It's only natural for people to want to live where they are most comfortable. As such, just like birds heading south, every winter sees a large number of people, particularity retirees, traveling south to Sanya, Hainan Province.
According to reports, among the vast number of people that have moved to the tropical city nearly 200,000 came from Northeast China. This is an impressive number when you consider that by the end of 2014 Sanya's permanent resident population was 740,000. While a large part of Sanya's population comes from Northeast China, a majority of people come from the Northeast's Heilongjiang Province. For this reason Sanya has also been crowned as "Heilongjiang's Sanya City." If you visit there it should come as no surprise to see a group of retirees dancing the traditional northern yangge in public squares.
Retirement heaven
Hainan has been a popular tourism destination for many years. Its tourism industry experienced a major boom after plans were announced to transform it into an international tourism island in 2010. According to statistics, in 2000 10 million trips were made to Hainan. By 2014, that number had risen to 40 million.
The island is most popular from November to March. During this period most of China suffers from snow and cold, but in Hainan people can continue to enjoy their short-sleeve shirts as they run around in a spring-like climate. This comfortable climate has attracted numerous people who come to the region for the winter or choose to stay permanently.
As the number of new residents continues to rise, so too do housing prices. This rise in price has mainly been influenced by buyers from Northeast China. According to a report by ELLEMEN, 79.6 percent of home owners in Sanya are from Northeast China. Among them, most of these are middle-aged or elderly people.
In their 50s, Xia Yang and his wife belong to this 79.6 percent. Originally living in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, before moving to Sanya, Xia was plagued by chronic bronchitis and later developed emphysema. In Harbin, before central heating appeared, people burnt coal for heat which led to heavy pollution. Every winter he would find himself confined to his home due to how the pollution impacted his health.
Xia first came to Hainan on a tour eight years ago. At first he felt the temperature was far too hot, but the second time he visited he stayed with a relative in Sanya for half a month. During this time he noticed that his emphysema had stopped troubling him and immediately decided to move to the city where he bought two apartments.
Xia isn't the only one who has recognized the health benefits of living on the island. Many of the people who have moved to the area have done so for health reasons.
Wang Meifeng, a 50-year-old owner of a restaurant who traveled from Heilongjiang to Sanya 10 years ago, told The Time Weekly her family moved to Sanya mainly because the cold, dry climate and the smog were affecting their health. At that time, her niece suffered from asthma and Wang suffered from hypertension.
"Many friends told me the climate was pleasant here."
After settling in the city and buying several apartments, she and her brother invited their parents to Sanya during the winters. They usually fly back home to Northeast China in April or May.
According to statistics from a Sanya association for the elderly, by November 2014 there were nearly 400,000 senior citizens in Sanya who came from elsewhere. Of these, half are from Harbin.
Rising prices
Tourism real estate has benefitted the most from this mass migration. Unlike house buyers in other cities, buyers in Hainan, particularly Sanya, are mostly tourists.
While Xia originally bought homes in Sanya for his health, his business background caused him to go even further. After the government announced plans to develop Hainan into an international tourism island, the prices of his houses doubled. Seeing a commercial opportunity, he helped his relatives pick houses to buy.
According to The Time Weekly, during the first half of the year in Hainan after the announcement, people from outside Hainan bought 6,366 commercial flats, accounting for 85.5 percent of total sales. According to statistics from the Hainan Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, 87 percent of home owners are not originally from Hainan.
Looking at one second-tier seaview community in Sanya, among the 234 apartments sold during the first half of this year, 60 percent were sold to buyers from Northeast China, a real estate agent told The Time Weekly. Most of these buyers paid for the houses in full since they didn't want to deal with the red tape involved in paying mortgages with the long distance between Northeast China and Hainan involved.
Housing prices, as well as rental prices, have been climbing, in turn making Sanya an increasingly expensive city in which to live. According to an index issued by the China Index Academy in April of 2014, housing prices for Sanya reached as high as 24,726 yuan ($3,828) per square meter, 6,200 yuan higher than prices in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, as quoted by ELLENMEN. In January of 2014, the average rent in Sanya reached 100.42 yuan a month per square meter, surpassing Beijing as the most expensive city in China.
Living in this island paradise is no longer without worry. Sky-high housing prices are putting people who want to move to Sanya under great pressure. For Wang, she is worried about finding schools for her grandchildren.
Although she has been living in Sanya for 10 years, she still doesn't have a hukou, or resident permit, in the city yet. She was upset to learn that her brother had to bribe the right people to get his daughter into local primary and middle schools. Now her son is having a child.
"We can bribe our way into primary and middle school, but what about the college examinations?" she told The Time Weekly. Without a hukou her grandson will be unable to take the exams in Hainan.
This is probably a common worry for the 200,000 registered floating population in Sanya since in 2008 the Hainan government announced that it would no longer give hukou to people who buy houses.
Medical services are another problem. Compared to other cities, Sanya has decent medical facilities. For Xia, however, they are far from satisfactory for someone from Northeast China. Every October, many retirees have to return to their hometowns for treatment of minor illnesses. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases are common among people from the north, but since Sanya locals rarely come down with these diseases local hospitals have limited experience dealing with them.
