“Well, a large tree brings in a gusty wind against itself,” Lei commented, changing into plastic slippers. “This bathhouse doesn’t need any more free advertisement, or the city government may feel obliged to check into its incredible business.”
The pool area was the size of three or four soccer fields, not including the area for women. The water of three large pools shimmered green in the soft light. Majestic marble statues and fountains stood in each of them, imitations of ancient Roman palaces, except for an impressive array of modern water massage appliances along the poolsides. There were also special tubs with signs such as Beer, Ginseng, Milk, and Herbs. The brownish froth in the beer tub formed a sharp contrast to the white ripples over the milk tub. Chen looked into a gauze bag floating in the ginseng tub- expensive if the thick roots it contained were genuine, though he was not so sure of its medical benefit in the hot bathwater.
“These tubs are supposed to be effective,” Lei said with a grin.
“And very expensive too.”
“The pools alone could have cost millions. A gamble on the boost the WTO accession will deliver to Shanghai -an economic restructuring with waves of overseas capital inflows. China is currently the second-largest destination for foreign investment after the U.S. Soon it will be the largest.”
Lei was taking an MBA class in the evening. For the new newspaper, he had to know things beyond his major in Chinese literature years earlier.
“So you’re writing an article about the bathhouse?”
“Not just about this place, but the latest entertainment trends in general. Eat, drink, bathe, sleep, and whatnot. A middle class is rising up fast in China. They have money, and they need to know how to spend money. As an editor, I have to write what they want to read.”
“Indeed, pools of wine, woods of flesh,” Chen said, echoing a classical description about the decaying Shang dynasty palace, as he stepped into a steaming hot pool.
“Oh, much, much more,” Lei chuckled in high spirits, “like the Winter Palace in Russia, except it’s so warm here, like the spring water. Or like in the late Roman empire.”
Chen reclined against the poolside, the water massaging his back and purring as if with a collective contentment, including his. He tried to recall the name of the poet Lei had quoted, but without success.
“What are you thinking, Chen?”
“Nothing-my mind is relaxing in a total blank, as you suggested.”
“Take it easy, Chen, with your new position in the city congress, and with your name as a best-selling poet.”
To all appearances, Chen had been moving up steadily. His new membership in the Shanghai People’s Congress was seen as another step toward his succeeding Party Secretary Li Guohua in the police bureau. But Chen was not so sure about it. The congress was known as a political rubber stamp, and thus city congressman was more of an honorary title. Possibly a compromise more than anything else, Chen knew, for quite a few hardliners in the Party opposed his further promotion in the bureau, on the ground of his being too liberal.
It was true, however, that his poetry collection had enjoyed unexpected success. Poetry makes no money and, in a money-oriented age, its publication was nothing short of a miracle. And it was actually selling well.
His thoughts were interrupted by two new bathers flopping down into the water, one short with gray hair and beady eyes, one tall with an aquiline nose and beer-bottle-thick glasses. Apparently, they were continuing an earlier argument.
“Socialism is going to the dogs. These greedy, unscrupulous dogs of the Party officials! They’re crunching everything to pieces, and devouring all the bones,” the short one declared in indignation. “Our state-run company is like a gigantic fat goose, and everyone must take a bite or pluck a feather or two from it. Did you know that the head of the City Export Office demands a five percent bonus in exchange for his export quota approval?”
“What can you do, man?” the tall one said sarcastically. “Communism echoes only in nostalgia songs. It’s capitalism that’s practiced here-with the Communist Party sitting on the top, sucking a red lollipop. So what can you expect of these Party cadres?”
“Corrupt throughout. They don’t believe in anything except doing everything in their own interest-in the name of China ’s brand of socialism.”
“What is capitalism? Everybody grabs for his or her money-in spite of all the communist propaganda in our newspapers. They’re just like the beer froth in the tub.”
“The cops should have bang-banged a few of those rotten eggs!”
“Cops?” the tall one said, splashing the water with his big feet. “They’re jackals out of one and the same den as those wolves.”
Chen frowned. Complaints about the widespread corruption were not surprising, but some of the specifics did not sound too pleasant to a naked cop, or to a naked editor either.
“Chinese is still an evolving language. Corruption-fubai-literally means ‘rotten,’” Chen said in a quiet voice to Lei, “in reference to bad meat or fish. Now it refers exclusively to the abuse of power by the Party cadres.”
“Yes, things go bad easily,” Lei said. “You can put Yellow River carps into the refrigerator, but you can’t put in the Party cadres.”
It was intriguing to think about the linguistic evolution. In the sixties, corruption meant the rotten bourgeois way of life, in reference to something like extramarital sex. A young “corrupt” teacher in Chen’s school was fired for engaging in prenuptial sex. In a more general sense, the word could also have referred to bourgeois extravagancy-even to such a bath, whose entrance fee alone cost more than the monthly income for an ordinary worker. In the last few years, however, the word took on an exclusive target-the Party officials.
“In Mao’s time, corruption was hardly a serious issue in that sense,” Lei said nodding. “In the stagnant state economy, everybody earned about the same, in accordance to the old Marxist principle: to each according to his need, from each according to his capability. But after the Cultural Revolution, people have become disillusioned with all the ideological propaganda.”
“A spiritual vacuum. That worries me.”
“Let’s see things in a different perspective,” Lei said, stepping out of the pool. “After all, China ’s been making great progress. Those two big-mouthed bathers, for instance, could have talked themselves into prison during the Cultural Revolution.”
“You can say that again,” Chen said, aware of something he and Lei had in common. They, too, could be cynical about or critical of the system, but in the last analysis, they were rather defensive of it.
Lei called his attention to the shower rooms lined along one side, each with an outlandish name: Pistol, Needle, Five-Element, Yin/Yang, Chain, Mist…
“I’m like Granny Liu walking into the Grand View Garden,” Chen said. In the classic Chinese novel, The Dream of the Red Chamber, Granny Liu was a country bumpkin, totally awestruck by the splendor of the garden. “Look at the Jade and Fire Sauna Room.”
“Today you can do everything with money.”
“We cops are really in trouble, then.”
Lei did not answer, perhaps too busy experimenting something called Zhou-Heaven-Circulation: he sat on a steel stool with an iron bar cage hanging overhead. The showerhead jerked out a spray of water, and he jumped out like a monkey in the Pilgrim to the West.
They then filed through a “dry up room,” where they were wiped by attendants with large towels and invited to change into the special red-and-white-striped pajamas before taking the elevator.
“The fourth floor is the recreation area-billiards, Ping-Pong, basketball, and a fishing pool, too, with a lot of golden carps-”
“Let’s skip that, Lei.”
“Fine. I’m hungry today. Let’s eat first.”