Paradise By Design

Ever Considered China When Planning An Idyllic Tropical Getaway? Neither Did Soity Banerjee, Until A Convincing Maiden Visit

- Soity Banerjee

Ahead lay the tip of Hainan, China’s southernmost extremity, and for a while the Anahita sailed close enough to the island that Bahram was able to study it through a spyglass: it was not much different, in appearance, from Singapore and some of the other islands they had passed on the way, with steep hills, dense forests and fringes of golden sand along the shores. Shortly, after the sighting, the officers called all hands on deck and put them on high alert: the waters around Hainan were notorious for pirates… Lookouts were posted agil and peechil and the topmen were sent scrambling aloft. —River of Smoke, Amitava Ghosh

If Bahram Modi from Ghosh’s iconic novel—set in the mid-19th century, just before the Opium War broke out between China and Britain—were to train his spyglass on Hainan today, he’d still be peering (mostly) at green quilted hills and golden shores across the geopolitically choppy waters of the South China Sea. The only discernible ‘development’ he’d likely see, after a brief interlude of 300 years, would be the jagged teeth of highrises, international chain hotels and giant Buddhas on the bay, with the tropical sun glinting off them at the most fetching angles. The pirates too, he’d discover to his relief and everybody else’s dismay, had traded their sabres and eyepatches for flip flops and beach towels; their evolution now near complete as snowbirds in the tropics, with butlers in Hawaiian shirts posted agil and peechil.