The bikini brigade: Chinese women take up surfing and flock to Hainan to ride the waves
- At surf schools in Hainan the clientele is mostly female. Some surf fans fly in for weekends riding the waves, others have upped sticks and moved to the island
- Actor Wang Yibo learning to surf for a reality-TV show raised the sport’s profile in China, as do social media posts of toned young women on their boards
Close to foam-flecked rocks, where the big waves roar and crash, a posse of China’s elite surfers are in action, performing dizzyingly complex twists, turns and flips on their short boards.
Slightly further down the beach, groups of athletic young women catch gentler waves, hollering with delight when they manage to stand up and gently guide their long boards towards the shore.
This scene plays out daily at Shimei Bay, on Hainan island, where serious wave riders and neophyte surfers share ocean space. In normal times the bay – and other surf spots – are quiet during the smaller-wave months of summer. But the Covid-19 pandemic has ensured a year-round tourism bonanza for Hainan, with a huge boom in surfing, particularly among young women.
Women make up almost three-quarters of the clientele at surf schools run by Justin Tian. A reality-television show featuring heartthrob actor Wang Yibo being coached by Tian gave the surf school bookings a boost, as does the social-media-friendly nature of the sport.
A surfing shot on Weibo or WeChat – the Chinese equivalents of Twitter and WhatsApp – preferably in a colourful bikini, is an ineffably cool image, one that shows your followers that you are sporty, skilled, toned and adventurous.
