Travel blogger Tim has described feeling like a piece of meat after visiting a traditional public bathhouse during a journey across China.
The Irish content creator, who has Russian-Armenian heritage, shared the details of the encounter with followers on his personal blog, In Pursuit of the Unusual, on the Dzen publishing platform.
Dzen is one of the largest digital content and blogging platforms in the Russian-speaking world, where independent creators publish travel reports, personal essays, and lifestyle commentary for millions of daily active readers.
Writing about his time in China, Tim recounted how an attendant dressed only in blue boxer shorts looked at him as though he were stale goods in a butcher shop. The worker then directed him with a brief nod toward a leather couch covered in slippery plastic wrap. Seconds later, the attendant splashed boiling water from a basin directly over him, leading the traveler to joke that everything he had known about personal space had remained on the other side of the Great Wall of China.
The 50-Yuan Treatment
Before the treatment began, Tim observed about fifty naked men crowded together inside the waiting hall. He noted that the visitors were drinking tea and loudly debating the currency exchange rate of the Chinese yuan, while the room echoed with shouts, rising steam, and the sharp sound of slapping skin.
Public bathing facilities have a long history throughout China, particularly across northern regions where large bath complexes function as community gathering spots. Patrons regularly spend hours unwinding, socializing, and receiving deep body scrubs from professional attendants who use specialized exfoliating mitts to scour the skin.
Following the intense washing session, Tim reported that his skin was as red as a boiled crayfish and as clean as a fresh sheet of paper. He explained that the experience left him feeling renewed, humiliated, and happy all at the same time. Looking back at the attendant, the blogger noted that while the procedure was ordinary employment for the worker, it was an existential crisis for the customer at a cost of 50 yuan.
Previous Moscow Experience
The visit in China was not the first time the traveler encountered an intense local bathing tradition during his global journeys. He previously documented an outing to a public bathhouse in Moscow, where the punishing temperatures led him to conclude that he had nearly died.
At the time, the foreigner suggested that undergoing the Russian banya ritual felt like an endurance test to determine whether someone was willing to suffer voluntarily. Traditional Russian bathhouses are renowned for their fierce heat and steam rooms, where bathers are customarily struck with leafy birch or oak branches to stimulate circulation and cleanse the body.
