Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

Showering

"Do you wash your hair everyday?"

This was the question a friend recently asked me. And she gave me an almost bizarre look as she said it.

"Uh, yea, I take a shower everyday," I replied. "What about you?"

"I only take showers every two or three days," she said. "Most people in Xi'an do the same," she later explained.

I never would have imagined it. But showering everyday is really a foreign habit over here.

"Oh, you like to take showers in the morning. I see," my aunt once told me. She lives in Beijing, and while I was visiting she asked me if I need to bathe myself."

"That's right. Americans really like to take showers," she added.

Personally I can't imagine skipping a day not taking a shower. One might wonder if all the people in Xi'an are dirty, or walk around with a nasty funk, but I assure you that's not the case.

Yesterday, a student explained to me part of the reason why. In the northern parts of China, the air is dry, and people sweat less. So there's no need to shower so often. In the south, however, the humidity is high and the weather is hotter. And so showering often is common. Xi'an, although in the center of China, is still considered a part of the north.

The other reason is because a lot of people don't have shower facilities. I've been to some of my students' dorms and noticed no bath tub or shower head in the nearby bathroom. To wash themselves they soaked a rag, or washed their faced at the sink.

When they do need to take a shower, students instead go to a local bathhouse.

One student told me she knows a classmate who has the rare habit of taking showers everyday. To do, so she simply fills up a bucket of water and then drops it over her head; a "shower" as my student put it.

So, I guess I'm the weird one; I take showers everyday.