Home>News Center>Life
         
 

Playboy to open lifestyle club in Shanghai
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-06 13:55

Iconic magazine brand Playboy plans to open a club in China's commercial capital of Shanghai - a first for the communist country that still bans the company's flagship men's magazine.


The rabbit head logo of Playboy is largely known to the Chinese public.
A formal announcement of the move was expected at a news conference by Playboy Enterprises International Inc. and Shanghai Entertainment Ltd. planned for next Tuesday. More than two decades of economic openness and rising urban prosperity have eroded the Communist party's deeply conservative social policies.

Beauty contests, once frowned upon, have been widely embraced in recent years, with the southern city of Sanya this week hosting the Miss World pageant for the second year running.

Prostitution, while still illegal, is commonplace in most parts of the country and surveys show broad acceptance of premarital sex among young people.

However, China still bans the sale of Playboy and other magazines featuring photos of nude women, although some such volumes are sold legally as art books.

The government this summer also launched a crackdown on Internet pornography, shutting nearly 1,500 websites and handing out sentences of up to 15 years to people running them.

Chicago-based Playboy Enterprises Inc. publishes Playboy magazine in 18 countries. The company's famous rabbit head logo is also licensed for a variety of products, especially popular in China and other parts of Asia.

However, the company's Playboy Clubs that were a fixture of 1960s America are long gone. The last one, in Manila, the Philippines, closed in 1991.

The company announced last month it had rebounded to post a third-quarter profit of $1.9 million, as advertising rose sharply at the company's flagship magazine.



Miss World pageant to return to Sanya in 2005
From 'Hero' to zero in Zhang Yimou's films
Golden Horse Award
  Today's Top News     Top Life News
 

Key economic policies mapped out for 2005

 

   
 

Hu shares views with Chirac over phone

 

   
 

SARS vaccine found safe in test

 

   
 

Probe into coal mine blast begins in earnest

 

   
 

Schroder opens bid to broaden China trade

 

   
 

Weekend attacks kill at least 70 in Iraq

 

   
  Long forgotten tea and horse caravan trail faces revival
   
  Energy plan aims at houses, small cars
   
  Midnight show to unmask sex
   
  Ethnic clothes set int'l fashion trends
   
  Below-shoulder massage banned to curb prostitution
   
  Golden Horse goes to mainland movie Kekexili
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Feature  
  HK veteran songwriter James Wong passed away at 64  
Advertisement