English crucial to Hainan island's tourism plans
My rich aunt in Florida wouldn't blink twice about spending 2,000 yuan a night in Sanya and love it, but she won't be able to buy anything outside the hotel without an interpreter. This is not the case in other non-English speaking holiday hot spots in Phuket and Bali.
This isn't a big problem because the young locals can become interpreters, or anything else they want to be, if given the chance.
One Saturday night, I bumped into a group of young fellows picking coconuts and we started chatting in Chinese. Interestingly, they were from Changsha, and after trying some English felt embarrassed.
"Mei wenti (no problem)," I said. "I also feel embarrassed when I speak but you understand? And if I can do it, you can too."
"Hao hao xue xi, tian tian xiang shang (study every day, and you'll get smarter)," I told the boys, who were stunned to hear the words of their home town's most famous son, Mao Zedong, coming from the mouth of a foreigner.
They laughed and said "goodbye" in English and one of the young men tossed me a gift - a ripe coconut.
Like any seed, whether it's an international tourism plan, or a desire to speak another language, the seed of the coconut palm needs time and nurturing to grow.
Hainan will rise up and grow, and let the Hainan youth, just one of the many seeds of China, grow with it.