Modern Express
January 14, 2008

China's so-called "bathing industry" is epitomized by seedy saunas and bathhouses that are often brothels in disguise.

So it is no surprise that plans by the government of Ma'anshan (马鞍山), an industrial city in Anhui Province, to rebrand the city as the capital of China's "bathing industry" have caused controversy.

In December 2008, the municipal government published an article on their website inviting citizens' feedback on the city's plan to boost its tourism:

After all the efforts of the recent years, Ma'anshan's tourism development has achieved a phrasal success. But to most domestic tourists, Ma'anshan is still a steel manufacturing city, instead of a tourist destination.

There are no famous tourist services or brand to speak of in Ma'anshan. To achieve the government's brand new strategic goal to build the city as a recreation and tourist center of Anhui Province, the tourism department has invited some experts to work on the city image design...

Trying to figure out a solution, the government invited some experts to find the city's marketable tourist resources and come up with ideas to package and promote them.

The experts soon discovered that Ma'anshan has a unique bathing culture.

The bathing venues in Ma'anshan are not only places where people can take their baths, they also provide related services from food to hairdressing.

"You can have a good time there for a reasonable price of 40 kuai." a report quoted a local resident. "In Ma'anshan, it is more fashionable to invite someone to "take a bath" than have a dinner. Even people from major city like Nanjing came to our city to take a bath."

But the the idea of developing a "bathing city" nevertheless received ruthless bashing on the Internet and the mainstream media, with the assumption being that the government is at the least taking a hands-off policy if not actively encouraging the sex industry.

Today's Modern Express, a Nanjing-based newspaper, reports that the Ma'anshan government recently insisted that the government has never approved the "China's bath city" idea.

On the Internet, some people tend to see the government as the victim of bad publicity, while others believe that since more people now know the city after the debate, the city has actually gained from the controversy.