Chutz-spa
June 2, 2003 | 12:00am
Without being charmed by the thought, Pinoys actually live in a Third World spa environment. After all, the plethora of pleasures associated with spas, albeit unappreciated and even dreaded, should be au naturel for every citizen regardless of race or religion, creed or color.
Take a look at the weather. Humidity sticks the whole year round with summers priming our sweat glands into producing enough liquids to supply Maynilad’s shortages. Think of the warm climate as a country-sized steam engine that billows vapors which help loosen pores and melt away excess fat.
Such calorie-burning feature of nature ought to be equivalent to a prolonged session in the sauna which makes basking under the torrid climate and soaking in sweat the best weapons for overweight Filipinos in their battle against the bulge – a battle which the wintry warriors in the west have a swell time winning.
And who can forget the rains? The wet season has every feature of a spa – lots and lots of water flowing into every nook and cranny of the country and into every conceivable crevice of the body polity. The incessant pitter-pattering during heavy downpours is an occasion for a free Turkish bath – in the flooded streets, of course, but minus the Jacuzzi of junk that floats all around.
As for your common folk, bone-cracking and muscle-stretching labor could compare with the experience of a two-hour long sojourn at the spa: Somebody else gets paid for working you up through the satori of sleep and snore. Thus, one’s spent horsepower for tilling and toiling in the fields, factories or offices serves as fuel for another who earns a salary for relieving all the stress and tension derived from the daily grind.
Needless to say, all this merely highlights the growing fascination and fad over the predominance of spas in defining leisure and luxury for urban living in the Philippines. An ever-increasing number of spas are sprouting all over the metropolis and it seems that they will soon sweep the country. They are now, more than ever, as ubiquitous as fast-food restaurants, pawnshops and even 24-hour convenience stores.
Practically every neighborhood nowadays is inaugurating a spa in its various names, forms and menu of services. Facial care centers, body treatment salons, fitness gyms, physical well-being stations, aromatherapy centers, and the more traditional beauty parlors or barberya all rattle off, one way or the other, any of a spa’s specialties – the sauna, the bath, the massage, the works!
We welcome this development even though we wonder half-aloud why more and more Filipinos find more and more time to hibernate in such havens of bodily bliss at a time when the Dilberted busy bodies seem to be constantly griping about how much overtime must be clocked in and how working like a machine are requisites for earning one’s keep to be able to afford the basic necessities in life such as food, shelter, clothing and, well, a soothing session at the spa.
Reference to "going to the spa" has become more familiar than the late ’90s hip thing-to-do like "go to a gimmick" which indeed sounded too broad and was not place-specific. The spa craze is an emerging lifestyle experience alright, and it’s amusing to see how the concept of repairing to a spa has evolved into something uniquely wholesome and acceptable to almost everyone.
Before, the mere idea of visiting a spa clamped a cunning connotation of a mischievous trip to Maalikaya where boys go through a secret rite of passage inside bolted cubicles, usually on a one-on-one tit for tat with a scantily clad pseudo-geisha who groans an order to strip to one’s undies while teasingly intoning – "lotion or powder or neither?" Otherwise, any mention of a spa translated to a harmless school outing in Pansol, Laguna.
After all, the spas of yore conjured images of massive Greco-Roman pillars standing guard to an exclusive men’s club where an armada of aging, half-naked men, prospective patients in a hospital’s geriatric ward, swim and slush in a giant bathtub while getting soaked, scrubbed and soaped by sultry sirens. A spa was thus too DOM-ish for the Pinoys‚ innate coyness and conservatism to be considered as a place for weekend worship.
Some men and women would even cringe at the suggestion of visiting a spa. It’s either too sissy or to sosy to be seen in the company of vanity vixens or balding Quixotes who imbibe from an imaginary fountain of youth. Women, in particular, were more at home with their suking manicurista or with their gay haircutters who are, after all, their principal source of the latest scandals and tsismis. Any further contact beyond the pate or the fingertips require the intervention of a blind masseuse whose musings on life interestingly serve as mantra for mulcting some much-needed ZZZZs.
So if one wanted a back rub or a full-body massage, the dependable neighborhood barberya used to be the center for leisure, rest and relaxation. As it was before, the barbero was the celebrated village sage who cut himself out as a white-haired hub of higher education whose amazing acumen for politics, basketball, sex and relationships are ever crucial to human development.
Thus, the barbero was not only a haircutter or pleasure provider, he too was a professor who taught Life 101 to anyone who would sit on his chair.
But now, it’s different. The beauty parlors and the barberya are being bested by spas that offer anything and everything related to relaxation, stress-management and cosmetic rejuvenation. The regular haircut, nail cut and the courtesy light neck rub have become mere incidentals of the sauna, the bath, the Swiss-Thai-combination massage which have, in turn, become incidentals of medical sounding procedures like epidermabrasion, advance clarifying facial, mega body bleach and scrub, ultra thermal laser, revitalizing eye care treatment or active purifying pigmentation facial all being performed by a spa’s "well-being expert" or "revitalizing counselor."
Nevertheless, we know only too well that the contemporary spa, with its hotel-like features and professionals personally attending to one’s whims against weariness, serves every patron’s need for knead, lust for leisure, passion for pleasure and heart for healthy living. While a session at the spa may cost you an arm and a leg, it’s a fine price to pay for a shelter to soothe the senses, for a monument to a major makeover.
