“Yes, things go bad easily,” Lei said. “You can put Yellow River carps into the refrigerator, but you can’t put in the Party cadres.”

It was intriguing to think about the linguistic evolution. In the sixties, corruption meant the rotten bourgeois way of life, in reference to something like extramarital sex. A young “corrupt” teacher in Chen’s school was fired for engaging in prenuptial sex. In a more general sense, the word could also have referred to bourgeois extravagancy-even to such a bath, whose entrance fee alone cost more than the monthly income for an ordinary worker. In the last few years, however, the word took on an exclusive target-the Party officials.

“In Mao’s time, corruption was hardly a serious issue in that sense,” Lei said nodding. “In the stagnant state economy, everybody earned about the same, in accordance to the old Marxist principle: to each according to his need, from each according to his capability. But after the Cultural Revolution, people have become disillusioned with all the ideological propaganda.”

“A spiritual vacuum. That worries me.”

“Let’s see things in a different perspective,” Lei said, stepping out of the pool. “After all, China ’s been making great progress. Those two big-mouthed bathers, for instance, could have talked themselves into prison during the Cultural Revolution.”

“You can say that again,” Chen said, aware of something he and Lei had in common. They, too, could be cynical about or critical of the system, but in the last analysis, they were rather defensive of it.

Lei called his attention to the shower rooms lined along one side, each with an outlandish name: Pistol, Needle, Five-Element, Yin/Yang, Chain, Mist…

“I’m like Granny Liu walking into the Grand View Garden,” Chen said. In the classic Chinese novel, The Dream of the Red Chamber, Granny Liu was a country bumpkin, totally awestruck by the splendor of the garden. “Look at the Jade and Fire Sauna Room.”