Last days of Beijing’s oldest bathhouse, a place for rubdowns, cricket fights, and Chinese chess
- Demolition threatens Shuang Xing Tang, the Chinese capital’s last traditional bathhouse, built in 1916 but standing in the way of urban redevelopment
- It’s a place for no-frills communal bathing popular with older men, and hardly makes money, but it’s a place for friends to meet – and bring their songbirds
Under a glass roof, groups of old men laze around two large pools, wallow in the warm baths, or relax under a row of shower heads. Lying on their stomachs on benches, others get a rubdown with damp towels courtesy of the bathhouse’s staff.
Communal bathing is a popular custom among older men in China. Yet many of the country’s traditional bathhouses, where patrons can spend a whole day pampering themselves for a pittance, have given way to pricier modern massage parlours and entertainment complexes where the added attractions may include petite hostesses, karaoke, snooker and a buffet.
Shuang Xing Tang, by comparison, is a no-frills establishment. Located in the township of Nanyuan, in suburban Fengtai district, it is the last traditional bathhouse standing in Beijing. The basic fee for entry and bathing is just 30 yuan (US$4), while extras, such as bath salts, a rubdown or cupping, cost between 10 and 20 yuan.
Shuang Xing Tang, which occupies two floors, was founded by labourer Wang Shuangkui in 1916. Nanyuan had been the location of a military barracks during the Qing dynasty. After the foundation of the Republic of China in 1911, it continued to be a base for garrisons of various regional cliques during the Warlord Era (1916-1928). With only a handful of bathhouses in Nanyuan, Wang saw untapped demand from weary soldiers stationed in the area.
After a period in which the bathhouse was nationalised by the communist government, it was taken over by businessman Xiong Zhizhong in 2003. Today it is run by his son, Xiong Gangjian, 34.
The earliest record of public bathhouses in China dates from the late Song dynasty (960-1279). One such establishment was depicted in Along the River During the Qingming Festival, a classical Chinese painting by 12th-century imperial artist Zhang Zeduan, famed for its detailed depiction of daily street life.
China’s then oldest bathhouse – Weng Hall, in the eastern city of Nanjing – closed its doors in 2013 after a run of more than 600 years. Plans for the premises still hang in the balance. The future of Shuang Xing Tang – now surrounded by ramshackle, vacant houses, rubble and crumbling roads – is also uncertain.
Xiong Gangjian says Shuang Xing Tang’s demise has been on the cards for years. “We are in the zone earmarked for demolition,” he says. “Maybe after all the surrounding residential settlements are bulldozed, it will be our turn, because the land the bathhouse occupies belongs to the government.”
A native of Jilin province in China’s northeast, and a history buff who loves old Beijing culture, Xiong’s father launched a number of campaigns to keep the bathhouse in business. In 2014, he secured Beijing Time-honoured Brands status for the bathhouse. The designation is assigned by the Ministry of Commerce to recognise businesses that preserve distinct cultural characteristics.
He also applied for the bathhouse to be included on the Unesco List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. But Xiong says all his father’s conservation efforts proved futile.
“The government even said that Beijing Time-honoured Brands are not entitled to protection. My father had the idea of building an exact replica of the bathhouse in another place after it is demolished, or constructing a museum … he rode out the most difficult days to keep the bathhouse running. He didn’t want to see it go.”
Although the entry price has risen from two yuan in 2003 to 30 yuan today, Xiong says the operating costs of the bathhouse are subsidised by the family-owned hotel adjoining Shuang Xing Tang.
“There are about 70 daily customers on weekdays and over 100 on weekends. A big expenditure has been electricity since coal-burning was banned … we have more than 10 employees. The bathhouse made a little profit only on some winter days,” he says, despite continued support not just from loyal customers but also the patronage of curious film and TV crews.
Some customers bring in bird cages. I enjoy the birdsong wafting through the bathhouse
Even before Xiong’s father bought Shuang Xing Tang, the bathhouse was given a popularity boost when it featured in the film Shower, directed by Zhang Yang.
The film, about the bond between the bathhouse’s elderly operator and his two sons, and the camaraderie among bathers, received multiple awards after it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1999.
The bathhouse also featured in a 2014 Chinese documentary, The Old Bathroom, and a number of TV productions have used Shuang Xing Tang as a backdrop.
“My father loves bathing,” Xiong says. “We come from a rural part of Jilin, where people don’t have bathing facilities at home. In winter we filled a basin with water to take a bath at home. In summer we washed ourselves by jumping into the village fish pond.
“When my father read in a newspaper that this century-old bathhouse was in search of a tenant, he was there. It had been revamped and modernised, with all traces of the old Beijing gone. Based on images from the film [Shower] and accounts from old customers, he spent 300,000 yuan restoring it to its original form.”
That includes features such as the rows of dark-brown, partitioned recliners, and the white-tiled walls. Xiong’s father left Jilin with his wife after he completed secondary school with only 20 yuan in his pocket. He survived by taking menial jobs in the cities and eventually became a self-made entrepreneur owning hotel and restaurant businesses.
Xiong Gangjian took over the management of Shuang Xing Tang in 2007, because his father, now 56, wanted to focus more on his other businesses. He recently bought a hotel in the Czech Republic’s capital, Prague, and relocated to the city.
Xiong says he didn’t initially enjoy working at the bathhouse with his father.
“Nanyuan is an old district without the razzmatazz of Beijing’s city centre. I never spent much time there after I arrived in Beijing [in 2002]. I originally wanted to start my own business and asked my father to lend me 10,000 yuan. But he refused and asked me to run the bathhouse instead,” he says.
“I felt that he didn’t understand me. I was alienated from him for a long time and hated him somewhat. But we are family at the end of the day and our conflicts were slowly resolved when I came back to take over the operation in 2007.”
The Xiongs’ reconciliation was not unlike that in the plot of Shower, a film Xiong says his father loves. In the movie, the eldest son of the bathhouse’s operator grows distant from his father after leaving for the southern Chinese economic powerhouse of Shenzhen in search of better career prospects.
After he returns, he is reluctant to help his father manage the bathhouse, but has a change of heart after they reconcile, and establishes a bond with the business’ loyal customers.
Xiong says that, just like the son in Shower, he experienced tense moments with his father after becoming involved with Shuang Xing Tang.
“We bickered but … I decided to knuckle down to running it. He had no one to help him. In the two years between taking over management until my father left Beijing to run his other businesses in 2009, running the bathhouse drew us closer together because we were both there every day,” Xiong says.
“When I first arrived, I didn’t have much to talk to the customers about because they are much older than me. But as I get older myself, I get along with them much better.
“I have become friends with them. Some customers bring in bird cages. I enjoy the birdsong wafting through the bathhouse and I have developed a love for [communal] bathing too.”
