“Most people in Dynastic days didn’t shower much. At least in Europe, they thought it was damaging to your health, and most people would bathe like twice in their lifetime.”
This is a common myth. In some parts of Europe they thought it was bad to submerge your body in water so they'd wipe themselves off with water and soap. Louis XIV only bathed a few times in his life but every morning he was wiped down with water and a mixture of alcohol and soap before being perfumed. In the rest of Europe bath houses were very common. Also, since bath houses were common places for prostitutes and you didn't have to go naked in public a lot of more religious types thought wiping yourself down was more moral than bathing.
I'm curious though: how did Chinese people bathe before plumbing?
I'm not sure about Dynastic Chinese people, but when I was growing up, our village didn't have plumbing either. Or, at least, private homes didn't. The local village bank still had running water in their cafeteria, and some other businesses did too. So people would walk to the nearest business to buy big thermos of hot water--like thermos the size of a small bucket.
And we had these big basins at home--not as big as the ones that are almost bathtub sized like you might see in anime, and ours were made of plastic, not wood. But it was still big enough that a little kiddo could sit in it and wash up. And every development had a communal faucet you could get free cold water from. I hear from my mom that when she was little, people would just get water from the river. But by the time I was born, that river had ran dry because of how much trash was piled up in it. And then you just mix up the cold water and hot water until it's an acceptable temperature, and wash as fast as possible before it got too cold.
Adults would just sit next to the basin, and yeah, wipe themselves down, soap up, and then wipe clean again, and dip their head in the basin to wash their hair. I imagine it's not that different in dynastic days, except that you had to burn firewood to get your own hot water, instead of walking across the street to the bank.
We had bathhouses in town too. My other grandma had a subscription there, so she used to take me whenever she was babysitting me. I thought it was awesome, because you didn't have to worry about the water getting cold. And they had free body wash and shampoo there. We didn't have actual body wash or shampoo at home for the longest time because it was expensive. My grandma just used bulk laundry detergent for washing *everything*. It was only after laundry detergent burnt my baby skin that she relented and bought bar soap just for me.
Bathhouses are great. It's still something I look forward to every time I'm back in China. I'm kind of sad that they're not a thing in America :(
Sounds rather similar to the US before plumbing minus, as you say, bath houses. Those basins were just called wash basins. Some American parents still wash their children in sinks instead of baths until they get too big which is a semi-survival of washing them in the basin until they're old enough to stand still outside it. (It's supposed to be safer because it's not as deep.) And in olden times most farms and some businesses would have their own source of water. But more urban/village homes would have a pump for the whole street provided as a utility. At least until the late 19th century when the US got indoor plumbing.
The big difference is that long before plumbing (really since the 17th/18th century) American houses generally had metal stoves that would have a fire burning all day. Even in poor American homes since coal/wood was so cheap. So you'd fetch water from the pump (or river if you were really poor) then heat it on the stove instead of buying it hot and rushing home.
This actually delayed the water heater for half a century. It was invented in the US in the late 19th century. For like 50 years the opinion was basically it was more expensive and not more useful than just heating water on the stove. Only when electricity became cheap and easy to get did keeping water preheated become financially affordable and water heaters got popular.
Also, soap was always quite cheap so I've not heard of anyone not using soap to save money. What stratified by class was the type of soap you used. Poor people used cheap soap and stretched it out. Rich people had much fancier variants and much more of it. But you could get a pound of cheap soap (about equivalent to 32 modern bars) for about a day's wages as an agricultural laborer.
PS: There are some bath houses in the US but they're not very common. Mostly they're in areas with ethnic ancestries that come from certain cultures. Eastern Europeans, Middle Easterners, etc. Definitely worth looking for if you enjoy them though.
I live in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. We don't have areas. Much less areas with ethnic ancestries :(
I'm not sure why soap was an expensive good growing up, actually. But I very clearly remember the cheapest bar of soap they had on the market was a Baby Only item in my household, and no one else was allowed to waste it. And when I say laundry detergent, I don't mean the nice scented stuff you can find in American supermarkets. It was this white, powdery stuff that was strong as fuck. Even as an adult, when I go home and use it to wash my hands, it kinds burns my skin if I don't get it off fast enough.
