So I love going to get massages in China. Why? Because they are filthy cheap. You can get a two hour massage for 118 yuan (less than 18 US dollars), or an 80 minute foot massage for 50 yuan (less than 9 US dollars). The two hour massage also includes free dinner, a bathhouse, fire cupping, little ladies stepping on your back, and all sorts of other goodies. But the main thing I'm talking about today is the bathhouse.
In Northeast China, there is this service called 搓澡 (cuo1 zao3), which when put into Google Translate comes out to "get a rubdown with a damp towel." It's surprisingly a pretty accurate translation of the practice. Originally a Korean service, cuo1zao3 has become increasingly popular in Northeast China. Basically, after taking a shower, you hire a (usually middle aged) woman in black lingerie to rub your entire body down with a damp towel which will exfoliate your skin--removing dead skin cells and dirt from your body. She's very professional about it as you just lie on a plastic recliner in a row with 4-5 others (all butt-naked of course). But after the service, your skin will feel softer than it has ever felt before, and you can choose for the lady to rub you down with either fresh milk or honey for an additional cost. These same services are available in the men's side of the bathhouse with male employees rubbing you down. The cost is approximately 20 RMB for the rubdown and another 28-38 for the milk or honey treatments.
Does this sound strange to you? It probably does because our American culture has no real public bathhouses, no cuozao services, and a surprisingly conservative attitude towards nudity in the presence of others. In America, we value our personal bubble, and we are weirded out when others stare at us too closely or for too long. We feel shy when members of the same sex see our naked bodies, and we certainly would never allow someone to rub us down with a damp towel. No one uses those 1960's-esque giant communal showers anymore.
In China, the shower stalls in the bathhouses have no curtains or door, no one wears a towel as they walk around or go in the sauna, and you even lounge in the nude as you wait for stalls to open up and chat with others. (It's also a really interesting experience to brush your teeth naked surrounded by mostly 50-year-old women doing the same thing.) At times like these, I am glad that I am ethnically Chinese--I look the same as the masses. And I feel bad for my ethnically European friends as they get all the stares in the bathhouse. For a country that is so shy towards topics such as sex and dating culture, it is interesting how members of the same sex are so open with their bodies as long as there are no members of the other sex nearby.
I've been pondering this topic for a while now (as I marvel at the softness of my skin), but what do you think? Do we Americans value our personal bubbles too much? Would you ever allow a middle-aged man or woman to scrub your buttcheeks and breasts down for you as you lie in the middle of a bathhouse? Would you feel uncomfortable?
2 comments:
yay double blog post!
"Would you feel uncomfortable?"
Yes...at least at first. But I was saved by a (less involved than that) massage recently and can only say that its positive effects on health can be profound!
Post a Comment