Pole dancing craze growing in Chinese capital
Beijing is famous for its Forbidden City, infamous for its smog and perhaps not known at all for its pole dancing. But after the best pole dancers in the world journeyed to the Chinese capital this spring, that may change, CBS News' Seth Doane reports.
Performers from 14 countries gathered for the World Pole Dancing Championships.
Included in the Beijing pole dancing community are a student, an aspiring accountant and a mother.
"I thought it was a combination of strength and beauty," 19-year old Feng Ge Sun said.
"I found it just amazing. It's unbelievable," 21-year-old Zhang Yi Ming said.
"I think it's sexy," 27-year-old Teng Shan added.
The name on their T-shirts is Luo Luan.
She's been dubbed China's pole dancing pioneer.
"I wanted to lose weight after giving birth to my child," Luo said through a translator. "I'd read about people pole dancing, but there was nowhere I could learn about it here in China."
In 2005, she started her own studio. Today, she has expanded to 26 studios and has 10,000 students.
She said pole dancing has only just become popular now because before, in America, it's often related to strip clubs so it took people a long time to accept it.
As incomes rise and more Chinese enter the middle class, they're spending more on fitness. It's a nearly $5 billion industry, and the way young people, including Paris Li, finance such interests cuts across borders.
Li said she got the thousand-plus dollars a month for the class from her parents.
Luo claims that pole dancing has roots in ancient China. There was a "pole tricks" performance during the Han Dynasty, and in the Tang Dynasty pole dancing was part of acrobatics.
"There is a saying in China describing women nowadays as tough as men," she said. "I believe this is (partially) to do with the popularity of pole dancing."
While it may look effortless, these students aren't just acrobats but actors because, they say, this really hurts.