We could all enjoy some catharsis and nirvana, if our country could only be a spa.
E-mail E-Male at argee@justice.com.
Take a look at the weather. Humidity sticks the whole year round with summers priming our sweat glands into producing enough liquids to supply Maynilad’s shortages. Think of the warm climate as a country-sized steam engine that billows vapors which help loosen pores and melt away excess fat.
Such calorie-burning feature of nature ought to be equivalent to a prolonged session in the sauna which makes basking under the torrid climate and soaking in sweat the best weapons for overweight Filipinos in their battle against the bulge – a battle which the wintry warriors in the west have a swell time winning.
And who can forget the rains? The wet season has every feature of a spa – lots and lots of water flowing into every nook and cranny of the country and into every conceivable crevice of the body polity. The incessant pitter-pattering during heavy downpours is an occasion for a free Turkish bath – in the flooded streets, of course, but minus the Jacuzzi of junk that floats all around.
As for your common folk, bone-cracking and muscle-stretching labor could compare with the experience of a two-hour long sojourn at the spa: Somebody else gets paid for working you up through the satori of sleep and snore. Thus, one’s spent horsepower for tilling and toiling in the fields, factories or offices serves as fuel for another who earns a salary for relieving all the stress and tension derived from the daily grind.
Needless to say, all this merely highlights the growing fascination and fad over the predominance of spas in defining leisure and luxury for urban living in the Philippines. An ever-increasing number of spas are sprouting all over the metropolis and it seems that they will soon sweep the country. They are now, more than ever, as ubiquitous as fast-food restaurants, pawnshops and even 24-hour convenience stores.
Practically every neighborhood nowadays is inaugurating a spa in its various names, forms and menu of services. Facial care centers, body treatment salons, fitness gyms, physical well-being stations, aromatherapy centers, and the more traditional beauty parlors or barberya all rattle off, one way or the other, any of a spa’s specialties – the sauna, the bath, the massage, the works!
We welcome this development even though we wonder half-aloud why more and more Filipinos find more and more time to hibernate in such havens of bodily bliss at a time when the Dilberted busy bodies seem to be constantly griping about how much overtime must be clocked in and how working like a machine are requisites for earning one’s keep to be able to afford the basic necessities in life such as food, shelter, clothing and, well, a soothing session at the spa.
Reference to "going to the spa" has become more familiar than the late ’90s hip thing-to-do like "go to a gimmick" which indeed sounded too broad and was not place-specific. The spa craze is an emerging lifestyle experience alright, and it’s amusing to see how the concept of repairing to a spa has evolved into something uniquely wholesome and acceptable to almost everyone.
Before, the mere idea of visiting a spa clamped a cunning connotation of a mischievous trip to Maalikaya where boys go through a secret rite of passage inside bolted cubicles, usually on a one-on-one tit for tat with a scantily clad pseudo-geisha who groans an order to strip to one’s undies while teasingly intoning – "lotion or powder or neither?" Otherwise, any mention of a spa translated to a harmless school outing in Pansol, Laguna.
After all, the spas of yore conjured images of massive Greco-Roman pillars standing guard to an exclusive men’s club where an armada of aging, half-naked men, prospective patients in a hospital’s geriatric ward, swim and slush in a giant bathtub while getting soaked, scrubbed and soaped by sultry sirens. A spa was thus too DOM-ish for the Pinoys‚ innate coyness and conservatism to be considered as a place for weekend worship.
Some men and women would even cringe at the suggestion of visiting a spa. It’s either too sissy or to sosy to be seen in the company of vanity vixens or balding Quixotes who imbibe from an imaginary fountain of youth. Women, in particular, were more at home with their suking manicurista or with their gay haircutters who are, after all, their principal source of the latest scandals and tsismis. Any further contact beyond the pate or the fingertips require the intervention of a blind masseuse whose musings on life interestingly serve as mantra for mulcting some much-needed ZZZZs.
So if one wanted a back rub or a full-body massage, the dependable neighborhood barberya used to be the center for leisure, rest and relaxation. As it was before, the barbero was the celebrated village sage who cut himself out as a white-haired hub of higher education whose amazing acumen for politics, basketball, sex and relationships are ever crucial to human development.
Thus, the barbero was not only a haircutter or pleasure provider, he too was a professor who taught Life 101 to anyone who would sit on his chair.
But now, it’s different. The beauty parlors and the barberya are being bested by spas that offer anything and everything related to relaxation, stress-management and cosmetic rejuvenation. The regular haircut, nail cut and the courtesy light neck rub have become mere incidentals of the sauna, the bath, the Swiss-Thai-combination massage which have, in turn, become incidentals of medical sounding procedures like epidermabrasion, advance clarifying facial, mega body bleach and scrub, ultra thermal laser, revitalizing eye care treatment or active purifying pigmentation facial all being performed by a spa’s "well-being expert" or "revitalizing counselor."
Nevertheless, we know only too well that the contemporary spa, with its hotel-like features and professionals personally attending to one’s whims against weariness, serves every patron’s need for knead, lust for leisure, passion for pleasure and heart for healthy living. While a session at the spa may cost you an arm and a leg, it’s a fine price to pay for a shelter to soothe the senses, for a monument to a major makeover.
We could all enjoy some catharsis and nirvana, if our country could only be a spa.
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