Apparently, in my hometown, a lot of houses still doesn't have plumbing to this day. Our village bathhouse is still a necessity. So, like, maybe cheap bathhouses are slowing down China's plumbing industry too.
That sounds very chemical. Traditional American soap (which is largely the same as what you'd get in Britain or Mexico or wherever) is made from water, animal fats, and ash. You'd also add beeswax and oils to make it smoother, give it scents, etc.
It was poured into a big pot (or sometimes a giant hollowed out log), stirred, and then left to harden. Then pulled out and chopped into blocks for bulk purchases or individual bars for smaller purchases. Most families bought big blocks and would shave off bits of it to bathe with. There were expensive luxury soaps like today, often imported from southern Europe, but most of it was very utilitarian. (You also had harsher soaps used for laundry. And special oils or soaps meant for hair. But that was more for people with money.)
All of this seems like something China could have done. But to be honest maybe it was some specifically European craft? I can't say that I know but I'm curious.
On the lack of plumbing: Could be. I've heard some similar things happened in Eastern Europe with their bath houses.
Yeah, I need to ask my grandma what's up with that. I think it might be one of those things where, soap isn't that rare in dynastic days, but during communist China, it was a highly rationed good or something. Maybe they just didn't issue a lot of tickets for soap for personal use, because it was an "unnecessary luxury" or something.
Not a new phenomenon in any case, really; the old-by-American-or-internet-standards proverb for news was "if it bleeds, it leads". It would be a remarkable coincidence if the most immediately interesting stuff were always also the most important stuff.
We're arguably fortunate, in that "immediately interesting" differs from "most important" in predictable - and therefore preventable - ways. On the other hand, there are an awful lot of those ways to be predicting all the time.
”If you’re poor and you’re ugly or you’ve got a bad personality, no one would marry down for you either.”
No lie here at all hahaha
“Most people in Dynastic days didn’t shower much. At least in Europe, they thought it was damaging to your health, and most people would bathe like twice in their lifetime.”
This is a common myth. In some parts of Europe they thought it was bad to submerge your body in water so they'd wipe themselves off with water and soap. Louis XIV only bathed a few times in his life but every morning he was wiped down with water and a mixture of alcohol and soap before being perfumed. In the rest of Europe bath houses were very common. Also, since bath houses were common places for prostitutes and you didn't have to go naked in public a lot of more religious types thought wiping yourself down was more moral than bathing.
I'm curious though: how did Chinese people bathe before plumbing?
I'm not sure about Dynastic Chinese people, but when I was growing up, our village didn't have plumbing either. Or, at least, private homes didn't. The local village bank still had running water in their cafeteria, and some other businesses did too. So people would walk to the nearest business to buy big thermos of hot water--like thermos the size of a small bucket.
And we had these big basins at home--not as big as the ones that are almost bathtub sized like you might see in anime, and ours were made of plastic, not wood. But it was still big enough that a little kiddo could sit in it and wash up. And every development had a communal faucet you could get free cold water from. I hear from my mom that when she was little, people would just get water from the river. But by the time I was born, that river had ran dry because of how much trash was piled up in it. And then you just mix up the cold water and hot water until it's an acceptable temperature, and wash as fast as possible before it got too cold.
Adults would just sit next to the basin, and yeah, wipe themselves down, soap up, and then wipe clean again, and dip their head in the basin to wash their hair. I imagine it's not that different in dynastic days, except that you had to burn firewood to get your own hot water, instead of walking across the street to the bank.
We had bathhouses in town too. My other grandma had a subscription there, so she used to take me whenever she was babysitting me. I thought it was awesome, because you didn't have to worry about the water getting cold. And they had free body wash and shampoo there. We didn't have actual body wash or shampoo at home for the longest time because it was expensive. My grandma just used bulk laundry detergent for washing *everything*. It was only after laundry detergent burnt my baby skin that she relented and bought bar soap just for me.
