What is a sauna? The popular history of sauna in China in 1990s.

The popular history of sauna in China in 1990s.

Young people who grew up in the 1990s must have heard of saunas. In that era when revolutionary culture disappeared and consumption surged, sauna bathing places sprang up like mushrooms after rain, which hit Chinese people hard in one fell swoop.

As an enthusiastic observer, photographer Li Qianjin spent four years photographing bath centers all over the country. Within his reach, there are a number of luxurious and mysterious saunas.

In troubled times, the most rampaging desire of Chinese people was also here.

Stand up economically and lie down after work.

20 14 As soon as the firecrackers sounded on the tenth day of the first month, there was crying in Dongguan, the reception center of the Pearl River Delta. Weibo clamored to hold on in Dongguan, but finally failed to satisfy the police's determination to crack down on pornography.

Since then, the word "Wan" in Dongguan has become intriguing, and people's irrational reverie about the word hotel sauna has intensified.

But in fact, the role of sauna room is far more than a dissolute golden nest. Before going astray, it also had a popular history worth thinking about.

1In August, 1983, Xinmin Evening News published an article entitled "The First Sauna in Shanghai", which mentioned the opening of the first sauna in Shanghai: there are men's and women's bathrooms, each with 6 cubic meters, which can be used by four people at the same time.

Only at that time, sauna, an exotic bath, was still a strange concept to Chinese people, and only Chinese and foreign tourists and athletes would welcome it.

The real popularity will not be realized until the 1990s (1992) when the economy was at the forefront. The spring tide of emancipating the mind swept across the land of China, and the small hand of making a fortune extended to all aspects of life. At the same time, people in China began to make up entertainment classes.

Waves of wind are blowing from the south. One is a three-step and four-step city, bars, dance halls and video halls that don't sleep at midnight; Soon, karaoke and indoor skating came from behind.

In the early 1990s, the sauna also came to Shenzhen, Guangdong with the plane of Hong Kong tourists, and was quickly promoted to a rookie in the entertainment industry.

In the star-rated hotels around Shenzhen, Hong Kong businessmen have launched small saunas one after another, and on this basis, they have added leisure and entertainment facilities such as chess room, lounge and health room. Some people say that this is a major upgrade and version of the unit bathhouse and community bathhouse in the past.

Before this, the people were completely unprepared. Entertainment; It seems that we are playing chess and poker, and the company has a dance, so we should find some Le Er to accompany us. These are the original words of Wang Shuo.

Facing the sudden opening up, addiction became the inner voice of the urban class at that time. Regular sauna is regarded as a pleasure.

You'd better steam it when it's ready. When it comes to rubbing, there are more goods.

Many working-class people do not hesitate to throw out a yellow ticket every month, dry steaming, wet steaming, infrared steaming and blue steaming, one by one, which is what Ah Q said. If you have money, I will fool around, too.

According to relevant sources, the first place people go after being released from prison is not their own home, but the sauna center.

By the mid-1990s, saunas had blossomed everywhere in first-and second-tier cities.

According to Beijing Youth Daily, since/kloc-0 was established in Beijing in 1992, by the end of 1995, the number of sauna massages had soared to 327, exceeding the GDP growth rate in one fell swoop. Also in this year, sauna entered the modern Chinese dictionary.

Seeing that the bathing market is still a blue ocean, people in the sea seized the opportunity to build a number of sauna centers more luxurious than the ancient Roman baths. Even many remote small towns in the mainland are not far behind, and the dazzling neon lights of XX sauna light up one after another.

Most of the names are Athena Victoria, which makes people unable to stay at home.

A shower washed away a farmer's cow.

In fact, at that time, the people who could frequent the sauna center were by no means drivers and pulp sellers, but the rapidly rising wealthy class in commercial times.

In the 1990s, there was a joke that spread widely. A billboard on Wangfujing Street in Beijing fell and hit five people, four of whom were the general manager, and 1 was the assistant to the general manager. Relying on strong economic strength, these people have become the trend leaders in the field of consumption.

1994 article "Please take a bath, new social fashion" recorded this change:

The modern bath center used to be a public bathhouse, and the price of each ticket was only 3 yuan. After contracting, Liu Yuangen invested in renovation and opened ten high-end baths.

Liu Yuangen's target users are the rich. According to his observation, every weekend, this gentleman comes with a brick-like mobile phone, running Santana and running.

Not only that, there is a song called Love Will Win, which is quite popular in the big money circle. Three points of luck, seven points of fighting spirit, love to fight will win, this lyric echoed in the karaoke room all night.

