Chinese Naturism

May 11, 2014 by Staff

I’ve picked this story up from the internet, wherein Chinese naturists at Hainan (the country’s only naturist beach) have been ordered to cover up because it was in contravention to Communist ideals. As the author, correctly, picks up, it’s not something that Karl Marx would have mentioned in The Communist Manifesto. And, as the author also correctly identifies, this will have much less to do with Communism as it will with Confucianism which historically didn’t, apparently (I don’t know enough to make any sort of informed judgement) celebrate the human body int he way that, say, the Ancient Greeks did.

Chinese naturists on Hainan island

As with yesterday’s story about Boko Haram, this is another of those where ‘the authorities’, a fun-less minority who dare to impose their will on a less zealous population, and twist the words of whatever may be said in tomes about the particular belief system they hold (a very screwed up vision of Islam, from the leaders of Boko Haram, a very screwed up vision of Communism from the Chinese authorities). But then, it doesn’t have so much to do with sacred or political belief systems anyway. No, instead I think that something like naturism in China, or education in Nigeria, challenges a desire to see a lack of personal freedoms. Education will free you, free your soul. Naturism will free you, free your soul and body.

And for those who want to keep an iron grip on a population, freedom, of deed or thought, is a very dangerous thing indeed.

SLN has an almost global reach. The only locations where our -let’s be honest here- almost irrelevant existence can’t be consumed for entertainment purposes are those locations where zealots, in either the arenas of the secular or political, exercise power over their populations. China, parts of the Middle East and Central/Western Africa remain closed to us (with the likelihood being that it’s internet coverage in Africa that prevents us, or anyone else, from beaming ideas into those countries). We’ve had a couple of hundred views from Iraq, for goodness sake!

It rather seems -and I’m certainly not setting SLN up as the yardstick by which this should be measured, more of SLN’s capacity to reach an audience reflecting internet availability in a general sense- it seems ideas, information and communication are simply too dangerous for Iran and China to fathom. In a small sense, naturism frees us. We are quite regimented in life, even in ‘the west’, and it’s somehow liberating to cast off our cares with our clothes and -as long as we’re sensible in the sun- benefit from exposure to it. We feel better, probably exercise more, eat better, release endorphins and come come relaxed and refreshed. Just imagine if a population were to begin casting off its clothes and, with it, the shackles of communism?

Ella.

She says…….ssssshhhh!!!!

January 31, 2014 by Staff

Plans for everyone!!!!!

Chinese New Year on the 31st, today. And we’re celebrating it on SLN.

Three Asian avatars, all ex-pat Chinese, are celebrating with us in SLN style, and letting us know what Chinese New Year, and being Chinese in SL, means to them.

Chinese New year is on January 31st, Friday week, so stay tuned for posts relating to the event. We have plans for everyone! Or, at least, every SLN reader!

Barbara

Xiu: Born in Hong Kong, now living in England, says that she feels ‘decreasingly Chinese’. Arriving in London after Hong Kong was returned to the Chinese from British rule, she admits she felt Chinese when she arrived ‘but with a sense of Britain and being British about me’. (Hong Kong was previously a British colony). ‘I spoke English’, she laughs, ‘but when I arrived it was mostly like a foreign language because I didn’t understand the accents’.

Fifteen years on, she says her sense of being Chinese has diminished greatly. ‘I was schooled in England, my friends are English, and my culture is western rather than Chinese. I really only plug into Chinese culture at New Year, and that’s because I see it as a sense of spectacle, not because it’s something that pulls my heart strings. I’m going to grow old and die looking Chinese, but without ever feeling Chinese’.

Xiu takes in a fireworks display in SL while…

…Hong Kong’s skyline is lit up with ‘the real thing’

For Zhuo, it’s a different tale. Born in Holland, she says she feels ‘100% Chinese, and I adore the culture. I see it as my country, and I still hope to travel, freely, to the village where my parents grew up, some day. I don’t agree with the politics and the lack of personal freedoms. But I think that China will become the global world economy in the 21st century. Of course there will be troubles along the way. People will eventually take issue with a small, self-serving, self-styled elite. It will be interesting to witness a shift to democracy, and how China reacts to an influx of western culture, right across the country rather than in pockets. My feeling is that it may result in simply another small, self-serving, self-styled elite anyway. Not so different from the political classes of the west. But an openness that sees Christianity or Islam seep in or variety on television, clothes stores, western values, will be interesting. There’s a Chinese proverb, ‘may you live in interesting times’. I think for the remainder of this century, in the context of China, we shall all live in interesting times’.

Zhuo practices Chinese calligrapy in SL, and examines artefacts from the Ming dynasty.

Finally, Fu Kang, born in the US and who admits to using the name ‘Ken’ in everyday life, is somewhere in between. ‘I’m American, end of. But I still have great admiration for the way my great-grandparents arrived in San Francisco with only the clothes on their backs and had improved their lot to an extent that my Dad went to university and so did I and my sister. China couldn’t give our family that. America did. I decided on a Chinese name for SL just as a reference to my great grandparents. Later I adopted a ‘Chinese look’. But that’s the extent of me being Chinese. I don’t hang out at Chinese sims hoping to feel affinity with a few Chinese people. In fact, I don’t ever recall visiting a Chinese sim prior to doing these photos. I hang out at SL dances or whatever. The name is just an ice-breaker. Once I get chatting, the emphasis is usually on San Francisco more than it is China or the Chinese’.

恭賀新禧!

January 30, 2014 by Staff

恭賀新禧! as it is in Chinese, or ‘Happy New Year!’ in English.

Yes, the 31st is the Chinese New Year, and we enter ‘the year of the horse’.

We don’t have many Chinese readers (China is one of the few nations on earth that SLN have never got into, according to our wordpress stats) but we’ve made the acquaintanace of a few ex-pats (exclusively Hong Kong residents). Anyway, tomorrow night, all things being equal, we’ll be doing a special ‘Chinese New Yar’ post in celebration of, and in support of, our friends in China, and friends from China.

We look forward to the day when China opens its doors to the internet, to SL and to SLN.

The family Keng will be out for dinner, in a local Chinese restaurant, tomorrow night, so maybe not a great evening for me to be around SL, but I do wish my friends a ‘Happy New Year of the Horse’ on the 31st.

In the meantime, here’s a few photos of one of out Chinese friends, Zhuo, out and about in SL.

Ella