Society
The fall of an old bathing business
By Qin Zhongwei and Meng Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-03 07:45
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Runshen Bathhouse, which was the city's first public bathroom to cater exclusively to female customers, opened in 1914. It shut its doors in 2001 when there weren't enough customers to make it viable.
Managed by Zhou Meiling, a woman in her 30s who rented and redecorated the place, the bathhouse now exists as a small hotel with 30 standard rooms.
At a glance, nobody could identify that the two-storey building as a former favorite for women wanting to wash.
It has around 80 customers a day with 12 yuan per person. However, the majority of its customers are no longer Beijingers, but the increasing number of migrant workers who rent houses nearby.
Among the public bathhouses still surviving is Qinghuachi, one of Beijing's oldest bathhouses.
Relocated several times, the baths are now housed in a grand six-storey building at No. 17, Hufang Street, Xuanwu district. It enjoys over 700 customers every day and boasts that the majority of them are regulars.
However, the baths are now better known as the city's best chiropody center, with over 50 professional pedicurists providing various foot care services.
Wang Jiansheng, is Qinghuachi's most-acclaimed foot specialist, and he has worked at the baths since the 1970s.
He still remembers clearly his early days when Qinghuachi was still a small and steamy bathhouse.
"We worked in the bathhouse all the time, carrying a small stool and a box containing the pedicure tools.
"When people called me, I ran immediately to sit next to them. They rested their foot on my legs and I began to do the foot care. If someone is fat, my leg became tired very soon," Wang said.
It was not a well-paid job back then and people didn't view it as a serious profession.
But now, Qinghuachi has a big office for each pedicurist on the second floor and it is totally a different picture.
With a big special-designed sofa for his clients and a comfortable chair for himself, Wang's clients include celebrities and top officials.
However, while the bathhouse revels in its fame there are those that say the bathhouse is now longer the baths of old one and only the name is same.
Chen, 52, who often visited the old Qinghuachi before its final relocation, still recalls the days when he and his pals sang Peking Opera loudly and laughed in the steaming bathhouse and soaked in the hot pool for half a day.
"I really miss that," he said.
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