I planned on posting this several days ago but I too was in the midst of dealing with the ol’ wrecking ball. Euphemistically speaking…

 

Love Land, China’s first sex theme park, expected to open in October, has already been demolished. The powers that be, jolted by the worldwide publicity, brought in the wrecking ball before such a crude establishment could blight the good city of Chongqing.

 

The developers had billed the attraction as tasteful and socially beneficial theme park full of informative displays on all things ‘sex.’ A quick investigation determined the park's content was vulgar and that it was neither healthy nor educational and would be an “evil influence” on the culture.

 

Love Land had promised to make available workshops to help visitors improve their sexual technique and advice on safe sex, along with a detailed history of sex thru the ages.

 

Once the decision was made a demolition team moved in posthaste, first knocking down the giant revolving pair of women's legs standing over the entrance and then moving on to the giant genitalia.

What happens in Chongqing stays in Chongqing.

 

I can’t imagine this ever happening here in the states, but China is building what is billed as its first sexually explicit theme park, aimed at providing for its visitors better sex education, sexual technique workshops and demonstrations of safe-sex methods.

 

Due to open in the south-western China in the mega-metropolis of Chongqing this coming October, Love Land includes displays of giant genitalia, nude bodies and features an exhibition on the history of sex and sexual practices in other countries as well as a display on how to use condoms properly.

 

At the main entrance is a sign bearing the park's name straddled between a giant pair of women's legs topped by a red thong. The park’s manager, Lu Xiaoqing, was inspired by a similar sex themed park in Jeju, South Korea that is enjoying huge success. Lu Xiaoqing says that Love Land is not only about educating the public but will help adults enjoy a harmonious sex life.

 

Earlier this year, the Chinese government launched a national sex education campaign aimed at breaking taboos, getting more people to seek treatment for sexually transmitted infections and seeking solutions for infertility problems.

 

Since the 1980s sexual attitudes have changed dramatically in China. One research project shows that in Beijing the percentage of people having premarital sex rose from under 16% in 1989 to over 60% in 2004.

Hugh Van Es, a Dutch photojournalist who covered the Vietnam War, capturing some of the most enduring images of the era, has died. Last week he suffered a brain hemorrhage and never regained consciousness. He died on Friday at the Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong. Van Es was 67.

One of his most famous photos is that of the fall of Saigon in 1975, showing evacuees scaling a ladder onto a helicopter from a rooftop. The image, in no subtle way, became a metaphor for the United States’ profound policy failures in Vietnam.

Van Es arrived in Hong Kong as a freelance photographer in 1967, joining the South China Morning Post. After a stretch as a photographer for the Associated Press from 1969 to 1972, he covered the last three years of the Vietnam war for United Press International. His first celebrated photo was of a wounded soldier with a tiny cross gleaming against his dark silhouette taken in May of 1969 during the battle of Hamburger Hill.

 

But Van Es’ most lasting image was taken on the final day of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam on April 29, 1975. Van Es was in the Saigon UPI bureau offices when he saw a few dozen Americans climbing a ladder trying to board  one of the CIA’s own Air American helicopters on a rooftop just a few blocks away at 22 Gia Long Street, which sat about a half a mile from the embassy. From his vantage point on the UPI balcony, Van Es captured the scene with a 300mm lens, the longest one he had. The building in the picture was an apartment that housed C.I.A. officials and families and not Saigon’s American Embassy as has been erroneously believed over the years.