Welcome to China’s Florida: Sun, Sand and Retired Snowbirds<br />9, 2017<br />SANYA, China — While the white-sand beaches and five-star international resorts are meant to be the main attraction, for the hundreds of<br />thousands of Chinese retirees who descend upon this tropical city every winter, dancing on the seaside boardwalk is often the real draw.<br />On a recent morning, more than 60 retirees gathered together in the community recreation room to rehearse sentimental favorites like "Onwards, Chinese Communist Party"<br />and more recent hits like "Together Build the Chinese Dream." Accompanying the chorus was a boisterous band of graying musicians, including a piccoloist and an electric guitarist.<br />Chinese said that Once you retire and you’ve saved up enough money, you don’t want to go back to living in the big cities,<br />Every winter for the past 13 years, Ms. Xu, a retired airline worker,<br />and Maomao have left their home in the frigid northeastern city of Harbin to stay in Sanya.<br />Mr. Zhao said that Before, we thought retired life would be very dull, just sitting on little stools in the sun and shriveling up and growing old,<br />Several months ago, Wen Zhiguo, manager of a local hotel<br />that caters to aging snowbirds, was forced to move to the outskirts of the city after the local government tore down his seaside facilities.<br />Several years ago, the local government began razing large tracts of housing in the city, in what many<br />see as an ongoing effort to drive out the often frugal snowbirds by denying them places to rent.<br />Like Ms. Xu and Maomao, more than half of the nearly 400,000 retired snowbirds who flock to Sanya every year are said to hail from China’s northeast.
