SHANGHAI: Walk into any modern Shanghai department store and, as in many parts of the world, the ground floor is home to cosmetics counters staffed by immaculately made-up shop assistants.

A closer look provides a surprise for many Western visitors: Unlike their native places, where bronzing powders and creams imparting a golden glow rule the roost, here it is lighteners and whiteners that command the majority of advertising and shelf space.

For years, the Chinese have seen fair skin as a sign of beauty and in the past those who could afford it even tried swallowing powdered pearls to cultivate a paler hue.

Times and methods may have changed, but the fair-skinned ideal still largely remains.

In Shanghai, however, where the last couple of years have seen tanning salons spring up across the city, the sun-kissed look might just be catching on.

"Our business is growing every day," said Sheng Haoqing, marketing manager of the M. H. Tanning Salon, which opened two years ago. "In the first year, we only had 300-400 members but now we have more than a thousand members and our total number of customers is more than 10,000."

According to Sheng, the salon initially struggled to get a business licence because officials found it hard to believe anyone would pay the 50-100 yuan (US$6-12) to get a tan.

"We had to provide lots of material to support our argument that tanning could be part of a healthy lifestyle," he said.

Although Sheng admits the majority of visitors to the salon are still foreigners, Chinese clients make up an increasing proportion.

He believes it is foreign influence that has convinced the locals to give tanning a try but, in contrast to the West where women lead the tanning charge, it is Shanghai's men who most regularly pay to soak up some rays.

"Most of the Chinese customers are those who have lived abroad or who live or work with foreigners and about 60 per cent of them are male.

"Because of all the advertising by cosmetics companies, a lot of Chinese women still think white skin is more attractive than bronzed skin.

"But we do get a lot of returned students who have studied abroad and like a tan."

Jacky Qu, manager of Solar Tanning Club, also sees another reason for the changing attitude:

"In the past it was white skin that showed you were rich; now, if you have a tan, it means you're rich enough to go on holiday."

That view is backed by Yu Hai, professor of sociology at Shanghai's Fudan University.

"More tanning doesn't merely mean people are becoming more westernized, it's also a sign that people can afford to go to salons to pay for it," he said.

Customer Zhou Lijun, 27, learned about tanning through beauty magazines and when she was on holiday in Japan, but still thinks fair skin can be attractive. "Different people's characters need to have the colouring to match. White is better on quiet, gentle girls, I am more outgoing and I think I look better tanned," she said.

Since going to the tanning salon, Chen Ensi has changed his mind about white skin. "I used to think white skin was more attractive but now I prefer a tan," he said. "Most of my friends say I look slimmer and healthier, and my pimples have got fewer too."

Despite the growing trend, Wang Weili, a beauty specialist with the Shiseido cosmetics company, does not expect to see tanning spreading to the masses any time soon. "These trends always begin in big cities which are more connected to world fashions and then spread to the rest of the country far more slowly," she said.

But while rejection of the fair ideal could save Chinese faces from exposure to toxic ingredients, such as mercury, previously found in some whitening creams, habitually hiding from the sun has had health benefits of its own.

"China has an extremely low incidence of skin cancer," said Dr Xiang Leihong, a dermatologist at Shanghai's Huashan Hospital.

"It's due to a combination of the naturally darker Asian skin which has more protective melanocytes than fair Caucasian skin and also lifestyle while Caucasians often seek to expose themselves to the sun as much as possible triggering skin cancer, Chinese people usually cover up and protect themselves from it," she explained. "Whether you are exposed to UVA rays or UVB rays they both cause damage, and if tanning caught on here, one likely side effect would be an increase in skin cancer rates."

(China Daily 05/25/2006 page1)