PHUKET — Patong Beach in Phuket, Thailand, celebrated a major milestone this week when 32-year-old schoolteacher Echo Zhang from Shanghai became the millionth mainland Chinese tourist to skirt the edges of Patong’s famed crystalline shoreline without dipping any part of her body into the water.
As Ms. Zhang was navigating the narrow precipice between sand and potential skin touchdown, she was met by Anil Boomarayan of the Phuket Tourism Board, who congratulated her on flying thousands of miles for a once-in-a-lifetime beach vacation only to march up and down a 100-metre stretch of sand for five straight days with her best friends, posing for at least 300 selfies of various low-vert joy jumps.
“What a wonderful time to be enjoying everything Phuket beach has to offer!” Boomarayan said as he handed Zhang a 24-pack of infant milk formula, which she was expected to smuggle back to Shanghai and sell on the black market, reaping a heavy profit.
Infant formula is highly prized in the mainland for its near miraculous power to transform the ungainliest baby into a pillar of strength and paragon of Confucian virtue, as opposed to regular mother’s milk, which is widely thought to be tainted by Western values and taste like cheese. Zhang said she would probably use the proceeds from the sale of the infant formula as a down payment on a three-bedroom villa in Shanghai’s Huangpu District, adding that she never expected that her simple beach holiday would turn into an earnings bonanza.
“Imagine if you can — you come to this exotic place with your three best friends expecting nothing more than a few nights out eating the meat and gall bladders of some endangered species at the Grand Hunan Restaurant that only the Chinese peoples can enjoy, when they say you are a big winner!” Zhang exclaimed. “Although I do not feel poorly for not going into the water — after all, the Shanghai doctors I talked to before my holiday recommended I remain fully clothed while on the beach so that I do not contract skin brownness or experience what Westerners call a ‘spontaneous moment’ that could leave me dizzy — all the other things I have enjoyed, especially being in constant contact with my best friends, bank and shopping platform through WeChat, QQ, Alipay, Baidu and Taobao!”
Zhang also said she may save some of the infant milk formula rather than selling all of it in case she some day meets the man of her dreams, marries and becomes pregnant. “Of course, should this happen it will take nothing away from the wonderful memories I shared with my friends on Patong Beach,” she said. “Although I have heard that some women in the motherland organically produce milk after they have a child without the help of herbal medications or a smartphone, I think I would rather count on my free tins of Lee’s Milky Solution” — which is also used a skin lightening cream in South Korea — “to ensure my child grows into the Little Emperor he is meant to be.”