Bath -- Japanese/Korean/Guangdong styles

[Ian_Lee]

It seems that people in all three places love to take bath and enjoy bath.

Japanese are famous in their love of onsen (Hot Spring). Now even in many big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, they have huge complex that consists of up to 5-6 floors which provide different types of hot spring (I guess they are all tap water + minerals).

On the other hand, Koreans prefer Sauna. In Seoul, they also have huge complex of 5-6 floors which provide different types of sauna. The Koreans call it jjimjilbang. If you are a fan of K-Drama, some scenes are taken in jjimjilbang.

In Guangdong, Zhuhai becomes the country’s hot spring center. Over 30 hot spring resorts have been opened and there are even more varieties than what their Japanese counterpart offers. Some resorts even provide pools as exotic as fruit juice pool, coffee pool and herb pool. Zhuhai is not in the volcanic zone and it looks like these hot springs are all man-made kinds that use the formula of tap water + xyz.

However, other than these recently added hot springs which cater to tourist industry, there is a very famous natural hot spring in Guangdong – Conghua Hot Spring. In 1974, when Deng was temporarily purged by the Gang of Four, Deng sought refuge in Guangdong and spent the winter in Conghua.

Does anyone know why there is hot spring in Guangdong even though it is not located in the volcanic zone? And for natural hot spring, Conghua seems to be the only one in the whole country.