Chinese Beach Volleyball Babies

When Chinese spectators go to watch beach volleyball in the Chaoyang Beach Volleyball court, they might be pleasingly or offensively surprised that Chinese girls in bikinis are going to dance in front of audiences whenever there is a break. These girls are called Shatan Baobei (beach babies), a term that imply that these girls are childlike, innocent and immature. The Chinese beach babies also challenge the traditional notion of beauty that equates beautiful with light skin. One Chinese saying states, " One whiteness can disguise one hundred ugly point."

Beach babies have been widely reported in Chinese media, even though they will probably not appear on the TV screen in the Games' time for advertising will fill out the time slots for break. In the last few days, quite a few Western journalists came here to shoot Chinese beach babies.

What is interesting is that in last year's test events, there were boy cheerleaders who were called yangguang nanhai (sunshine boys). They were received well by the audiences. This year, for whatever reason, only girl cheerleaders will be there. See below a few photos of beach babies.

Read more HuffPost coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games

Comments

[GhiaccioPronto]

Beach volleyball exists only for prurient interest and the profit it generates, this is official IOC policy. You cannot blame China for that, It should not be an Olympic sport. Meanwhile the IOC keeps out Wushu which has a 1000 year history.

[BlueTongue]

The perversity of the repressive governments of the world always oozes out somewhere...