World News for Students of English

26-07-2022 15:00

While dark skin in China is often associated with undesirable tanning caused from farming fields or doing manual labour, pale skin is seen as delicate and feminine and is highly prized.

An owner of a swimwear store reacted to customer demand and designed a ‘facekini’ to protect women from getting a tan, as well as to protect them from jellyfish stings. She made her original facekini in 2004 and the business has been developing ever since. In 2014 alone, she sold around 30,000 facekinis.

While the facekini has a very loyal following across the country, with the wearers being hailed as trend setters, the designer has faced in an undesirable effect of her garment – it scares small children. That is why she has stopped making white, grey, or dark-coloured facekinis and now makes facekinis with Peking opera designs which Chinese people like.

Difficult words: undesirable (not desired – wanted), manual labour (physical work), hail (call), face (deal with, or literally, use the face for something),  garment (an item of clothing).

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