So I Joined a Chinese Gym...

I've been meaning to tell you about it for awhile. But how to do it? I want you to get a good laugh out of my Chinese gym experiences without being freaked out and as my husband can attest to, the things that make us laugh these days...well...if we weren't living in China, I'm not sure we'd be laughing about them?

Since I've worked at a gym before as a childcare manager, I have had a little peek at the general manager side of things. So lets pretend you are a manager of decent sized, modern equipped gym in Australia or the States.

First of all, next time someone asks you if the a/c is broken cause its too hot in here, tell them its because if you run the a/c at a lower temperature, people won't sweat. And we all know that if you don't sweat enough, your body will overheat and you'll get very sick. Maybe even die. When they ask if you could at least run some fans, give the 'Seriously-did-you-not-hear-what-I-just-said?' look.

Secondly, if you think your gym's female belly dance teacher is a bit flamboyant, you should see the MAN who teaches it at my gym. He likes to give a little show for everyone at the end of class and prefers to dance with himself in the mirror. Sadly, he's really good too. Only Chinese have no butt or hips and (him in particular) no boobs so I don't know why they bother with the belly dancing. I tried to take the class once but I was laughing so hard that I had to leave!

And then, when the women, complain if the teacher or trainer asks them to do anything remotely hard, maybe the teacher should say 'Ok, we won't do that anymore'. Because the women might develop a muscle or something horrible like that. That would not be beautiful. All they care about is THINKING they look beautiful and not working for it. There's ONE set of 5 kg hand weights in the whole gym and I am the only female (also true story) that I have ever seen use them beside the personal trainers. It stinks because Chinese are naturally extremely flexible people and don't seem to have to work hard for that. The 60 yr old women in front of me in the Pilates class today could do the splits but didn't want to do sit ups.

And then there's the locker rooms...oh my gosh! They (the women of course) walk about stark naked, putting their tampons and pads in in front of everyone while they're talking about the lady next to them and how she is fat and needs to lose weight. They call each other fat to their faces! "You're looking very fat today" is a very common greeting and its not necessarily said very nicely but the other person always agrees and says "yes, I'm going on a diet" (they maybe weigh 55kg/115lb in the first place...). Jason is annoyed cause the men just hang out in the guys locker room smoking under the sign that says 'no smoking' but what can you do when it's the Personal Trainer -- join him or request management to do something about him? Hmm, I think joining requires less confrontation. Who cares if its a health club?

So my gym isn't too bad actually -- its brand new so its clean and has good equipment but its the gym etiquette that's greatly lacking! We're learning that complaining's not really getting us anywhere and its a pain that it doesn't open till 9:30am -- gone are the days of waking up early cause Nanning people like to party at night and sleep in the morning! They're very "suí biàn" (easy going -- on something things!). Oh and then there is the strip dance class...pole dancing with a little something added (or taken away depending on how you look at it I guess). And the class room has windows all the way around so the men can watch. They all line up outside the windows before class starts like they're picking their best seat for the show (well I guess essentially that is what they're doing). At least I can't think of any other purpose.

I miss my Cal Fit!!!

Rachel - 15th of Nov. 2009