While some young people's impression of foot-washing city is still "only for middle-aged men", other young people have long regarded this place as a happy hometown. In Changsha, an Internet celebrity city that has become popular because of a series of new consumer brands, foot washing city has long been added to the travel guide. Many people who come to Changsha for tourism will pull their suitcases and use foot-washing city as the last stop of their trip to Changsha. People complained on social networks about the long queue in foot-washing city, and at the same time, they were wildly exposing how delicious the beef noodles were.
At the beginning of 2022, we made a special trip to Changsha to explore why Changsha's foot-washing city is attractive, why young people are willing to queue for hours to wash their feet, and what it means to wash feet in the spiritual world of Changsha people.
Text | Xie Chan
Edit | Gin soup
Operational | Tsukimi
Figure | Xie Chan (unless specially noted)
1
The first time I left for Changsha Foot Wash City, my friend only told me two things: go early on weekdays and don't eat before you come.
So at 4:30 on a Wednesday, I showed up downstairs at a foot-washing house. It's a foot-washing city that's hot on social networks, and is called "Haidilao in the foot bathing world" by young people – when a store is named after it, it means that its service is good enough, any strange requirements can be met, and there may be many new ways to play outside the main business waiting for you to discover. Of course, it also means endless queues.
But living in Changsha, what does queuing count? As we all know, a big "hobby" of Changsha people is to queue, whether it is windy or rainy, whether it is a holiday or a weekday, eating Wen and friends to queue up tens of thousands; although there can be 6 teas at an intersection, the queue is still far away on the road... Because the queues of Changsha people are too fierce, there are often fierce discussions on the Internet about "whether the team at the door of Changsha commercial house is a childcare that is paid for by money".
In foot-washing city, from the moment you enter the door, you may be greeted by a bowing ceremony of a row of people; your feet have just left the ground, and your body has just moved forward, and someone will run to you and try to show you the way. There is also a code of conduct map hanging on the wall of the foot city, strict to the distance between the front and back swing arms of the waiter, which leg to squat first when squatting, standing posture, sitting posture, squatting posture, each of which has complex requirements.
After walking through this "social death" moment, I found that the halls of foot-washing city were already crowded with people, slumped on sofas and recliners, and a lady who put her computer on a chair. Unlike the foot-washing city that should be the home of middle-aged men, the lobby is almost full of young people.
Just as I was about to find a place to sit down, the welcome guy came over and told me, "Madam, now I have to queue up," paused, and predicted quite humanely: "Now I expect to queue for 4 hours." "My friend and I glanced at each other and quickly fled this place of right and wrong.
The first attempted foot wash is naturally unwilling. So the next day, the two of us stepped on the foot-washing city to open the door and appeared on time. This time it went much smoother, except that the technician left work too late yesterday and did not go to work, and the chef did not go to work, there was no other problem.
In foot-washing city, the chef is as important as the technician, which is why my friend told me that I must come on an empty stomach. In Changsha, looking at a foot-washing city is not qualified, whether it is good or not is probably the most important criterion. For example, the "Golden Impression" I went to for the first time was famous for its beef powder and gaima rice, and the owner of "Sixi Fuqiao" who went after that opened a wonton shop in the early years, as for the signature brine rice of the chain brand "Yierkang", it is also famous.
Not only delicious, but also enough. Many foot-washing city menus are surprisingly rich: from staples to desserts, from snacks to fruits. Social networking sites search changsha foot-washing city, and most of the post covers are a table full of food. Really eat into the mouth, I found the beef powder in the foot washing city, the beef is soft and sticky, the taste of the soup completely enters the powder, and social networks always say that the best powder in Changsha is hidden in the foot washing city, not without reason.
▲ Various cuisines in Changsha Foot Wash City. Photo/Screenshot of Little Red Book
Of course, it's not just about eating. Since neither the chef nor the technician was there, the waiter let us watch a movie in the room first – which was also the "serious thing" in the foot-washing city. The rooms in the foot-washing city are soundproof and private, whether it is watching movies and singing KTV, they are very comfortable, and the film source and sound source will not lose.
A friend who frequently goes in and out of foot-washing city because she likes movies, she will pick out when there are not so many guests, "I can watch four or five films in a row, which is much more cost-effective than the movie theater!" But once, she just clicked on "Spiritual Journey", the technician did not hold back and said, hoping that the guests would change a film, and the technician said that he had watched the guests more than a dozen times during this time.
Since the foot-washing city can be called a "city", it means that there are too many things you can do in the foot-washing city: in addition to the massage room in the whole building, there are KTV, billiard tables, tea houses, and board games. Some foot-washing cities began to undertake team building business, after all, the price per capita of one or two hundred, you can throw all the employees over, let them entertain themselves, eat, pinch their feet, sing, watch movies, play billiards, play board games, the cost performance is worth it.
