Page 39 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols 32
Bath

xi-zao

It is principally the South Chinese who make a fetish of cleanliness, taking a bath every
day or at least pouring water over themselves. They also do a lot of bathing in the sea and
in rivers. Men and women bath together, and the South Chinese see nothing improper in
this; but we find North Chinese criticism of this ‘southern’ fashion in very early texts.
Well-to-do families had their own bath-houses from very early times; public bath-houses
began to spread in about AD 1000.
The bath ‘purifies’ in a symbolic sense as well. A woman bathed before entering a
nunnery. It is customary to wash oneself before going on pilgrimage; and both bride
and bridegroom take a bath on the eve of the wedding. In the Middle Ages, statues of
Buddha in temples were washed on the 8th day of the 12th month; and the bath-houses in
monasteries were open for public use on the same day – the day when, according to
tradition, Prince Gautama became the Buddha. It was also the eve of the great annual rite
of exorcism, when the city was washed clean of evil.
Bathing had particular symbolical value at key moments in a person’s life. It was also
connected with fertility; and the Amazons who appear in Chinese myths became pregnant
when they bathed.