Naked Retreats: Chinese Eco Resorts

Get 'Naked' in the Resort's Bamboo Forest

I went to a party last night at a Fellow MBA student's house. We ate burgers sat around under the twinkle of Christmas lights strung up in trees and wondered where all the people evacuated in lower Manhattan because of hurricane Irene were going to go and how they were going to get there with all the public transport shut down.

Evacuation issues led to talk of selling TJmax discount Tommy Hilfiger purses at a markup to women in the Netherlands, and then to both of us signing up for Westminster's MBA International Context Trip to China next fall.

When I think of China, I think of natural disasters and pollution. It is not a place I associate with getting in touch with nature.  But this afternoon in my sweltering living room I stumbled across an article in Monocle Magazine's Sept 2011 edition about China's Naked Retreats, and was immediately um, turned on to the idea of getting in touch with mother earth in this rapidly-industrializing nation.

Read this blurb from their website, nakedretreats.cn, and tell me your not at least a little bit interested on enduring a 10-15 hour flight to China.

Mankind wasn’t designed to live in a city, to spend our days in a glass box, to succeed or fail according to a piece of paper. Our feet aren’t even meant to wear shoes. We are children of Mother Nature. We were born naked. But we do wear shoes, and clothes. And we’ve built cities where we work in glass boxes and struggle to succeed. We have adapted remarkably well to this urban lifestyle we’ve created, but we should never forget who and what we really are. Every once in a while we should go back to that. We should retreat, naked.

Alas, this is not a nudist resort, but rather a detox retreat for overworked urbanites.   When guests arrive at the resort, they are encouraged to take a 45-minute decompression walk before entering their guestrooms as they are immersed in "clean, fresh, sweet mountain air" and the like.  I roll my eyes at the eco-speak of it all, but you better believe that I'll be first in line to eat it all up.

Drum circles are so much fun

The owners of Naked Retreats, Architect Delphine Yip and her South African Hubby Grand Horsfield are just brilliant for introducing this Yoga-age dude ranch to the mountains a few hours out of Shanghai. I'd love to stop in when I'm around next fall.