Sep 19, 07 | 1:58 am
By Joshua Kurlantzick
Along the Shanghai street, choking haze draped the buildings and gridlocked traffic like a damp blanket. Vendors screamed out prices for water and postcards, and pedestrians hacked into handkerchiefs and covered their faces with masks. Construction workers in torn, dirty jeans bored a hole into the sidewalk, geysering dirt everywhere.
But inside Three on the Bund, overlooking this chaos from a restored 1916 structure that once housed the Mercantile Bank of India, China's urgency and insanity seemed far away. In the cavernous front room of the Evian Spa by Three, which rises several stories and lets in beams of light from its portholelike windows, the only noise was the tinkling of soft music. Spa attendants led guests past polished wood Chinese sculptures and into private rooms, where they could wallow in giant bathtubs and choose from an exhaustive menu of rubs and facials.
Ten or even five years ago, China boasted few spas that could compete with those of Thailand, Indonesia or other famous relaxation hubs. Visitors to the country, and Chinese themselves traveling for the first time, generally sought out the country's best-known cultural attractions, sparing little time for some pampering. China certainly had its own spa tradition — reflexology parlors dotted city streets — but most traditional massage places were simple affairs or, occasionally, fronts for prostitution. Many of the country's hotels, still struggling to overcome the legacy of socialism, had not exactly mastered the art of relaxation.
But times have changed: Chinese spas, sensing the potential of the relaxation market, are giving themselves a makeover, upgrading their services so they can compete with the finest health resorts in Asia. As the Chinese themselves have become travelers — China is becoming one of the largest sources of tourists in the world — they are demanding higher standards of service. With disposable income in upscale eastern cities, Chinese tourists and business travelers now have cash for indulging themselves. And since China features crowds, pollution and fierce traffic, Chinese travelers and foreign tourists often find spas essential to surviving the intense pace of life.
Luxury hotels have opened some of the classier spas in China. In Lijiang, a Unesco World Heritage site in the southwest that could be a poster for classical China, with its old town of cobblestone streets, bridges and houses, Banyan Tree has opened a spa. Near the Great Wall at a complex designed by 12 leading Asian architects, Anantara set its own spa, while Marriott built a spa retreat, called Quan, on Sanya, a tropical resort in the south of Hainan Island. St. Regis even plans to open an upscale hotel in remote Lhasa, complete with a spa.
But in recent years, smaller boutique spas have sprung up across the country as well. “They don't just explore Western things, though, they are interested in exploring Chinese elements as well,” said P. T. Black of Jigsaw International, a Shanghai-based market research firm. “Traditional medicines and technique — from cupping to wolfberries — are playing an important part of the spa experience.” (Cupping involves placing heated glass cups on the skin to extract toxins; wolfberries are said to bolster the immune system and enhance circulation.)