If the general public goes to the sauna center to take a bath with the idea that I love bathing and my skin is good, then men's bathing is full of consumerism.

Some ladies and gentlemen not only like to take a sauna, but also bring milk and eggs into the bathroom. Ding Min, manager of the hot spring bath hall in Chaoyang District, shook his head and said: They thought that milk was picked on the body for whitening, and egg white washed the hair black and bright. According to word of mouth, men learn from women, making the bathhouse quickly become a western restaurant.

1996, a thai massage in Beijing charged as much as 1800 yuan an hour, which was sky-high in the era when the average monthly salary was 500 yuan. If you add back scrubbing, massage and ear digging, you can wash a farmer's cow.

Despite this, the rich have never stopped. A sauna costs several hundred and one thousand yuan, and a golf club membership card costs tens of thousands of yuan. As long as you can play Superman, you won't frown no matter how much you spend.

It is not enough for them to entertain themselves. When rich people are happy, they often invite their relatives to have a young foreign meat. Although working in government agencies, ordinary employees who are just sitting on the bench are forgotten by trendy consumption. Once, one of his primary school classmates, who became rich, invited him to take a bath in the Imperial Entertainment City. The two of them always spend more than 1800 yuan, which makes him spit out his tongue. Students just smiled and said disdainfully; A piece of cake; .

In fact, what he pursues is the amazing effect of Dai Xiao. After washing the sauna, there are people who are poor for a long time and vain from time to time. They insisted on inviting the massage lady to drink several glasses of foreign wine, one ounce each, nearly 100 yuan. After opening a bottle, you often can't finish it at once. You should hang a small card on the bottle and write your name on it so that the waiter can keep it next time.

With the help of this rich man, there were as many as 10,000 saunas in China in196, and 100 billion yuan was washed away every year.

It is common for a younger brother in a sauna room to earn 10,000 yuan a month. If it is a massage or pedicure that directly serves the guests, it can generally reach more than 30 thousand. You know, it was an era when many small inland counties were still talking about ten thousand households.

As long as you are willing to soak mushrooms, your opponent will become friends.

For sauna practitioners, it was really the golden age of sauna. For businessmen and politicians, sauna room is the fuel of the great process in the era of economic take-off.

In the 1990 s, besides making a fortune in Guangdong, there was an irrefutable truth in the business community: as long as you are willing; Pickled mushrooms; , opponents will become friends.

Commercial society is full of mystery. The passive party often has to mobilize all means to firmly grasp the other party. Therefore, experienced pragmatists summed up a set of negotiation principles in the 1990s:

Before we talk about business, let's have a small party in the rice village.

Do not refuse to raise funds, business 120%.

When you are full of wine and food, please go to the karaoke bar for recreation.

Good at singing and dancing, business 30% to 40%.

Stop singing and dancing and accompany him to the sauna to relieve fatigue.

If he is happy, the business is 50% to 60%.

After talking about the truth, everyone took a bath of friendship tacitly. Some people call this commercial bridge "soaking mushrooms", but there are also many successful cases in reality.

When Hong Kong returned to China, a Guangdong boss took a fancy to the Shanghai office of a trading company in Anhui and spent 4000 yuan to set up a banquet for the boss in Anhui. Everyone is travel-stained, smiling, and it's a long time since we met. Unexpectedly, after eating a meal for nearly three hours, it was not only fruitless, but also deadlocked.

If you can't get on the pole, ring the gong again. Guangdong boss is persistent. As soon as he left here, he tied the Anhui boss to Tianlong and took a luxurious bath. It was observed that in the bathroom, the tension caused by the negotiation between the two gradually relaxed, the air was filled with smoke, and the words gradually became intimate and warm. In the massage room, the Anhui boss was made very comfortable, and the two finally eliminated their business differences and held hands tightly together.

After taking a shower, send a set of Goldlion underwear, shirts and ties, which is both beautiful and implies good wishes. What business can't be discussed?

Dry steaming on the left, wet steaming on the right, Fu Jia talking about business in the hot spring pool, and politicians, of course, discussing state affairs in the bathroom.

If you want to take care of an official, you must go shirtless. In the 1990s, the cooperation between government and business, big and small, was concluded in these bathhouses where day and night were not clear.

The invoices issued by the sauna room to these customers will never specify the sauna massage, but all the meals and conference fees.

Where there is a sauna, there is a special service.

After the sauna, it's still two customs, nothing more than money and beautiful women, all of which are within reach, and business is bound to succeed. This is the final principle of the 90' s negotiations mentioned above.

Whether it is true or accidental, the distance between money, power and pornography is so close. Soon, the sauna was plated with another color.

