The man in the hammock is startled to see me bike past him. He fumbles his way to a sitting position and calls after me to stop. "I follow you on Douyin!"

The previous night's video is making decent traction. Nothing crazy popular but a fair few views and interactions and the foothold it has is running strong among nearby viewers so I'm not exactly what you'd call suprised by a "hey! I know you."

At least, I'm not surprised until he messages me and I notice his Top Fan Badge. To be a Top Fan, you have to have followed me for at least a month and liked or commented on no less than half of the videos I've shared during that time period.

Not counting people who got their Top Fan status after I met them¹, this may be the first time I've met a Top Fan, and among the explaining why I hadn't announced my being in town to anyone willing to take me out to dinner and why wanghong (especially of the female persuasion) don't tend to make advance announcements² about where they are going, I didn't even realize it until long after I'd left him to his hammock.

Today is a day where the most notable occurrence (or perhaps I should say occurrences) is the localized "can't understand basic communication" filter that seems to be getting applied to everything I say.

The most frustrating is the friend of a friend. On top of his just being a pretty cool guy³, my friend—our mutual friend—is someone whom I owe a lot of goodwill to, so I can't just tell this guy to take his Summer Camp idea and shove it where the sun don't shine, but the many various ways which I have to explain "can't do that, it's illegal," "nope, also illegal" and "what part of illegal⁴ did you not understand?" stretches the phone call to 18 minutes.

The most amusing is the hotel named Sheraton. The town its located in is part of my decision tree and I like staying at places named Marriott or Sheraton⁵. However, and like the last time this trip where I had such an option, I can't book online.

- Hi
- Hello
- Is this a hotel?
- Yes.
- How much are your rooms?
- Rooms? I don't understand.
- Yes. You are a hotel, right?
- We are a hotel.
- So, how much is a room for the night?
- How many people?
- One room. How much is one room?
- You want a room?
- I want to know how much a room costs.
- When will you get here?
- I might not go to your hotel. I need to know how much a room costs before I make my decision.
- Why are you calling if you aren't coming?
- I just need to know how much a room costs.
- At our hotel?
- Yes. Please tell me the cost of a room.
- 80y

Add in the fellow at the gas station convenience store who buys me a cold water from the fridge and who repeatedly re-asks questions I've already answered and I'm seriously thinking the problem is me.

My broken babelfish of a day culminates with a booked and paid for family owned hotel whose Front Desk⁶ is having a mind blown experience over the concept of my having paid for the room before I got there, and a daughter-in-law who calls during the process of the Front Desk and her equally elderly husband doing a spot on job of following the instructions provided over WeChat (apparently by the police) on how to register to me to say "gosh, so sorry, but we oversold and someone else has your room, and I'll give you a refund so even though it's 90 minutes past sunset and raining why don't you just fuck off to somewhere else".

Bitch probably should have tried doing that before her father-in-law gave me the keycard for my room. I mean, it still wouldn't have worked but it would have been a less spectacular failure on her part.

--

¹ Chinese Boyfriend, for example.

² So far, all of the people who have figured out where I was likely to be on the basis of where I had been and who went looking for me have been good people. However... and with echoes of the Incident once again rearing their ugly head, it's riskier than I'm comfortable with.

³ As long as you aren't dating him. But none of us are, and his talent for picking up women waaaay out of his league and then ignoring and mistreating them until they dump him has resulted in a bunch of really cool Chinese ladies joining our social circles.

⁴ Foreigners may only work for the employer who sponsors their residence permit. They may not work part time for other employers. If they are a student and they don't have a work/study permit that was approved by Exit & Entry, they can't work. If they are on a Tourist visa, a Business visa or have entered via the visa-free entry policy for visitors coming to Hainan, they are not legally allowed to work. If you pay them in cash, in foreign currency, or outside the country, it's still work which they are not legally allowed to do. Even if they are "volunteers" getting room and board and a small stipend, it's still work and still not legal 

⁵ The Ikea Hotel was a complete accident realized only after checking out.

⁶ Admittedly, she was easily in her late 60s