Female surfers ride the wave to China’s Hainan island

BELLA LIU’S family was aghast when she returned to her home inland after a year on Hainan, an island province in the south. She had several scars and a deep tan. “My mother thought I had become a drug dealer working across the border with Vietnam,” says Ms Liu. In fact, the former dietician had taken up full-time surfing. But that was almost as shocking. “I nurtured you for 20 years, and you just want to float out to sea?” she recalls her mother saying.

Ms Liu is now a surf instructor in Houhai Bay, on the island’s southern coast. Small tattoos, including one of a seashell, adorn her muscular arms (body art is another taboo in the eyes of hometown folk). Yet surfing has changed her “inside and out”, she says. She is not alone in seeking out its benefits. Most of her clients are women, many of whom are prepared to go against the tide—by plunging into it.

Hainan’s palm-lined beaches and balmy winters have long been a draw for domestic tourists. But even a decade ago it had few surfing enthusiasts. When an American expatriate organised a surfing contest there in 2008, just two of the 30-odd participants were Chinese. Today Riyue Bay, north of Houhai, is home to the national surfing team’s academy, set up after the International Olympic Committee accepted surfing as an Olympic sport in 2016. (The team did not qualify for...