‘Facekini’-Wearing Chinese Stand Up for the Right to Bare Nothing

Before “burkinis” made global headlines, there was China’s “facekini.”

The colorful, full-face mask is still around, on view at crowded Chinese beaches this summer and for sale online.

It came onto the radar of Western news organizations in the summer of 2012. The New York Times published a front-page story by Dan Levin on the phenomenon, with striking photographs from the coastal town of Qingdao by Sim Chi Yin.

In recent days, people on Twitter and other social media platforms have mocked the banning of burkinis by dozens of French beachside towns by asking what French officials would do if Chinese beachgoers showed up wearing facekinis. The controversy in France over the banning of the burkini, popular with some Muslim women, by at least 30 French municipalities, many on the Riviera, has continued to rage, and a French high court last Friday overturned one town’s ban.

On va leur dire quoi aux touristes chinois qui vont sortir leur cagoule pour ne pas bronzer? #facekini #burkini pic.twitter.com/U4TYxFeU99

— Maître Germaine (@MaitreGermaine) Aug. 18, 2016

Chinese beachgoing women don the facekini to shield themselves from the sun. In some Asian countries, not only do many women fear wrinkles caused by ultraviolet rays, but they also want to be as pale as possible. Skin-whitening creams are popular in Japan, South Korea and Thailand, for example.

Full-body suits and facekinis are worn as protection against ultraviolet rays, algae and jellyfish stings. Credit Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Chinese women who wear facekinis also sometimes wear bathing suits that cover their entire torsos and arms, similar to the burkini and to the wet suits common among surfers.

In 2012 at Qingdao, where the facekini is most ubiquitous, one woman wearing a mask, Yao Wenhua, 58, told The Times, “I’m afraid of getting dark.”

“A woman should always have fair skin,” she added. “Otherwise people will think you’re a peasant.”

As startling as they may seem in photographs, facekinis are familiar in China. But what about in France? How would the same officials and police officers who have forced burkini-clad Muslim women off beaches react to this Chinese outfit?

The burkini ban has gotten a range of reactions from Chinese on social media, but it is not a big topic of conversation.