However, in Changsha Foot Wash City, everything is serious, but absolutely can not do anything wrong.
For example, in the elevator of the foot-washing city I went to, there was a poster documenting the whole process of a customer who escaped in 2015. Because of the escape, the person's high-definition headshot, the corrective posture of climbing the balcony to escape, and the shoes left in the lobby of the foot-washing city were all printed and pasted in the elevator. Another person, who stole something in Foot Wash City in 2011, has been watching his photo for more than a decade.
▲ The "public execution" of customers who evaded orders in elevators.
2
Back at noon when I first "washed my feet," near the end of the first movie, the technician finally arrived.
The moment they enter the door, it is the peak of the "social death" of the social terrorists, the technicians will first bow deeply, and then call you "distinguished guest" with a smile, this is the training process, only after a large section of warm welcome after the recitation, the foot washing can officially begin.
I thought the technician would come in with a barrel of milk, rose petals, or anything else, but none. The technician asked me to take my feet away, and she lifted the lid on the back of the recliner, and underneath it was a small bathtub, and I suddenly "ah" came out.
Technician 96 seems to be used to it - in foot-washing city, you have no way of knowing what the technician's name is, and everyone calls themselves by number - "The first time I came to us, it was like this."
At noon that day, my friend and I bought two of the best-selling packages in the store: Longshou Foot Road: 159 yuan for 80 minutes, and Impression Guizu, 170 yuan for 90 minutes, which contained dazzling small items, such as secret Tibetan soup foot bath, head, shoulder and neck meridian pressure relief, upper limb muscle relaxation, foot reflex conditioning, leg meridian dredging, waist and back meridian strong spine... To sum it up: press from head to toe.
▲ Each foot city has many projects, and the price points are different. Picture /phone screenshot
There are only two feet in people, but the feet that come out of Changsha Foot Wash City definitely taste more than two. The special feature here is that there are enough choices, and everyone can find the one they like the most. Take water for soaking feet, wormwood, vinegar, ginger, roses, milk... These rich little spices allow everyone's feet to experience the joy of VIP customization.
You can even find stinky tofu-flavored foot soaking water. Last summer, there was a stinky tofu brand in Taiping Old Street developed foot washing business, guests are soaking feet in public, stinky tofu shape foot soaking balls in the barrel quickly dissolved, a bucket of water also became black, if you do not worry about "social death", the foot pinch master is also willing to help you pinch your feet under the admiration of tourists.
Although everyone goes to foot-washing city, many people don't really come to wash their feet. Technicians say that most of the people who come now are young people, and young people have a sense of boundaries and are not so relaxed when they are touched by others. Some guests will keep their feet retracted, and sometimes, they will hear the screams of the next room.
When the technician tried to pinch my foot, the soreness of the soles of my feet quickly rushed upwards, and I was originally immersed in the movie, my limbs instantly stiffened, I felt like a cat that was strangled by fate, and I didn't dare to move, but the technician seemed to feel my embarrassment quickly and told me that it didn't matter, "If you are not used to it, we will not press your feet, I will press your back."
The technician says that many young people don't like to chat with strangers either — like taxi drivers who don't like to talk a lot— but if they take the initiative, the technician can keep talking to you. The topic usually starts from the body, and during the massage, an experienced technician can observe from a person's body what the person is doing and the person's living habits.
We also talked about our respective work and life. This technician has to work 12 hours a day, when the business is good, to serve 8 people a day, and when the business is average, there will be 6 or 7 people, and each person must be pressed for more than an hour. She has been working in the store for 6 years, has long been familiar with the relationships and rules here, and now that she "earns more", she does not want to leave. Massage is physical work, in the early years there were always people who said that girls could not suffer, she was very angry, saying "the men in this building do not earn as much as me", "my youth is dedicated here".
3
How popular is Changsha's foot-washing industry?
Locals often joke that if you put three holes in the map of Changsha, you can accurately pierce the three foot-washing cities. Another widely circulated joke is that when night falls, half of the Changsha people wash the feet of the other half. And my technician heard that I was working in Beijing and quickly answered, "Beijing is the capital, Changsha is the foot capital."
As long as you walk through the streets of Changsha and find that the roadside and dark alleys are full of foot-washing signs, it is not surprising that the title of "Foot Capital" is not surprising. In fact, according to statistics, as early as ten years ago, there were 15,000 foot bath shops in Changsha, more than the four cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing combined. Moreover, each foot-washing city has its own unique style and characteristics, but it may not be possible to avoid a common label: grotesque.
In Changsha, some "second-line" landmark attractions are not the natural landscapes of Orange Island Head and Yuelu Mountain, nor the shopping malls of the National Financial Center, but the "cosmic space" constructed by the local entrepreneurs in Hunan, the architectural style has its own characteristics, such as the combination of Chinese and Western - people or things of the Roman mythological system, and the Jade Emperor will appear in the same scene, and then all-encompassing - only you can't think of it, there is no they can't put out...
