Introduction to Xincun Fishing Village and the Floating Sea Turtle Hospital

Xincun, literally meaning “New Village,” is a small fishing village that lies on the southern coast of Hainan Island about two hours east of the nearest tourist city, Sanya. Apartment buildings, restaurants, stores, and open markets jumble together on the land and street sellers sprawl out into the dusty roads. Just two larger roads run parallel to the water, with every other street leading down to the docks. Beyond the docks float an array of homes and boats held up by a network of floating planks. The floating part of the village houses many fisherman and their families.

The building that sits on the water in the furthest corner of this floating mass has six nets blooming below its decks. This is Sea Turtle 911’s floating sea turtle hospital. Three different sea turtle species live here: Green Sea Turtles, Olive Ridley Sea Turtles, and Hawksbill Sea Turtles. Among these, turtles of all ages and backgrounds live here. Some are treated for malnutrition, fungal or bacterial infections, missing flippers, spinal maladies, or any combination of problems. They live together in the nets with other turtles and some special companions including horshoe crabs, puffer fish, seastars and grouper fish that encourage a homey environment for the turtles.

Other creatures cling onto the floating planks - barnacle, algal, and isopod communities thrive here, and if you peek between the boards you can see schools of small black and yellow fish hovering anxiously. When the water is clear, larger fish loom out of the depths before darting back under the hospital to hide. 

Once a turtle has been rescued, usually from poachers, the Sea Turtle 911 staff will care for him or her by keeping them in a healthy environment and administering the necessary treatment for each case. Some of the turtles require medicine, but most of the rehabilitation process lies in keeping them clean and giving them fluids to bring them back to health and spark their appetite.

Poachers take sea turtles because there is a large market for sea turtle meat, especially in the case of the Greens, and Hawksbill shells can be made into valuable products. As long as people continue to eat turtle meat and buy these products, this phenomenon will persist. Every species of Sea Turtle is already endangered, and the populations will not be able to sustain themselves much longer with such a high level of human interference on top of the threats of habitat destruction, getting caught in fishing nets, and harmful pollution that they also face.

PS: Dear blog readers, I will write a more personal blog soon (maybe) but I already had this written so I hope you enjoy it. It's pretty rough, but it's at least a picture of where I am.

Traveling across worlds to arrive

The airplane/waiting in airports/standing in line trip was more or less hell on wings.
I sat next to a middle-school girl for the flight between Vancouver and China and she was very cute. I bravely did not cry as I rewatched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II on my little screen so I wouldn’t embarrass myself in front of her. Just kidding! I cried about eighteen times haHA! I also watched “The Day the Earth Stood Still” which was not only a magnificent example of convergent evolution, but also got “Science Fiction Double Feature” stuck in my head. I liked it though. And then, as you can imagine, watching Lady and the Tramp in Spanish was the only possible solution for my next movie. The girl next to me also decided it was a good idea to watch Lady and the Tramp. But the flight was sooooo long.

In the airport with Tiktaalik and the Bog

 
And when I arrived in Beijing, after the airplane sank through the dense yellow fog, I had to clear immigration, pick up my checked back and go through customs, re-check it, go through a security line, and find my gate in an hour and a half. I was overjoyed when I made it to my gate just in time and had a second to buy some TCBY strawberry frozen yoghurt in a dish and eat that to cool off and calm down. Although the Beijing airport repeats everything in English, they usually give more extensive and frequent announcements in Chinese and then add something in English as an afterthought, so be prepared for that if you ever fly through.

We sat on the tarmac for an HOUR once I was on the plane to Haikou, but China Air had good service and they gave us water to drink while we waited. By that point, I thought I would have to throw up from exhaustion. The man next to me on that flight was very kind – he has a pet turtle and his daughter also dances, so we had a lot to talk about – and he also made sure that I got picked up by someone at the airport before heading off to his hotel.

The someone at the airport that picked my up was “Jesse,” a volunteer for Sea Turtles 911. He was holding up a neon green ST911 shirt like a beacon of light that made me feel much better. We took a cab into the city (terrifying) and it poured harder than I’ve ever seen it rain in my LIFE! The city is full of flashes, honks, and pounding music at night and most of the stores are open in the front. Electric bikes and scooters motor all over the place, and in some places people just drive their bikes right into the hotels or restaurants.

I had dinner with Jesse at a tiny restaurant, which was very tasty, and then we scurried back through the storm to my hotel to find the organization’s director standing there next to a lime green bucket with a teeny tiny sea turtle in it. I should have insisted on going to bed when he asked if I was jet-lagged, but he wanted to talk to me about my plans so I went to get tea with him and another volunteer who took notes on our conversation. He’s an intense person and the extensive interview was way too much for me after twenty four hours of travelling with minimal sleep.
The first night went bad. I was freaking out and my room didn’t even have a window so it was one of the most disorienting nights of my life. 

