Southerners: Why do we need to scrub our bodies? Northerners: It can remove dead skin cells!

Tell me quietly, are you from the north or the south?

When winter comes, some people are always surprised that people in the north don’t take a bath every day!

For residents in southern China, not taking a shower for a day will make them feel uncomfortable.

Especially in the hot summer, when you are sweating and feeling sticky, it is normal to take a shower twice a day.

But it is completely different in northern China, where sweating is a luxury, especially in the winter in the north, when the air humidity is low and you can get nosebleeds in a matter of minutes.

Even in summer, there are few hot days. Because the air is dry, it may even be a bit cold to hide in the shade of a tree.

The different climates in the north and south have created different living habits on both sides. Northerners rarely take a bath every day, and therefore are mistakenly believed by southerners to not like taking a bath.

This difference is ultimately due to the different purposes of bathing between people in the south and the north: southerners bathe to remove sweat, while northerners bathe to remove dead skin cells.

The typical southerners take a shower in the bathroom at home every day. The typical northerners usually take a shower once every 1 to 3 days, or even once a week. The northerners take a shower in a bathhouse, usually soaking and scrubbing.

There are public baths called "yusi" or "xiangshuitang".

But this thing is now basically extinct in the southern region.

Therefore, when southerners experience a northern bathhouse for the first time, they will most likely be shocked: there is no cover in the bathhouse, and two strangers can scrub each other's backs.

Here, everyone is so frank and open with each other.

As a mysterious species that would be shy when seeing their own naked bodies, the southerners were naturally prepared to go to the bathhouse in their underwear, but such attire was out of place in the bathhouse. The southerners who originally wanted to take a low-key bath instead attracted the attention of the northerners in the room. Everyone knew it: Anyone who came in wearing underwear was a southerner.

Faced with such a "simple" bathhouse, the innocent eyes of the southerners simply don't know where to put them.

Southerners take showers, while northerners scrub their bodies. The concept of "bathing" in the south and the north can be said to be two different things. The dry climate in the north and the constant dust that is raised will cause more mud on the body, while the climate in the south is more humid, the air is better than in the north, and the humid and hot environment will not cause the body to be stained with dust, which can be washed off when taking a shower every day.

In the eyes of northerners, bathing without scrubbing is soulless, and rubbing the mud is the only criterion to test whether it is clean or not. Bathing for southerners is at most a shower.

In the north, a bath towel is a "magic weapon". It is very satisfying to watch people rub mud all over their bodies with it, and only those who have experienced it can understand how pleasant it is.

Southerners who have their bath scrubbed for the first time often let out screams like pigs being slaughtered, and can’t help but question their lives: How can this be comfortable?

In the north, people also call bathing "soaking in a bath". Soaking in a pool, feeling the steam rising, the body will become more relaxed during the bath. If you meet a good bath scrubber, after scrubbing your whole body, you will feel that you can lose two taels.

The Northeast region can be said to be an outstanding representative of northern bathing culture.

For people in Northeast China, bathing has long surpassed its own meaning and has become an art.

There is a saying that describes how people in the Northeast wash away their baths: what is washed away outside the Northeast is the dust, while what is cleansed inside the Northeast is the soul.

In the bathhouses of Northeast China, regardless of social status, everyone is naked and chatting freely, and the friendship between people is melted in the hot water. When entertaining guests, Northeastern people will often invite them to take a bath, and they feel very proud when they take guests into the magnificent bathing hall.

Produced by: Dongdongmeow

WeChat ID: Dongdongmeow (ID: dongdongmeow)

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First published: Science Popularization China Science Popularization Account "Dongdong Miao"