Foreign Affairs
Vietnam’s Cultural Ministry Covers Up Nude Statues With Bikinis
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Vietnam’s cultural ministry issued a directive that forced a resort to cover up nude statues, according to Reuters Friday.
A resort in the Vietnamese city of Hai Phong covered up 12 half human and half animal statues with swimsuits to comply with the cultural ministry’s request, Reuters reported. The Hon Dau International Tourism Company, the owners of the sculptures, dressed the statues in bikinis and swimming trunks. The tourism company later put leaves and fruit over the statues’ human genitalia.
“We actually didn’t want to cover the statues because it’s art, but we wanted to show that we listen,” Nguyen Trung Thanh, the vice director of the tourism company, told Reuters. The provocative statues had become an amusing tourist attraction.
“[Tourists] were taking pictures, some were laughing, some were shy and turned away but no one was responding harshly,” said Thanh.
The Vietnamese Culture Ministry was displeased with the tourism company’s modification. “The recent construction and display of statues and symbols have had contents and forms that are inappropriate to Vietnamese culture,” the ministry said on their website.
The tourist company placed an “18+” label on the statues.
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