'Starry' village
In Haikou’s Meilan district, near Dongzhai Harbor is a village called Xinghui, which means "starry".
About 400 years ago a violent earthquake shook Dongzhai Harbor and 72 villages sank into the sea — forming the country’s only undersea village cluster. As the tide retreats, relics from the village appear like stone coffins.
Xinghui villagers have been fishermen for generations and worshipped the goddess Mazu. Nowadays, thanks to tourism, they have become rich after opening seafood restaurants.
Xinghui is also known for the longevity of its people, such as the 95-year-old Liu Jinmei. Her husband died when she was 27 and she raised her two children on her own. Her son works in the city and her daughter got married in France.
Liu keeps busy by running a guesthouse for tourists who visit the undersea village and "sea forest" — a 56-square-km mangrove swamp, which became a national reserve in 1980.
Tang Nanxing, 60, head of Xinghui village and the only remaining fisherman, says that in the 1950s, there was more than 10,000 hectares of mangrove in Dongzhai Harbor, a habitat for more than 25 kinds of plants and endangered birds like black-faced spoonbills.
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