Chinese beachgoers don Face-kini to protect themselves from the sunlight
In China, it’s the height of the tourist season for Qingdao’s famed beaches.
Many of the town’s visitors want to enjoy the sand and water, they’re not so wild about sunbathing, so the new trend is the face-kini, a sort of light cloth version of a ski mask.
Often paired with a long-sleeved shirt, the face-kini reportedly costs from $2.40 to $4; many residents simply make their own, out of old clothes. But observers could be forgiven for thinking they’ve stumbled onto a vacation community for superheroes in Qingdao, a city across the East China Sea from South Korea.
In many cultures, a tan doesn’t imply health and leisure, as it often does in Western advertising.
Instead, it’s seen as a connection to outdoor work, and the peasantry. Preserving one’s pale skin, the thinking goes, implies that you lead a pampered, successful life.
While the Free Pussy Riot protesters don similar garb, the Chinese wear Face-kinis to shield themselves from the sunlight photo/gaelx
