Eileen St. Louis

I've learned that my father's family are shrimp farmers living in a village nicknamed, "big friend's village." One of my cousins who I am asked to call "Older Brother" said that my grandmother's mother was a great shrimp catcher when they used to go out on the boats. As Older Brother puts it, "When she threw her net in the sea, she pulled many when she brought it in." Since 1990 they have been farming shrimp in artificial ponds due to the decrease in shrimp population. Older Brother says some young men still go out and shrimp the old way. There stands in their courtyard, a great house built by my father's eldest brother. Inside is fine wood and marble furniture and painted tiles. Older Sister, his wife and a much older woman with white hair sit me down with some red eggs and ask me to eat. Red eggs are for good luck when relatives return. This time, Lucky, a senior at the college accompanies me to see my relatives in Yen Duin. ...

On this rainy day in Hainan, I am reminded of other happy rainy days spent in bright lights, bright city- my New York. Like the day I helped Erin Shannon set up her first Unseenamerica show in Kingston. I remember us attaching red balloons to lead gallery hoppers to the building. I remember being pleased with how I managed to light the photographs with some lamps borrowed from the offices. I remember eating yummy burritos and taco pie. It has now been raining for more than 12 hours. And it is raining hard. We are in a mini-typhoon, one of many to come in the autumn months as the weather begins to get cooler. As the wind picks up, it howls outside and bangs on the front door. Pineapple and chocolate museli cereal with milk is like the best thing in my world right now. Its comforting in the midst of this stormy night. Highlights of my past two weeks are opening ceremonies at the college, National Day in China celebrating 59 years as the People's Republic and my vacati...

I am staying at a B&B in Boao, Hainan run by an expat and her chinese journalist husband. (my students are in military training) He wants to publish a story about my quest to find my lineage here and it would be helpful to have any old photographs. Uncle Bernard doesn't seem to know where any of Grandpa's old letters are and thinks that perhaps a cousin from Brunei may have more information but he doesn't have her contact # either. Dad's relatives live in a village not too far from Wenchang city. It is called Yei Duin- a shrimp town. Rechard Li, the journalist and I are going to visit there tomorrow. Boao is clean; the cleanest town I have been in on Hainan. There is a picturesque main street lined by palm trees on either side. The highways are smooth and have working lamps. The beach is not crowded; in fact there are few swimmers, fishing nets outnumber them. I saw the biggest shrimp I ever saw in my life. They were the size of small lobsters. Taoist t...

My roommate, Joanne, thinks it's wonderful that where we live in Hainan, they're still 50 years behind. I'm not sure that I can marvel at that claim. The loud motorbikes that exhaust smelly diesel fumes and the open sewer drains that give off even more sinister stenches do not reveal a charming and quaint backwardness. This is also a woman who can't seem to get a grip on the idea that I am Chinese and American. While I got over the fact that I am living with a Canadian during our first week, she is still going on about how I really am different from other Chinese girls and that I don't know everything that is Chinese. Sometimes when she is talking to me, I think that Joanne looks like George Bush Jr. with a sort of blank look in her eyes as she professes things that I don't care about like her belief in Jesus as her lord and savior. The Born Agains outnumber me here in Wenchang, so I'm not about to disagree with their beliefs or get into a discussion abo...

As the airplane descended towards Shenzhen International, it began to rain- cloaking the airport in grey urban atmosphere comparable to New York. The fields outlying beyond the city's grid of buildings between valleys of mountains did little to assuage my view of China as altogether rural . I wondered from the sky, where was the city of Shenzhen? The city is made of many greenways; a truly modern metropolis of lush parks and well ventilated subways. It boasts healthy gardens along the sidewalk and posh malls. My Uncle lives in Shekou, across the street from Shenzhen University, a neighborhood home to many expats. Lucky me, got the first week of school off because all the freshman hasn't arrived yet and I got all the freshers as my students! After a spot of tea and breakfast, we toured Da Mei Sha, the big beach where curious giant sculptures of rainbow angels danced across the sands. The sand was sizzling hot, but the water just perfect. Surrounding the beach were soft ...

Listening to the rain yesterday, I doubted whether we were going out to view the moon on Mid-Autumn Festival. But as we made our way to the #25 bus and clambored on, I could see throngs of motorbikes heading the same direction. Once at Galung Bay, crowds of people zig zagged like ants carrying penguin balloons and other stuffed animals they had won as game prizes. Amongst the crowds were also cars and motorbikes moving their way between the people. Police stood around, not really directing traffic but more like observing the chaos and there to make sure that no serious injuries occured. My friends, junior students at the college, Dandy and Carolyn told me that in their hometowns, many people went to the beach to see the moon too. For as long as they could remember, this was always the way. To see the moon's bright reflection in the water along with many giant fireworks glittering across the surface made me feel like a kid on July 4th again. Many circles of incense or candles ...

What does it mean to be Chinese-American in Hainan, China? My Uncle calls himself and I, yellow bananas meaning yellow on the outside but white on the inside. People here question my American identity almost daily, asking where am I from, where are my parents from and do I speak Chinese. They are befuddled that I look Chinese but am not like them, a China person. Just yesterday, while talking with other foreign teachers as I waited for visa processing at the government office, a woman who had been watching me for a while from across the floor, came over and sat beside my colleagues and said to me in Chinese, that I looked like a girl from Sanya, not like someone from New York. This actually pleased me because my Mom's parents are from that area on the southern most part of the island where the beaches are famed to be white and the sea, sparkling blue. Kimberley : what! they dont want chinese american teachers? 11:21 PM me : well i applied to a few places in other provinces too...

Littering is a huge problem from what I can see. The driver who picked me up from the airport in the school car, decisively picked an unfinished construction site to deposit his empty herbal tea can as we turned the corner into the town of Wenchang. From my bedroom window, I just now observed the soft drink trucker disposing of some plastic wrapping as he climbed out of the passenger side to unload the delivery at the local canteen next to my house. One good thing about the university that you could say is leftover from the ethics of Communist practice is that each day a different class is assigned to clean the grounds- a group of ten sweeps together. This is something expected by the environmental group on campus for like one day in the states. Another thing that might surprise you but which seems quite normal at any college is that students sleep ten to a room on straw mats. They are very congenial about it too! There's book shelves in between the bunks, and as I count I re...