Critics, particularly scholars of East Asian folk practice, note that the appropriation of “Lan” as an exotic signifier without any cultural grounding in actual Chinese bathing rituals (such as the tang or medicinal herb baths) risks reducing a rich tradition to a decorative cipher. As folklorist Kenji Tanaka (2025) writes, “The Linda Lan Bath is a Rorschach test of Western loneliness. It borrows the shape of ritual without the community that gives ritual meaning.”