i went to swim tonight and on the way back home met a peddler promoting gym club cards, the ad brochure says the service includes itmes like mahjong, foot massage and free web access, and the fee is 160 RMB per month. there is another gym club nearby and attracts a lot of sporty people, young and old, men and women, it's a little more expensive than this new one, around 2500 RMB per year, but much cheaper than a few years ago, when most gym clubs charge no less than 5000 RMB per year.
my wife used to share a gym club card with her friend, every time they want to have some sweat, they need to treat it like a big event, do all the preparations, find an interesting restaurant, drive to the gym and date a few friends to have dinner afterwards. why? the gym is located in downtown shanghai and expensive, they feel like saving a lot of money by doing all these unnecessary things.
with fierce competition, the prices are going down and gym clubs are becoming a part of everyday life of many people. i don't have a gym card but spend a lot of time swimming in a nearby community swimming pool. it's indoor and not as crowded as some ones in downtown. a 12-yuan-ticket is expensive to me because i used to swim free in the river and play tennis free in a nearby campus, it's a little hard for me to switch from a communism life style to a captalism life style. except the 12-yuan-swimming, i find the air is too polluted for me to do a free jogging around my apartment building, i am considering spending a few thousands RMB to buy a jogging machine. but there are things that make me gratified - more and more parks are open free of charge and you can fly a kite and a new basketball court is opened recently near my home, it's really cheap - only 2 RMB per hour.
well, in the end, it's not that bad as we might think, gradually the "bad capitalism" becomes "good". if it doesn't, we will just stop spending money and kill the "bad capitalism":)
what i will do if "bad capitalism" appears in sports service business in china