Here's a shovel to help you:
No, please. Go ahead.
Well enough to know that the " longkang " that you are digging for yourself is getting bigger and bigger.....maybe you should be helping the Singapore " gahmen " with their flash flood problems. But wait, I forgot - you are as German as I am British.
DB,
I won't argue how valid is the OP, I just want to point out that my kids ARE German but don't know any german or won't speak any german until they decide to learn it (if they want to).
So the OP could be german...
I'm German) !
Yeah, she could be. But she isn't.
For the record: Germany has a lot of "FKK" - naturism traditions. Specificially at the Northern coast and the East (where being a naturist was at least some sort of freedom in the communist times) but actually all over the country is naked bathing pretty much normal. Not everyone does it, but nobody could possibly get all emotional about seeing some nudists. Kids not wearing bathing clothes up to primary school age was absolutely normal where I grew up... and that was a more conservative part.
This is so widely accepted that a British publisher was allowed to publish a magazine showing pictures of naked kids for over a decade - till the courts finally decided that the way the material was presented was pornography and not naturist.
OP being German or not, this is taking a turn that has nothing to do with the original theme...
I agree.
Let's get back to talking about bank holidays in Ticino...
Sure. I could be Chinese or American by law. But my culture is pretty clear and the OP - by her opening post, made it pretty clear that she is Singaporean. If I walk naked in my own flat there and a neighbour reports me, I get a (very hefty) fine. Or do I get caned? Forgot the details... Anyway: It's a moral value.
Here, I can happily invite the neighbour to look elsewhere if she doesn't like what she is seeing.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT a second there! I need to have a serious conversation with my German husband...
German grandmother (who was living on the East side) went through a comical situation on the year the wall fell: on the no-longer-western newspaper they were complaining how rude and improper of East Germans to have nude beaches on the Baltic. But on that same year, together with all her East German nude bathing friends, she had to chase a couple of wessies with binoculars hiding behind the bushes... xD
That surely was a detour, true. But I didn't feel like starting a new thread on hols in Ticino and moving the irrelevant info in there..
Grilling OP on her nationality, though, has nothing to do with the origianl gripe, me thinks, since it does not seem to me as cultural misunderstanding. But that's the way I see it. We are more than naturalists, back home, and do not have naked kindy kids in parks. If people think they will prove OP wrong because they point out her real real nationality...hmmmmm. People are so mixed where we live, and what I am used to from the US, it is hard to say what nationality one is anymore. The passport? Where one grew up? Lingo? Parents?
Really? Eastern Germany is surely a stronghold of naturists, but I have been as a kid - years before the wall fell - on Sylt. They have nude beaches there as well. Just like all along the Northern sea and not only the Baltic.
Every bigger town has some sort of corner of a lake where you can swim nude. Like the Werdinsel in Zurich or I believe some river in Bern?
P.S: I also only look at eastern Germans from a distance with binoculars. Unless I have enough bananas with me to feed them. Or cucumbers:
I have relatives in Germany and lots of friends there too. I would have said that nudity in public (like parks) is a lot more common there than in other countries I've been.
Of course everybody is different, and entitled to their personal standards of modesty - it just surprises me what you discussed in this thread in the sense that, in Germany, you should have been exposed to further lengths of nudity in public than some toddlers playing in a park.
I remember when I was child it was considered perfectly normal for small kids to play/swim in the nude on a warm summer day. No big deal, nobody would even notice. But I guess things have changed in the past two decades... as a matter of fact even I for one don't feel immune to this recent wave of prudishness, and while I don't have problems with nudity per se, I admit to feeling extremely uncomfortable at the idea of seeing children in the nude. Not because I find their nudity a problem, but because I've been morally conditioned into thinking that the combination adult + naked children = wrong (no matter the circumstances).
So kudos to the Swiss. It's refreshing to see that in Switzerland people can still have a healthy attitude about nudity. Honestly, I hope it'll rub off on me.
I like to tease my husband by saying he comes from the communist side of the wall, and teasing him with the bananas and lack of GORGEOUS CARTOONS FROM THE 80's.
I don't know how many nudist beaches they still have, as I myself never frequented one... (too shy for that ) But there was a lot of gorgeous stuff on the "evil side" (as I jokingly call it) that I envy, and one of them is the respect for one's body
And I do love grandma old jokes about wessies in the nudist beaches hihihihihihi
If I move to another country, and tell people i came from Switzerland, does it mean I am a Swiss? And what about having dual nationalities?
Anyway...since you know Singapore, then i will tell you if you run naked...you just get yourself an award on 'Instant Fame' there! Good for you!
Sorry, what is 'longkang'? gahmen as in gay men??? i have never heard of such words in Singapore.
Funny place, SG. Seem quite prudish, but I seemed to be constantly tripping over shagging couples in the street*
*Well, a slight exaggeration, but not much.
Well, no. You pay a lot or go to jail or both:
"It is an offence under the Miscellaneous Offences Act to walk naked in the privacy of your own home. You can be fined up to SGD 2,000 and be jailed up to three months if you are convicted of appearing nude and exposing yourself to public view in a private place."
And this isn't grey theory either: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori...426105/1/.html
MJ in Chinagarten?