Shiho Fukada for The New York Times
Students taking a lesson at Lolan Pole Dancing School in Beijing. Theschool has five studios and plans to open six more this year.
BEIJING — Clad in knee-high leather boots, spandex shorts and asports bra, Xiao Yan struck a pose two feet off the ground, her headglistening with sweat and her arms straining as she suspended herselffrom a vertical pole.
“Keeping your grip is the hardest part,” she said. “It’s really easy to slide downward.”
Ms. Xiao, 26, who works as a supermarket manager, is one of a growingnumber of women experimenting with China’s newest, and mostcontroversial, fitness activity: pole dancing.
“I used to take anormal aerobics class, but it was boring and monotonous,” Ms. Xiaosaid. “So I tried out pole dancing. It’s a really social activity. I’vemet a lot of girls here who I’m now close friends with. And I like thatit makes me feel sexy.”
A nightclub activity mostly consideredthe domain of strippers in the United States, pole dancing — but withclothes kept on — is nudging its way into the mainstream Chineseexercise market, with increasing numbers of gyms and dance schoolsoffering classes.
The woman who claims to have brought poledancing to China, Luo Lan, 39, is from Yichun, a small town in JiangxiProvince in southeastern China. Her parents teach physics at theuniversity level.
“I’m not good at science like my parents. I’m the black sheep of my family, in that sense,” she said.
Ms. Luo said she struggled in 20 different occupations — secretary,saleswoman, restaurateur and translator among them — before deciding totake a break. She traveled to Paris in 2006 for vacation. It was therethat she first saw pole dancing.
“I wandered into a pub, and there was a woman dancing on the stage,” she said. “I thought it was beautiful.”
Ms. Luo, who quickly discovered that pole dancing for fitness waspopular in America, realized that if she could take away the shadieraspects of the erotic dance and repackage it into an activity moreacceptable to mainstream Chinese women, she might create a Chinesefitness revolution. Here was an exercise that would allow women to stayfit and express their sexuality with an unprecedented degree ofopenness and freedom.
But she remained keenly aware of thechallenges in a society where traditional values dictate that women beloyal, faithful and modestly dressed.
Upon her return toBeijing, Ms. Luo invested a little under $3,000 of her savings to startthe Lolan Pole Dancing School. She placed advertisements in a lifestylenewspaper and called friends to get the word out.
Slowly, young women trickled in to take a look.
“People here have never seen a pole dance, and for that reason theydon’t associate it with stripping or women of ill repute,” Ms. Luosaid. “I knew if I could give people a positive first impression ofthis as a clean, fun, social activity, people wouldn’t just accept it,they’d embrace it.”
Before long, Ms. Luo was contacted byseveral magazines. In March 2008, Hunan Television, a nationallybroadcast network, invited her and a group of her students to performon a talk show.
“Most of the people in the audience had no ideawhat this was,” said Hu Jing, 24, an instructor at the Lolan School.“They just thought it was fun and clapped afterward.”
Since thebroadcast, pole dancing for fitness has spread through China. Theschool now has five studios with plans to open six more this year. Arival pole dancing school, Hua Ling, opened half a year after the LolanSchool.
Pole dancing’s move onto the fitness scene, however, hasbeen a rocky one. Many Chinese, who disapprove of its sexual movements,consider it unruly and licentious.
“Five years ago, thiswouldn’t have been permitted,” said Zhang Jian, 30, a manager in aninterior design firm. “I think this is just a fad, and I don’t thinkit’s appropriate for women.”
Ms. Luo said she had receivedprank calls and plenty of criticism. “I’ve been contacted by manypeople who don’t like what we’re doing,” she said.
But thosewho embrace pole dancing for fitness are a snapshot of urban youthswhose values are changing from those of their parents.
AlthoughChina has no state religion, study of Confucianism and Taoism, twoconflicting philosophies that underlie much of modern Chinese thought,is mandatory in China’s education system. While Confucianism emphasizesachievement and propriety, Taoism stresses the unseen strengths inbeing humble and, in some cases, being perceived as average.
Although Jiang Li, 23, a pole dancing student, studied both philosophies in school, she said she could subscribe to neither.
“A lot of people expect Chinese women to be subdued and faithful, thatwe should marry and take care of kids at an early age,” she said. “ButI don’t think that way — I want to be independent. I’ve been studyingtraditional Chinese dance for many years, but this is totallydifferent. I feel in control when I do this. If I learn this well, Ifeel I can be a superstar. I want to be a superstar.”
