Bathing buddies play Chinese chess at the Shuangxing Tang Bathhouse Thursday. Photo: Wang Zi

By Zhang Hui

As wrecking balls swing in the distance, Beijing's last traditional public bathhouse still thrives through the help of strong support from diehard patrons. 

However, experts argue that in the parched capital, the institution and bathhouse tradition as a whole is a tremendous waste of water resources, and the bathhouse needs to either consider water conservation methods or face considerably higher operation costs.

Shuangxing Tang, a century-old bathhouse located in Nanyuan, Fengtai district, offers services such traditional treatments as skin scrapes, moxibustion (fire cupping) as well as massages and haircuts.

The bathhouse has dozens of regulars, aged 50 to 82, who visit every day. To them, Shuangxing Tang is more than a bathhouse, but a miniature of old Beijing representing a way of life that is rapidy disappearing as the capital experiences its ongoing face-lift.

As men soak together in a 40-square-meter pool, games of Chinese chess, rounds of singing opera, raising birds, cricket fights and naps make up most of the day at Shuangxing Tang, a living portrait of old Beijing's leisurely past.

The bathhouse was also the location of the internationally acclaimed film Shower (1999), which tenderly depicts Beijing's rich bathhouse culture.  Photographs of the film shoot cover the bathhouse's walls to this day.

"Only 10 percent of our customers are from the neighborhood, the majority come from downtown nearly 2 hours away," said Shuangxing Tang bathhouse owner Xiong Zhizhong, who applied for a Time-Honored Brand business status in 2006. 

The Global Times learned from Zhang Jian, secretary-general of the Beijing Time-Honored Brands Association Thursday, that Xiong's application has finally been approved.

Good clean fun

Zhang Shan, a 67-year-old Beijinger who moved to Nanyuan years ago, told the Global Times that he has bathed at Shuangxing Tang every day from noon till dusk for the past two years.

"It is a place for poor people like me where for 8 yuan I can have fun the whole day," Zhang said, "It's not only the last bathhouse in the capital, but also a kind of local culture."

As Zhang recalls, the Tianqiao area of Beijing's Xicheng district, was a center for folk art venues which featured acrobatics and opera.

They have since been demolished and replaced with a movie theater.

Zhang hopes the bathhouse will survive the demolition slated for the entire Nanyuan area.

"What is left for tourists to see if all of old Beijing is torn down? Destroying the bathhouses is destroying hundreds of years of culture," Zhang said.

The bathhouse's customers are not just locals, but Beijing's rich and famous are also known to frequent the establishment, charmed by its familiar and warm feeling.

"People here are like old friends that have finally united after many years of separation," Dou Liya, 55, renowned poet and vice director of the poetry research institute of Worldwide United Chinese Association, told the Global Times.

After discovering Shuangxing Tang, Dou visits almost every day from his home in Chongwenmen.

"So amazing, its an experience of a true old Beijinger," said Dou, noting the cultural contrast of getting together in a bathhouse with people living in today's society where neighbors never talk to each other.

Culture of clean

Younger people are more reluctant to soak in a public bathtub, which they see as both embarrassing and unsanitary, Wang Zuoji, vice director of Beijing Folk Literature and Art Association, told the Global Times.

Bathing culture dates back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279), when men would soak in wooden tubs, while women's bathhouses did not appear until the Republic of China (1912-1949), according to Wang.

However, the slow disappearance of bathhouses doesn't mean the culture is fading, added Wang.

"Bathhouses exist today, but they don't involve only bathing" Wang said, explaining how bathing establishments offer an array of services and stress water-saving showers over baths. 

Turn off the taps

"Even if it was a culture worth inheriting, it's supported by limited and ever-decreasing water resources," Zhang Junfeng, a water expert with NGO Green Earth, told the Global Times.

Beijing has been absorbing water resources from neighboring provinces such as Hebei and Shanxi, which is sold so cheaply that no one realizes how precious water is.

"Bathing everyday is extremely unreasonable," Zhang said, suggesting residents take showers once a month in winter and once a week in summer, while advising the government to further increase the price of water.