As one of the largest foot-washing cities in Changsha, Sixi Fuqiao clearly inherits this style. Just entering the foot-washing city is enough to make you feel what is called crossing ancient and modern China and foreign countries, and what is the long history of civilization. The staff in the shop said that the decoration here is retro style, and the owner has put a lot of thought into it.
After I stepped in, I suddenly understood that it was indeed retro style, because it had nothing to do with the aesthetics of modern people. At the gate of foot-washing city, two Spartan warriors held spears, as if they were vowing to guard foot-washing city. But as soon as you turn your head, you will be greeted by two gigantic statues of the Buddha. Further inside, there are terracotta warriors dressed in neon blocks.
Not only retro, the shop also seems to be very feng shui, the hall raised a Luohan fish, the introduction said, this fish's ink spot lin has a financial effect, but the fish's head (referring to the fish's forehead) is a bit mad.
Not only the decoration, but also the furnishings in the foot wash city are also different. The plant that impressed me the most about foot-washing city was this: three of the world's most colorful lotus flowers floating on the pool. It's really the plastic most simulated flower I've ever seen, and none of the colors are close to the real lotus flowers.
The way to persuade customers not to spit is to tell you that there are 300 trash cans here, and if you walk ten steps, you will definitely see one.
And all of this was explained when I saw a copy of Grotesque Behavior on the shelves on the second floor.
▲ Various "magical" decorations in Sixi Fuqiao.
4
Despite being massaged for the first time, my back hurt for days. But because I miss the beef noodles in the foot-washing city. I didn't resist the temptation to ask a friend to go again.
The other party was a novice in the foot city, and his face was suddenly embarrassed. At first glance, there is always a feeling of not being decent, but when I turned over the contents of the content titled "Haidilao in the Foot Bathing World" and "Changsha Foot Washing: Aka's Best Beef Powder and the Most Complete Private Theater with the Most Complete Film Sources" as the titles, the other party quickly changed his shoes and stood in the doorway looking at me, "Why don't you leave?" ”
Perhaps the style of Foot wash city is absurd enough, it gradually became one of the traffic passwords on the Internet. On the short video software, the account positioning of the blogger is to explore the shop in the foot-washing city, and the goal is to go to 10,000 foot-washing cities. In the introduction, he said that he "didn't want to seriously visit the store, he just wanted to get the envy of everyone."
Technicians tell me that many of the guests these days are bloggers who come specifically to shoot videos. The bosses of foot-washing city are also very good at using traffic, an elevator room in foot-washing city, posters write the rules of the activity, guests take photos in the store scene to upload vibrato, the accumulated number of likes and views is more, you can find the boss in exchange for gifts, up to 3,000 yuan of consumption cards.
As long as you have been to changsha's foot-washing city once, you will always be attracted to some of them, maybe food, maybe a feeling of relaxation. In Changsha, these three words can be seen or heard almost anywhere, including on roadside billboards, taxi drivers' traffic radios, and even when eating supper, you can hear neighboring tables discussing the foot-washing city that they just went to yesterday.
For more Changsha people, foot-washing city means an attitude towards life. I have seen a very exquisite summary, saying that "the essence of Changsha is a foot-washing city", the blogger named @ Cai Yueri said: "Changsha's historical and cultural landscape is the same as Changsha's ancient streets, short and small can not be said to be concise, at a glance you can see from this side of the street mouth to the end of the street, Taiping Street, Pozi Street, Beizheng Street are like this." So come to Changsha to play, don't expect anything too spiritual, that is, covet pleasure, eat well, get drunk, and finally go to soak your feet before you go, the essence of Changsha is a foot-washing city. ”
Thinking like this, everything in the foot-washing city, eating, drinking and having fun, is indeed everything that the city of Changsha has brought to people in recent years. People who grew up and worked under the discipline of hard work and inner volume came to Changsha to find that no one here felt that pleasure was immoral.
Changsha people love to play, is the degree to which entertainment venues can be regarded as home, compared to foot washing city is a healthy entertainment. After washing my feet a few times, I have mastered what the technician has to say before each hand massage, "Here it hurts, it's a bad stomach", "The shoulders are so hard, sitting too much time", "Just press it so much sha, there is fire"... In short, whether it is effective or not, the current diagnosis of footwashing city is now "treatment", at least for young people to get comfort. Healthy young people flock to foot-washing city, although the final destination is the game area and KTV in foot-washing city.
Hitting workers may have the same logic. The last time I left foot-washing city, I saw the crowded hall again, and the white-collar workers who were still waiting for their seats with computers in their arms. Thinking about it is really contradictory, the hit workers are lining up for foot washing and have back pain, while washing their feet to save the tired hit workers' bodies.
▲ Photo / "Love Apartment"
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