Onlookers

A friend's alma mater has opened a new coffee shop. Although it looks simple, the windows are bright and clean, and the tables and chairs are neatly arranged, which is quite literary.

Just last winter, it was a bathhouse.

Bathing is a water foreskin;

Drinking coffee is a bag of water;

People who transform bathhouses into cafes are short of water!

It is said that a province in China is extremely short of water, so people there only bathe three times in their lives, after birth, on the eve of marriage and before they die.

When I was a child, adults often told us this joke to laugh at our unwillingness to take a bath!

In the 1990s, in farmers' homes, you could find an independent pigsty, but it was difficult to find an independent toilet. The toilet is basically built according to the pigsty, and there are two boards on the cesspit, which is the toilet.

As for the independent toilet, rural people didn't have this consciousness at that time.

So every winter, bathing becomes a big problem. Bathing is like the last battlefield.

Find a sunny afternoon, boil a pot of water, pour it into a big wooden basin in the sun, add some cold water, adjust the temperature to a suitable temperature, then take a bath naked, clench your fists and sit in the basin. ...

Naked bath in the sun? Yeah, naked.

But you still have to restrain your imagination that is about to burst out. In the sunny bathtub that winter, it was not as beautiful as you thought.

Of course, only children can take a bath like this. Open-air, sunny, naked, just no beach and coconut trees.

Because I was afraid of the cold, I took a bath in winter when I was a child, all under the supervision and care of my mother. Usually my mother will tell us a few days in advance that I will give you a bath this Saturday. Every bath is like holding a small ceremony, and you can't take a few baths in a winter.

At that time, every time I took a bath in winter, I always felt relaxed. The sunshine was particularly warm all afternoon.

Adults seem to be more shy than children in bathing, so they dare not be as free as children-naked in the open air. Burn a charcoal fire and wash it in the bedroom, because the bedroom is more private.

Every few days before the Spring Festival, I often hear adults say that they should take a bath these days and take a bath for the New Year. Adults will often tell us that we are going to give you a bath, and the Chinese New Year is coming soon. Therefore, this bath to welcome the Spring Festival seems to be a lot more solemn. I remember that when the Spring Festival approached in those years, my mother always urged my father to take a bath, but my father often refused for various reasons. Father won't take a bath until the Spring Festival Gala is about to begin on New Year's Eve.

People in rural areas think that the first day of the new year is the beginning of the year. Even taking a bath a few minutes before the first day of the new year means washing away the troubles and setbacks of the past year and welcoming the new year with a brand-new look.

It was not until many Chinese New Year holidays and baths that a new way appeared-going to the bathhouse.

When I was in junior high school, two bathhouses suddenly opened in the town. The neighbors all ran to tell each other, and everyone who heard them cheered. Winter finally came, the boiler in the bathhouse burned, and people in eight neighboring villages began to itch, so the whole family went out to take a bath in the bathhouse. Three or five friends, or about drinking and eating, or about playing cards to fight the landlord, because there is a bathhouse in the town, they occasionally take a bath.

It was when the Spring Festival approached that year that my parents took us to the bathhouse for the first time. We are both curious and excited about this, and feel that we are about to enter an unknown world. That time, I washed in the shower room for more than half an hour. First, I haven't bathed for a long time. Secondly, the warmth brought by hot water is really comfortable and I want to enjoy it more.

During that time, I often heard adults say that the bath hall opened by someone was too hot, and people who went to take a shower lined up. At that time, there were two bathhouses in our town, one of which was actually opened by a classmate's father. Once I went to take a shower and met this classmate. He said that driving outside has become more and more difficult in recent years. I opened a bathhouse at home, and the business was very hot, so I came back to help.

I wonder if there are any other parents who are eager to open a bathhouse when it is hot.

Many neighbors, I don't know if they are inspired by the bathhouse, have also carved out a place at home and built independent bathrooms. At that time, grandpa also caught up with this fashion and built a bathroom less than 2 square meters in the kitchen of the old house. There is no heating lamp in the bathroom, and grandpa is whimsical. There is a small hole in the bathroom wall near the kitchen to connect the pipes. Taking a bath when it's cold, connecting it to a pressure cooker and heating it with steam seems a bit like a sauna.

My mother lamented my grandfather's entrepreneurship. Even on a cold morning, I won't feel cold when I take a shower. But I haven't been able to enjoy the sauna in grandpa's bathroom, because it was summer when I took a bath at grandpa's house.

If someone has a new bathroom, neighbors will also borrow the bathroom to take a bath in winter.

One summer, several students went home for a holiday. Male students take advantage of the night to carry water, while female students take a bath at their cousin's house. Because my cousin's house has built a two-story building with a separate bathroom.

That is, in my college years, two-story buildings in the village rose from the ground, and independent bathrooms became the standard configuration of new houses. Solar cold water heaters and electric water heaters keep hot water flowing, and there are various ventilation and heating equipment in the bathroom.

Rural people can take a bath and finally stay indoors.

Bathing, a challenging thing in rural winter, has now achieved another function-enjoyment.

Since every household has its own bathroom, the bathhouse in the town has been silent since I don't know when, and no one has ever mentioned it again. My classmate's bathhouse has been closed for many years, but the photos are still there. I think how dazzling this signboard was.

One day, will this bathhouse in my classmate's house be transformed into a cafe?

Not long ago, I told my father that the bathroom at home would be renovated in the future. One of the purposes is to have a bathtub. How comfortable it is to take a bath. My father is noncommittal about this.

A few years ago, a neighbor installed a bathtub in the bathroom. After two or three years, I asked his daughter curiously, is it comfortable to take a bath in the bathtub? She said that her brother had only bathed in the bathtub once or twice. Most of the time, this bathtub is used as a fish tank to raise fish!