Lovers’ Island (情人島) is a small island, less than 1 square kilometer in area, located a few kilometers away from the fishing village of Sanniangwan, Guangxi.
Our team went there yesterday, hoping to dig up a few whale and dolphin skeletons that were buried there a few years ago.
From afar, Lovers’ Island, with its brightly painted lighthouse, small pine forest, tidal pools full of colorful sea creatures, and wide sandy beach, is beautiful, and deep down it really is a romantic spot, but unfortunately it is yet another great place ruined by…
…maggots!!
Of course, the real culprit is humanity. Garbage, the disposable society, lack of waste management, over-packaging, industrial food, non-biodegradable materials, littering…
It breaks my heart every time I see a place like this, which is all too often in China. Makes me want to go somewhere like Ireland or an uninhabited island in the South Pacific, places that I (foolishly) imagine to be pristine and garbage-free. Then, I remind myself of why I’m in China. It’s precisely because things are so bad that there is so much worthwhile work to be done here. Then, I get into an internal dogfight about what really is “worthwhile” – is it more worthwhile to be a beach bum in Tahiti, a monk in a monastery, a corporate slave, or a self-righteous environmental do-gooder? Who the hell knows? As I’m sure you’re relieved to hear, that discussion is outside the scope of this post.
In case you were wondering, after hours of digging, we failed to find a single one of the skeletons, despite having GPS coordinates for all three!! Theories abound.
A few more pictures of Lovers’ Island:
October 30, 2012 at 07:43
It seems like such a pretty place, if not for the litter…