ABSTRACT
At the southern tip of China’s Hainan Island—a mountainous tropical island where a U.S. spy plane was brought down in 2001—lies a mid-sized resort city called Sanya, which has been there practically since the beginning of time, if anyone had bothered to keep watch or take notice. The Chinese call it the “end of the world,” because until relatively recent times they had a certain reluctance to consider the possibility that “The Middle Kingdom” of Zhongwu wasn’t the only country on the planet. Hainan Island is also China’s southernmost province, and its second largest island (after Taiwan). Sanya is its southernmost city.
