Kit off

Li Jun, the general manager of the Yuping Mountain Scenic Spot, refers to it as “a form of art”. He’s talking about nude bathing. Li’s bathhouse has just reopened seven years after local authorities in Sichuan pulled the plug on his ‘artistic’ venture for disrespecting “spiritual civilisation”. Bathing ‘au naturel’ is not illegal in China but, according to the China Daily, it remains a taboo area. Little wonder that some netizens regard Yuping’s bathhouse as a “disgrace to social ethics” and “visual pollution”. Li counters that it allows tourists the “pleasure of intimate contact with nature”. He is not alone in his enthusiasm. One fan is Fang Gang, an academic at the Beijing Forestry University. “Nude bathing is a way of life,” he comments.

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