The second day went much better, although I was still exhausted. Jesse took me to get a go phone and run some other errands, and then we met the director and another volunteer for hot pot lunch. It was so tasty! I also visited Hainan Normal University and met one of the professors and some of the turtles. It feels good to be around people who share my passion for conservation and are also patient with and encouraging of my Chinese.

On the way back to my hotel, Jesse treated me to a pineapple on a sick situation from the street. The seller pulled one out of a jar, dipped it in water, and put plastic over it. I was dubious at best, but when I bit into it, the sweet, juicy flavor overcame my mouth with bliss. Jesse got me a new room on the seventh floor, which is approximately eighty-five times nicer because it has a window and a great view. Then I went to sleep around five pm. It’s almost five am now, and I can hear roosters crowing from down below. The honking has quieted down though. 

A nicer view of the city!

I want to thank everyone who has been supportive and kind to me in the last seventy-two hours, because I really really needed it.

The Plan

 Early Sunday morning I will fly from Portland to Vancouver to Beijing to Haikou. In Haikou, someone from Sea Turtles 911will meet me at the airport and we will take a bullet train all the way down the island to Xincun Fishing village where the organization is based on Hainan. As far as I know, my internship will include rehabilitation of sea turtles that have been recovered from poachers, helping plan and lead ecotourism and public education events, and also some research. Ten weeks later, I will go from Haikou to Kunming and start school.

星期天早上我就飞到中国。Portland 到海南没有直接的飞机所以我只好先去Vancouver，然后去北京，然后去海口。。。

I made this blog specifically because there is no facebook in China - a phenomenon that I plan on embracing - and I know my friends and family (that's you) will be hoping for updates. I am also planning on making entries in Chinese as a way to mark my improvement throughout the six months, and keep up my writing and reading during my internship. If you don't speak Chinese, don't worry because my English entries will (probably) cover the same ground and be more coherent. In general I want to post whenever I have something interesting to share, but my goal is to post at least once a week. I want to say a big thank you to my sister Lucy for helping me get started with this, and if you want to read HER blog, it is at:

lucywanders.blogspot.com

She is very cool. 

Goals for my Internship:

1. Improve my spoken Chinese to near fluency. In one month, I hope to feel mastery of all the material I have learned up to this point. I have been studying Chinese for so long that sometimes it takes a while for me to string all my words together and make them sound right. 

2. Gain a deeper understanding of Chinese customs and culture through interactions with locals and tourists where I'm staying.

3. Further my understanding of where conservation fits in modern Chinese society. From what I know now, sea turtles are poached all around China for their shells. Other turtle species around Asia are often sold to China for medicinal value, food, or other products that have traditional significance to Chinese culture. This is  a problem because there is currently no balance between tradition - which is very important - and the future of China's fragile ecosystems. 

4. Visit new places, adjust to the heat and humidity, and have a great time with some new friends yay!

实习的目标：

１。提高我的中文水平。我学中文学了那么长的时间但我还是有时候说不出来。我希望一个月以后能说得很流利。

２。通过跟中国人打交道更了解中国文化和习惯。

３。更了解中国社会与环保的矛盾。据我所知，某些人为了卖海龟的产品就把海龟砸死。还有各种各样的乌龟都被人偷了。这是因为中国的传统文化很重视乌龟的产品。这个现象使很多乌龟面临灭绝。

４。去我没去过的地方，交朋友，享受自己的生活！

Words of the Week (as promised)

1. 海南 Hǎinán ：Literally meaning "Sea South," Hainan is the largest island in the South China Sea, south of China and east of Vietnam. I will be staying there on a ten-week internship with an organization called Sea Turtles 911 (http://www.seaturtles911.org/) If you know about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Hainan is just to the East of that gulf.

2. 云南 Yúnnán ：Literally meaning "Clouds South," such a delightful name is given to the province I will spend the second part of my trip in. The second program starts at the very end of August, and I will be living in the dorms at Yunnan University with a Chinese roommate. All of my classes will be taught entirely in Mandarin and there will be a language pledge. I'm planning on taking Kunming Studies (Kunming is the capital of Yunnan, where I will be,) Chinese Environment and Development, and Yunnan Ethnic Minority Studies as well as a self-designed (hopefully) Dance Ethnography of Yunnan class. :) 

Yunnan is known for its biodiversity and ethnic diversity. It was also historically important because Kunming was the endpoint of the Burma Road in WWII.