Luxury sauna was sought after by only a few people in China at that time. For these people's pockets, the bath owner tried his best.

In addition to the Nanjing milk bath that caused public outrage that year, a new term called accompanying washing came out in Guangdong at the beginning of the 20th century. Some bosses hire some young girls, stimulate them with high salaries and provide customers with too deep massage.

The money in the hands of the big boss is so desperately grasped that these ladies often take it out of their pockets, so that the gap between the rich and the poor is not so big.

It became an open secret that the drunk meant not to drink. Where there is a sauna, there is a special service.

When I was young, I was miserable. Love was not romantic. Now that I have some money, I can't waste my second youth. Now I really opened my eyes here. Girls are the same, and girls also have personalities.

Not only Adam but also Eve wants to taste the forbidden fruit. As long as you find the right place, you can also find the corresponding service.

Gradually, the competition among peers also extends from the business level to the decoration level. Saunas are getting bigger and more luxurious. From nude murals to sexy bedding, grass snakes and gray lines are everywhere, and everything is an imperial voyeuristic imagination created for disciples.

This is a headache for the public security department. Our satellite can go to heaven, but we are afraid that we can't control the opposite sex massage?

1995, the government has made clear regulations on heterosexual massage places. There should be at least two beds in each massage room, and the doors should not be locked, and transparent glass should be installed. A notice prohibiting pornography must be posted in the room.

But despite this, a large number of saunas still respect the market rules and are massaged by the opposite sex.

By the end of 1990s, getting rid of dirt and relaxing has become a thing of the past. Saunas, like rare and endangered animals, are getting less and less washed. Sauna is almost synonymous with pornography.

Pornography and quasi-pornography, like a storm, swept almost every corner of China.

1999, when the reporter of Yangcheng Evening News went to Jiangnan town for a private visit, he was surprised to find that there were 3,000 beautiful women in a town of more than 30,000 people. They brought great wealth to themselves and the town.

According to them, when business is good, you can earn thousands of dollars a day, with an annual salary of 654.38+ 10,000. After returning home at the end of the year, 3,000 Kerry withdrew an average of 654.38+0.2 million from the bank, and even emptied the bank.

In addition to the sauna, various card halls, dance halls, KTV boxes, shampoo shops and tea parties are also swarming. There are red lights everywhere in China. Even in remote and desolate towns, you can still see signs such as saunas and karaoke bars.

In 2000, Zhu Wen, a new generation novelist in 1995, published "Do people need a sauna? , still exudes amazing readability. Look at the situation outside. You can shoot (harmony) essence in the place where you take a shower, eat tea, shave your head, watch movies and go to the toilet, forget to sing and dance, and even shoot (harmony) essence in the place where you fucking play. From a five-star hotel to a roadside shop with two houses, what a big shot! Last week, I went to the nanny market to find a nanny for our children. As a result, someone came up and asked me if I wanted to shoot (harmony) sperm. What do you think this is? There is really a power outage in the whole city tonight!

Consumer optimists even call it a raging spring and a miscellaneous peanut tree. But in the eyes of the general public, it can only be vulgar and defiled.

Isn't it a pedicure? Why do you treat your hands?

Brother, hands are feet, too.

Massage girl, sister and father scold you angrily. But you don't know, there's one thing my little sister didn't say: people are animals.

Maybe it's a waste of money 1995, the most popular greeting, congratulations on getting rich, became healthy in 1998.

During the SARS period, China people also restrained their eating habits. Sometimes there is a song that says: Karaoke doesn't sing, the Internet cafe is closed today, McDonald's is empty, and the sauna is closed.

However, the virus has not changed much. After SARS, many people remain the same.

On the other hand, the sauna room has become a sauna hotel and bath center, which continues to nourish the imagination of seeking pleasure, until the urban legend named public security crackdown came true in Dongguan in 20 14.

Things have changed, and geese have passed without a trace. Although the secrets of these bathrooms are difficult to be recorded in the history, they are the real characteristics of the times and a new way for people who have been suppressed for a long time to release their desires when the country suddenly opens. As the poet Bo Han wrote in the 1990s:

It changes the rate of erosion,

It measures the density of happiness,

It proves the realm of the body.

It's blue soup, it's time,

It is turbidity that contains my aging.

References:

Bao Kun's Query on the Image of Pornography in Sauna in Bao Kun

Research on modern mainland sauna service project, Tianya forum.

Big spenders in all aspects, oriental ladies

Bathed in my hometown and dedicated to strangers in our city, read Han Bo's poems.

Good night, China, Gao Jianqun.

Please take a bath: new social fashion, Jianghu.