Hainan island officials hand out leaflets to visitors

Leaflets urging tourists to stop nude swimming and sunbathing in public places were issued by authorities on the island of Sanya, Hainan province on Thursday.

Staff members from the Sanya City Administrative Law Enforcement Bureau handed out leaflets at Dadonghai beach at the resort city previously better known for its warm winter weather and waters.

The leaflet activity came after Chinese Web users posted stories about the nude swimmers at the beach, prompting others users to decry their behavior.

People have been swimming and sunbathing nude at Dadonghai beach for many years, a man surnamed Zhou told the China News Service (CNS) on Thursday. Most come from northern China, he said.

Sometimes he saw 100 to 200 people swimming and sunbathing nude at the beach. He dared not go near the beach when he takes a walk with his wife and daughter, the man said. Some female tourists had looked embarrassed when they saw the scene, he said.

"Every family has old and young members," Zhou told the CNS. "Nude swimming and sunbathing on the beach violates good custom. I hope local authorities completely ban this kind of behavior."

On Thursday morning, no one swam or sun-bathed nude at the beach. Some tourists requested the authorities allocate a special area for nude bathers. By Thursday afternoon after staff left, about 10 tourists were swimming and sunbathing nude at the beach, the CNS reported.

Sanya is not the first beach to experience nudity. China has three nude beaches according to china.com.cn: Chongqing, Shandao beach on the Heilongjiang River and another named known only to the portal as "Chinese plateau nude beach."

Public nudity is rare but hardly unknown in China.

In August 2011 two foreign women swam nude at a beach in Xiamen, Fujian province. Residents photographed the women and uploaded their images to the Internet, Fujian-based news portal taihainet.com reported.

With a razor blade in his mouth, a foreign man sat at a crossroads in Haikou, Hainan Province in September 2013. He peeled off his clothes. His behavior attracted crowds and caused a traffic jam, people.com.cn reported.

A nude man carrying a cross or an inflatable doll ran or rode a bicycle in Beijing at night in May 2013, winning him overnight fame.

The man, Li Binyuan, an art graduate, said on his Weibo he would never repeat his naked naughtiness.

Nudism advocate Fang Gang, a teacher of psychology at Beijing Forestry University, told the International Herald Leader in an earlier report that most nudists he knew in China just want to be close to nature.

He had surveyed more than 100 and found most who liked going nude in the wild were young and male. Only 10 percent were women.

A person who intentionally exposes his or her body in a public place, if the circumstances are abominable, shall be detained for not less than five days but not more than 10 days, according to the Law on Penalties for Administration of Public Security.