Bathhouses are great. It's still something I look forward to every time I'm back in China. I'm kind of sad that they're not a thing in America :(
Sounds rather similar to the US before plumbing minus, as you say, bath houses. Those basins were just called wash basins. Some American parents still wash their children in sinks instead of baths until they get too big which is a semi-survival of washing them in the basin until they're old enough to stand still outside it. (It's supposed to be safer because it's not as deep.) And in olden times most farms and some businesses would have their own source of water. But more urban/village homes would have a pump for the whole street provided as a utility. At least until the late 19th century when the US got indoor plumbing.
The big difference is that long before plumbing (really since the 17th/18th century) American houses generally had metal stoves that would have a fire burning all day. Even in poor American homes since coal/wood was so cheap. So you'd fetch water from the pump (or river if you were really poor) then heat it on the stove instead of buying it hot and rushing home.
This actually delayed the water heater for half a century. It was invented in the US in the late 19th century. For like 50 years the opinion was basically it was more expensive and not more useful than just heating water on the stove. Only when electricity became cheap and easy to get did keeping water preheated become financially affordable and water heaters got popular.
Also, soap was always quite cheap so I've not heard of anyone not using soap to save money. What stratified by class was the type of soap you used. Poor people used cheap soap and stretched it out. Rich people had much fancier variants and much more of it. But you could get a pound of cheap soap (about equivalent to 32 modern bars) for about a day's wages as an agricultural laborer.
PS: There are some bath houses in the US but they're not very common. Mostly they're in areas with ethnic ancestries that come from certain cultures. Eastern Europeans, Middle Easterners, etc. Definitely worth looking for if you enjoy them though.
I live in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. We don't have areas. Much less areas with ethnic ancestries :(
I'm not sure why soap was an expensive good growing up, actually. But I very clearly remember the cheapest bar of soap they had on the market was a Baby Only item in my household, and no one else was allowed to waste it. And when I say laundry detergent, I don't mean the nice scented stuff you can find in American supermarkets. It was this white, powdery stuff that was strong as fuck. Even as an adult, when I go home and use it to wash my hands, it kinds burns my skin if I don't get it off fast enough.
Apparently, in my hometown, a lot of houses still doesn't have plumbing to this day. Our village bathhouse is still a necessity. So, like, maybe cheap bathhouses are slowing down China's plumbing industry too.
My sympathies. :(
That sounds very chemical. Traditional American soap (which is largely the same as what you'd get in Britain or Mexico or wherever) is made from water, animal fats, and ash. You'd also add beeswax and oils to make it smoother, give it scents, etc.
It was poured into a big pot (or sometimes a giant hollowed out log), stirred, and then left to harden. Then pulled out and chopped into blocks for bulk purchases or individual bars for smaller purchases. Most families bought big blocks and would shave off bits of it to bathe with. There were expensive luxury soaps like today, often imported from southern Europe, but most of it was very utilitarian. (You also had harsher soaps used for laundry. And special oils or soaps meant for hair. But that was more for people with money.)
All of this seems like something China could have done. But to be honest maybe it was some specifically European craft? I can't say that I know but I'm curious.
On the lack of plumbing: Could be. I've heard some similar things happened in Eastern Europe with their bath houses.
Yeah, I need to ask my grandma what's up with that. I think it might be one of those things where, soap isn't that rare in dynastic days, but during communist China, it was a highly rationed good or something. Maybe they just didn't issue a lot of tickets for soap for personal use, because it was an "unnecessary luxury" or something.
I wonder if the author of that "effective communication" post has read the Toxoplasma of Rage. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/
Or the horror-fiction continuation of it, Sort by Controversial. https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/
Not a new phenomenon in any case, really; the old-by-American-or-internet-standards proverb for news was "if it bleeds, it leads". It would be a remarkable coincidence if the most immediately interesting stuff were always also the most important stuff.
We're arguably fortunate, in that "immediately interesting" differs from "most important" in predictable - and therefore preventable - ways. On the other hand, there are an awful lot of those ways to be predicting all the time.