Hey everyone, this weeks reading in “Training the Body for China” was a pretty interesting read for me for several reasons. First of all, whenever I read anything on China I am typically perplexed about the ways in which the government impacts peoples lives in ways that I typically see as private. Brownell writes about how the Chinese government attempted to regulate gender roles.

She then used that attempt by the government to control peoples gender issues to describe how sports caused changes to not only changes in the Chinese government, but also the Chinese people.

Until the sport of bodybuilding made its way to China, the Bikini was not allowed by the government. I found this fact to be amazing, I starred at the page for a few minutes before Googling “80s Bikini” to orient myself culturally and historically.

When bodybuilding came to China though, the bikini had to be permitted, because in professional bodybuilding everyone wears bikinis (even the men.) I thought that the immediate soaring in popularity of women’s bodybuilding was pretty comical.