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About 300 days of sunshine a year, an average of 25 degrees Celsius in the shade, sandy white beaches that stretch for kilometers, orchids and coconut palms. Sounds like Hawaii? It is Hainan Island, at the southernmost tip of the People’s Republic of China in the South China Sea. The comparison to Hawaii is not too far-fetched, though.

First, Hainan’s inhabitants like to compare their isle to the well-known group of US islands in the Pacific. Second, the climates are similar. Third, both are mass tourism destinations. Hainan received some six million visitors in 2008.

Fourth, the Hawaiian capital Honolulu resembles Sanya, the tourist center on Hainan’s southern coast. Sanya has beachfront high-rise buildings, a lot of traffic and numerous hotels and fast-food restaurants.

Fifth, Hainan’s Hawaii-worship extends to imitating Hawaii’s “aloha shirts.” Practically all Chinese tourists on Hainan buy one of the colorful garments, even though they are produced in a Chinese textile factory somewhere else.

The Chinese hardly care if the shirts are made locally or not. The main thing is that they have a holiday look.

Sixth, both Hawaii and Hainan are largely populated by immigrants. Their indigenous peoples have long been in the minority. Tourists interested in Hawaii’s Polynesian culture are sent to folkloric hula shows. If you want an idea of how life once was on Hainan, you have to visit the Li people in the island’s interior. There they still live in huts made of rice straw and hunt with bows and arrows.

One big difference between Hainan and Hawaii is immediately evident, though. While Hawaii’s beaches are often crowded, Hainan’s are amazingly empty.

Too little sand is not the reason. Although most Chinese tourists on Hainan book a beach holiday, they neither want to swim in the sea nor sunbathe.

Instead, they generally prefer to stroll with a sunshade. At most, they go into water just up to their knees.

Hainan’s capital, Haikou, lies on the northern coast and plays only a minor role in tourism. Most visitors head south to the area around Sanya, where there is one picturesque bay after another — and one hotel after another.

The recent construction boom was so big that Sanya has the greatest concentration of five-star hotels in all of China.

Tourists not wishing to spend their whole holiday on the beach pass the time in Sanya with shopping and eating.

The local speciality is deep-fried silkworms. The city’s principal place of interest is Luhuitou Park, a grassy hill topped by a sculpture of a deer turning its head.

More interesting than the sculpture itself is the behavior of courting Chinese couples around it: the deer is regarded as a good-luck charm for lovers.

Just outside Sanya, the newly built Nanshan Temple with its 108-meter-high Buddha statue draws a lot of tourists.

The restaurant next door serves vegetarian fare with tofu made to look like meat dishes.

Hainan’s main attraction is the End of the Earth, a beach on the southern coast dotted with large round boulders.

The reason for the name is that Hainan was an outpost of the Middle Kingdom and a place of exile and imprisonment about 1,000 years ago. Those who lived there were cut off from civilization.

The End of the World is bustling these days. Chinese tourist descend on it in large numbers, buy souvenirs and ice pops, stare at the beach, the boulders and occasional Western tourists.

Before they go, they pose for the obligatory photograph in an aloha shirt. DPA