Tag Archives: danxiashan

The China Sex Museum at Danxiashan

Further to last month’s post about the Danxiashan national park in Guangdong, it’s worth mentioning that many of the rock formations bear uncanny resemblances to human sexual organs. (I have no photos of those, but Wikipedia does). Ancient Confucians probably avoided the area for these reasons, and it’s still very much off the beaten track, but modern China has few sex taboos and the local authorities have now erected — ahem — noticeboards explaining these interpretations of the sandstone monoliths.

“From a distance, it looks very much like a male genital!” exclaims a sign near the 28-metre Yangyuan Stone, abandoning the euphemistic language we have come to expect from Chinese literature. But it does, and there’s a complementary Yinyuan Cave nearby which does a good impression of the female anatomy.

Outside the park’s main entrance, then, there’s some logic to the existence of the China Sex Museum, which displays a collection of Chinese kama sutra texts, herbal aphrodisiacs, erotic jade carvings, Qing-dynasty sex toys and so on. The tittering girls at reception wouldn’t let me take photos of their explicit exhibits, but here are some pictures of the sculpture outside the museum. You get the idea.

Chongqing’s “Love Land” sex theme park was demolished earlier this year, so if you want to learn more about Chinese attitudes to sex throughout the ages, just take the train up to Shaoguan.

Chinglish in the mountains

IMG_4076Hiking recently in Shaoguan, in northern Guangdong, I was grateful for the handy suggestions offered by the local authorities, and I fell down the hillside paying the proper attention to health and safety.

The Danxiashan region of the province is a weird landscape of forest punctuated by dramatic red sandstone formations and divided by meandering rivers. Some of the hilltops are dotted with shrines, fountains and old Zen Buddhist temples. It’s been declared a national nature reserve but has not received the fame accorded to Guilin — a good thing probably, since you can enjoy the peace and natural beauty without the nuisance of tour groups.

There is a cable car up to the peak with the best view, but it’s relatively expensive and all the locals choose to take the steps. And why not? As long as they all slip with care, of course.