Haikou's arcade streets, and the all-day teahouses beneath their 1930s ceilings

Haikou's old town is the part of Hainan that has nothing to do with the beach. Five or six streets of arcaded shophouses stand a few blocks back from the harbour, built through the 1920s and 1930s with money sent home by families working in Southeast Asia. The ground floors are still doing business, mostly the unglamorous kind.

What the arcade is actually for

The buildings are qilou (骑楼), riding houses: the upper storeys ride out over the pavement on columns, leaving a covered walkway underneath. In a city that spends most of the year under either hard sun or hard rain, this is less an architectural flourish than a public utility. You can cross Zhongshan Road, Bo'ai Road and Shuixiangkou without stepping into weather once.

Look up while you walk. The facades borrow from wherever the money came from, with plasterwork learned in Penang and Singapore, arched windows, and ventilation holes cut in the shape of coins and bats. Zhongshan Road has been repainted and pedestrianised. Turn one block into Xinhua Road or Datong Road, where restoration has not reached, and the same buildings carry air-conditioning units, hardware shops and laundry hung off the second floor.

Laoba tea, and the price of a chair

Under the arcades are the teahouses locals call laoba cha (老爸茶), old dad tea. Plastic stools, ceiling fans, a pot that costs single-digit yuan and gets topped with hot water for as long as you stay. The food is small and sweet: yiba (薏粑), a glutinous parcel steamed in leaf, and coconut milk served over shaved ice. Nobody hurries, and nobody is waiting for your table.

The tea is the rent on the chair, and the chair is the point.

Going

The quarter sits near the old ferry piers, a short taxi from either railway station. Walk it before nine in the morning or after four, when the light comes in sideways under the columns and the restored stretch has emptied of tour groups. A small Tianhou temple sits mid-block on Zhongshan Road, open, unticketed, and used.

骑楼的二楼骑在人行道上，所以廊下终年有阴凉。