Sex museum to leave Shanghai
The Chinese Sexual Culture Museum, founded and curated by retired professor Liu Dalin, is
shutting down and moving from Shanghai to the nearby, much smaller city of Tongli.
For Liu, the move is his second. He set up shop in 1999 in a prime location, the upscale shopping district of Nanjing Rd., but had to move two years later when local officials barred him from using the character for "sex" on a sign.
"They said the character for 'sex' was ugly," he said.
The sign at the current out-of-the-way location now includes "xing," (pronounced "sing") the word for "sex" in standard Chinese. It's an ideograph that combines the symbols for "heart" and for "life."
But only a few dozen visitors a day turn up. He can barely afford his monthly rent of close to $4,000, and he says officials thwarted his efforts to get the museum certified as a tourism site.
On a side note, I found this factoid fascinating. "The sex industry [in China] is thriving as never before. As with elsewhere in Asia, men say finding a barbershop that actually offers haircuts rather than more personal services can be a challenge."
