. The total came to 1,280 of 15 nationalities, quite a handful, but unquestionably, superbly handled, with (mainland) Chinese meticulousness, discipline and grace.

The programme consisted of the Friday evening welcome dinner and cultural show at the venue, on the beachside; a City Tour for a limited number on Saturday morning; the 5 runs on Saturday afternoon followed by individual circles, and then combined dinner and cultural show on a large open field surrounded by hills. The Sunday morning run was from the venue and the circle and lunch also took place there. All the arrangements – transportation, trails, food, shows, punctuality – were superb. The Saturday dinner had twenty stalls, each serving a different item – chicken, duck, pork, fish, rice, soup, dumplings, desserts, prepared in different manners. Two T-shirts were given for the two runs. The registration fee was US$60.

The five trails were briefly described in English and Chinese in the souvenir booklet. There were two of 12km, one of 8, one of 6, and the shortest one for “drunken and walkers” was of 4.5 km. It is a sad reflection on hashing internationally that only 25 took one of the 12km runs, and nearly 500 took the shortest one. One of the participant of the long run told me later that it was not after all as tough a run as the description implied, and I myself found the short run not as short and easy as described. It will be some consolation if the misleading language is to be blamed for the disparity in participation. At large events such as these, as we learnt at Interhash 2002 Goa, one has to be very careful in describing the trails in advance, particularly in the treacherous English language.

HAINAN ISLAND TOUR
After spending four days in Sanya, on Monday morning, our group of 133 left by buses for a 4-day sightseeing tour of the island. We spent one night at the hot spring town of Xinglong, about a third of the way to Haikou, where we spent the remaining two nights. Along the way, we visited various tourist spots – scenic, historical, ethnic and commercial. On Wednesday, Haikou HHH organised a special run for us, with On On at a restaurant, and then On On On at Red’s Pub. H4, founded in 1997, run on Saturdays; the GM is “Screwdriver” and the RA “Rock and Roll”. Red’s Pub is the hash bar as well as the G-spot (G for ‘gathering).

Four of us - Ashwin “Tipsy”, Manimaran “Danger”, George, and I, decided to take the one-hour ferry across the strait, just to kiss the soil of the great mainland and spend the day there.. A great country indeed!

Juned “Rail Jerker” Choudhury
DhakaH3
E-mail: nishatch@bdcom.com