Butt cheeks bared, Hanoi’s ragtag nudist club ignore the chilly weather to do their daily exercises — some swim, some jog, one performs military drills — stripping off and defying norms in the conservative communist nation.
Tucked behind banana trees on the banks of the city’s Red River, the men meet to shed their clothes, and modesty, for a cheeky dip, a game of chess, or yoga headstands in the buff — which they believe comes with health benefits.
“It’s important for us to come here, because we want to be healthy, we call ourselves addicts,” said Nguyen Tuan Nghia, a 43-year-old self-taught Buddhist who has been disrobing at the meeting spot for 18 years.
Photo: AFP
For Nghia, who recently embraced Protestantism, getting naked is his way to return to infancy, making him feel like he was just “given birth [to] by Jesus or Buddha.”
Most of them have straightlaced day jobs as civil servants, journalists, or even state officials. Many come every day — a temperature of 18°C did not keep a few dozen skinny-dippers out of the water on a recent afternoon, although many warm up over hot tea by the fire.
They say shedding their clothes makes them feel uninhibited, a rare chance to stray from the pack in the one-party state where social compliance and strict norms are taught from a young age.
“I feel relaxed ... and it’s fun. I feel at ease when I come here; I exercise and it makes me feel better when I return to my day job,” 23-year-old vendor Nguyen Hoang Duong told reporters, wearing nothing but an army green cap.
Although public nudity remains taboo in much of Asia, nudist swimming clubs have popped up in conservative China, and tourist-haven Thailand boasts several “naturalist” retreats mostly for foreigners, while public bathhouses have long been popular across Japan and South Korea.
However, nudist bathing and beach-going is rare in Vietnam, where porn is banned and communist propaganda posters are ubiquitous. Nudity in art, photography, film and dance is subject to strict censorship by eagle-eyed authorities, although some exhibitions featuring nudes have been given the green light in recent months.
None of this phases the men at Hanoi’s nudist enclave, who also brush aside concerns that the Red River might not be clean enough for swimming. They are not worried by rising levels of trash on the river’s edge, nor do they pay much attention to reports about polluted runoff from nearby factories.
“We’ve never had any skin disease or feel itchy at all, we think it’s quite clean here,” 67-year-old Le Duc Lam said, adding that his own health has improved after swimming in the river, which flows from southern China to the South China Sea east of Hanoi.
For Lam, the skinny dipping sessions under the 115-year-old Long Bien Bridge, today buzzing with motorbikes, are also a chance to escape the commotion of the fast-growing capital and have a bit of fun with friends.
His group is one of a handful that meet in different spots along the waterway, including one for women to swim in the buff.
Some hope the trend will catch on.
“Vietnamese people should be more open when they talk about nudist bathing. We shouldn’t be so modest about it like in the past,” naked bather Nguyen Thi Thuy said, wearing nothing but the hair on her head.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
RSS