Cultural Anti-revolution

Beijing - Evening walk home: Young man and woman shouting and shoving each other in the street just in front of a large, busy, brightly-lit, window-fronted restaurant.  They seemed to know each other. People inside watched, and a couple of passersby on the sidewalk stopped to gawk.  I thought of dialing 911 but even if it was the right number to get the police I wouldn’t have been able to explain “domestic squabble” in Chinese. 

Public urination:   broad daylight, busy street (frontage road to 3^rd ring).  Man urinating on the wall.  His bicycle cart loaded with beer was parked on the side of the street.  I wondered if he’d been sampling his own wares.  Evening walk home along Chaoyangmenwai (very busy street): nicely dressed man urinating on the wall of the temple.   

Music in the underpasses:  The acoustics must be pleasing in the pedestrian underpasses.  Most mornings there is a middle-aged man playing the flute.  He seems to make good money – there are always bills on the little blanket in front of him.  Many evenings there is a passionate young man playing guitar and singing his heart out. He’s going to make it big, and I can say I knew him when.

Cultural anti-revolution:  There are revolving doors at all the entrances to the office building where I work and at entrances to most big buildings here.  I have noticed that Beijingers do not want to push the revolving door.  I’ve mentioned this to a couple of laowai and they have also noticed this phenomenon.  You would probably think it odd too if you were a suspicious city girl like me.  It happened a couple of times:  I noticed people loitering at the door, waiting, it seemed, for me to get there, then they would dive in the wedge of revolving door after me.  I would clutch my purse, but nothing happened.  Then I observed this happening to others.  It seems most just want to avoid pushing the door. Germophobes? (reasonable – there’s no soap or towels in the ladies bathroom on our floor)  Is it bad luck to push a door? Who knows? Perhaps it is for this reason that there are automatic revolving doors in several buildings. 

Eye contact

Beijing -  Chinese American friend invites me to join her at a traditional Chinese bathhouse, where you can sit in the hot springs, steam, and sauna, and then have a buffet.  It was really cold outside and I like to try new things, so I agree.  Then she says that she's never been, but there would probably be a bunch of naked Chinese ladies and no bathing suits are allowed.  Gulp.  Do they go to the buffet naked?  That would be, for me at least, a good way to cut down on the food consumption.  Originally she wants to go about 2 pm (we are planning to meet another friend to go to the theater about 6:30 pm).  Four and a half hours of nakedness....not sure I can handle that.  So we end up going about 4pm.  She gets there first and calls me while I'm still in the taxi - "it's all naked Chinese ladies!  You can't look at me naked!"  I say "no problem, same here.  Eye contact!"

 

The taxi arrives at the huge 5-story building marked "No. 8 Hot Springs Business Club" (part of a large complex with restaurants and bars on the west side of Chaoyang Park.)  Oh, okay, it's business nudity.   A step below business casual, I guess.    I enter what looks like a fancy hotel, including a reception desk, and I am greeted by one of several women dressed in matching evening gowns with short white fur capes.  I, in my jeans and sweater and boots, feel a bit underdressed.  But wait!  She leads me to a nook where I take off my boots and put on pink shower shoes.  She keeps my boots, and gives me a plastic wristlet numbered 927.  I assume this is a locker key.  She directs me to a set of stairs, and I head down, immediately feeling the warmth and humidity of the bath. 

 

I enter a large locker room and my friend was right - naked women wandering around, fixing their hair, eating fruit, some with mud masks, others with white masks.  Eye contact!   Some sit at mirrors doing their makeup.   And wandering in between are attendants in uniforms. There are piles of towels everywhere, and I see my salvation.    I put my clothes in a locker wrap up tightly in a towel, and head into the bath area, which is just an extension of the locker room, but a very fancy extension.  There is a large bubbling shallow pool - the hot springs, I suppose - surrounded by palm trees.  I slip in and ahhh, it feels good.  In the middle of the pool are two raised platforms where women lie on their stomachs, pelted by intermittent streams of water from above.  I look around - carefully - so as not to be perceived as staring.  There are steam and sauna rooms, and open shower stalls around the circumference of the room.  An attendant forces a shower cap on me.  I feel bad but then notice her giving them to other women in the pool.

 

After enough time to get pruny, I slip superfast back into my towel and pink shower shoes and glide my feet slowly over the slippery tile.  I enjoy the sauna for a bit, and use some of the salt provided to scrub on my skin.  Then I scoot slowly around to the steam room, where people mostly stand.  There are a couple of wooden stools, coated with layers of plastic.  I realize this is a hygienic maneuver when a couple women come in and place plastic sheets on the stools so they can sit.   I cruise around the room looking for a shower stall with a curtain while trying not to look directly at any naked women.  I don't know why I care.  Nobody is paying attention to me.

 

After the shower, I kind of wander around wondering what I'm supposed to do next.  Then I notice women putting on these little pajama looking things - shorts and a v-neck top.  Then they head up a different set of stairs, trading the shower shoes for a snazzy pair of red velvet slippers.  We are getting dressed for dinner.  I don't know where my friend is but she mentioned getting exfoliated so I figure I'll wait for her upstairs so I don't get dizzy from not focusing.  Upstairs is an elegant dining room filled with men and women in matching jammies and slippers.  Bizarre scene.   There's a huge buffet with Peking duck, freshly made dumplings, a salad bar, lots of fresh fruit, and a variety of hot dishes.  A woman plays American jazz standards on a grand piano raised above the tables.

 

My friend finally comes up and she suggests we stick around and get massages.  We find our way to another opulent floor and sit in thrones to read the book of massage. The menu has some pretty good Chinglish - including "Peeling:  Get or give a towel rub down in the public bath area."   I just imagine that for a second.  Give a rubdown?  On the "other services" list there is a service for "fostering and strengthening the male genitals."  I point this out to my friend and the staff member hurries to assure us that they don't do that anymore.   I opt for the Thai massage; she gets the Chinese traditional medicine massage. 

 

I'd never had a Thai massage before this, so I'm not prepared for the masseuse, who is dressed a bit like the slutty stewardess (sorry, flight attendant) costumes you see every Halloween... well, I am not prepared for her to place me on my back on a full sized low bed, and crawl between my legs. (At least I'm still wearing my jammies.)  She treats me like origami for 45 minutes, and I thank God that I did yoga that morning or I might have lost a limb.  At one particularly memorable point I am face down on the bed, panting as she sits on my butt - facing my feet - and leans back, the back of her head on my head, pulling my feet with her.  And stays there, with my body in a C-shape.  At least that's what I think she's doing.  I won't say it was relaxing.  But it was an experience.

 

After all this excess of nudity, food, and stretching, I expect a big bill.  It came out to a whopping 420 RMB (about 56 dollars).  That's a great deal for a massage, hot springs, and all you can eat.  I did have to give back the jammies.

 

Yet another strenuous experience in international relations.