ChinaEthnoExp. Part V. Fujian Tulou, Changsha, Yangshuo, Guangzhou

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October 7–27, 2014

The symbolic attribute of a Chinese man used to be a beard growing from the chin and neck.

Now the symbolic attribute of a Chinese man is a bare midriff. There’s a huge number of guys walking around the streets with their shirts pulled up above their bellies. This helps to deal with the heat.

Fujian Tulou

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A man rolls a cart past three squat toilets that have been turned into flower planters.

We’re in an unusual place with round buildings that are 500 years old.

Inside, they’re set up like communal mega-apartments.

There are so many persimmons in the streets that they’re left out completely free to anyone who wants them.

Typical Chinese advertising that reminds me of the final scene from the film Burnt by the Sun.

Changsha

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Public baths are incredibly popular in China. People go there with their friends, their coworkers and their families. What’s more, China doesn’t have any baths like the ones in Russia, designed for small private groups. A bathhouse is usually a giant building that looks like a shopping center:

The lobby is ostentatious in a Stalinist Empire sort of style, only adjusted for mass production.

Past the lobby are the changing rooms. Marble, carpets and lockers. To open your locker, you have to press your magnetic key against the lock, but that alone isn’t enough. An attendant has to press his key against the lock as well. This ensures that a stranger won’t grab your things.

Upon entering the baths, guests are split up into two sections—the men’s and women’s. Each section has pools, steam rooms, showers and other means of washing away your sins.

Free shampoo, toothbrushes, towels and robes are available throughout.

We’re in the city of Changsha. The entrance fee for our bathhouse is 188 yuan (30 dollars) per person. This includes unlimited ablutions and a buffet.

They have everything here.

Various steamed things in baskets, a grill, sushi, pasta, salads.

After bathing, people sit around in robes stuffing their faces and staring at their phones.

A guy to our right is entertaining two young ladies.

For an additional 30 yuan (5 dollars), you can stay until morning.

The beds are like airplane seats in first class: they recline all the way and have a tray table and personal TV. Blankies are provided upon request. The central common space where freshly bathed men and women converge is filled with hundreds of sleep chairs.

Overall, the baths are cheaper than a hotel and restaurant. Because you can bathe, eat and sleep all you want for a ridiculously small sum. I have no idea why we don’t have a single establishment like this in Russia.

There are baths that offer massages, dancing, mani-pedis, darts, performances and other fabulous activities and entertainment. They’re just as inexpensive.

Yangshuo

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A PSA in the lobby: “The law requires guests to check in under their real names. Let’s shut down lairs where terrorists can hide.” The chick has spotted a criminal and is calling 110, the emergency police number.

It’s pretty in Yangshuo.

The local rafts are traditionally made out of bamboo.

Oh look, another guy with his shirt pulled up to ventilate his belly. It looks gross, but half the country walks around like this.

Beautiful.

I’m being transported on a raft whose bamboo is made of plastic. But it’s still pretty.

A woman with a treasured old wart.

No stopping. The right-hand part of the character looks like a cyclist in a straw hat.

Some clowns pretending to be soldiers or veterans who’ve been denied support by the government. It’s unclear why the cops don’t chase them away.

We’re finally nearing the culmination point of the expedition, when the participants’ nerves are so fried that they’re ready to get into a fight over the smallest thing, to explode over a trifle. Three weeks of intense effort conclude with an overnight sleeper bus. You have to really search around for this kind of thing in China nowadays, but he who seeks shall find. Your carriage awaits!

Inside, the bus greets us with the sharp smell of dirty socks and a complete lack of free space.

Some of the expedition members land a prime 40 cm-wide shelf in the front of the bus. Some get their own individual piece of plank bed.

The rest of us crawl into the dark, cramped, stinky burrow in the back. If you want to pee, you’ll have to hold it in for two hours. There are no stops on request.

The bus eats noodles, farts, airs its smelly socks, watches bad movies and stares out the window. This phenomenon has all but disappeared in China. Everyone likes trains, planes and cars.

The driver speeds down the night highways until we finally arrive in Guangzhou at three in the morning. We were supposed to arrive at seven, but this driver is clearly committed to getting the job done as quickly as possible.

Everyone is asleep. We pile out of the bus, groggy, smelly, irate and full of ethnography. Just what the doctor ordered!