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Jason Wordie

In the interwar years, the label “Shanghai” epitomised emergent Chinese modernity and cosmopolitan style. When prominent in a product label or business description, “Shanghai” offered an immediate imprimatur of quality.
By this particular logic, a Shanghai tailor or dressmaker guaranteed impeccable style and cut; a Shanghai barber or hairdresser could be relied upon to give high-quality, long-lasting permanent waves and colour tints to Chinese hair.
Another lifestyle element were bathhouses and personal maintenance services found within, such as manicures, pedicures, massages and body scrubs.

This cachet persisted elsewhere in the overseas Chinese world for at least a couple of decades after the Communist assumption of power in Shanghai in May 1949 saw the lights dim dramatically there in the years that followed. By the mid-1950s, émigré Shanghainese communities were well-established across the overseas Chinese world.
In Hong Kong, partly due to the large numbers who decamped here, these people and their way of life stood out more than may have been the case in more geographically dispersed cities.
In certain areas – North Point, in particular – these unwilling expatriates maintained, as far as possible, favourite tastes, consumer preferences and life­style habits from their vanished northern metropolis. Of these long-ago lifestyle labels, few remain as signifiers of quality. Shanghai barbers and hair­dressers tended to age in tandem with their clientele; few long-established establishments still exist.

Skill sets introduced from the north gradually became part of the Hong Kong mainstream experience, with little to distinguish one from another.
Shanghainese-style bathhouses were another import from the north that took off in the early 1950s. Tea and snacks were available, and much like the Japanese sento experience, bathhouse visits were a periodic part of expatriate Shanghainese life.
University of Hong Kong marine biology lecturer F.D. Ommanney recalled the experience in his memoir Fragrant Harbour: A Private View of Hong Kong (1962) and noted that “in Hong Kong the bath-houses are quite different. They are all run by Shanghainese and the bath-house is, I think, a Shanghai institution. There are three bath-houses in Victoria and two in Kowloon, and they’re all much the same with slight variations in price.”

In the colder northern climates from which the émigrés hailed, private bathing facilities – except for the wealthy – were basic. Most homes relied on washtub bathing, with limited hot-water supplies. For a really good wash, public bathhouses were the places to go – hot and cold water was available in abundance, along with various additional services, such as deep-tissue massages and manicures and pedicures.
Vigorous body scrubs with a hot soapy towel were a Shanghainese bathhouse speciality. In particular, Ommanney noted the masseur’s skill: “As he works, black glutinous rolls of your seventh skin come off on the towel and you wonder where in earth so much dirt could possibly come from, in view of your two baths a day and the sea and the sun.”

One notable treatment – still generally described by the old term – is a Shanghai pedicure. Under a bright light, scalpels – in addition to small chisels, nail clippers, scissors and emery boards – deftly scrape away thick skin on heels and toes. Cracks and calluses swiftly vanish, corns and other barnacles are neatly dealt with, emergent claws are trimmed down into passable toenails – the steady transformation seems almost miraculous. At the end, customers are proudly (if nauseatingly) shown a paper towel seemingly full of Parmesan cheese shavings; evidence of one’s feet’s thorough transformation, and the practitioner’s deft skills.
The smooth and pleasant sensation of a Shanghai pedicure remains fresh for days, unlike the short-term benefits of a rejuvenating massage or body scrub.
As Ommanney noted, the sense of vigour rapidly faded and “by the time you have reached the ferry, the years have caught up with you again.”


Hong Kong’s famous ‘toy street’ loses some of its shine as 30-year-old shop closes

When ‘Shanghai’ used to signify quality, full-service bathhouses and first-rate pedicures

From taxi dancers to dancing aunties, inside Hong Kong’s shadowy underworld of paid female companions

Hong Kong food and fashion nostalgia inspire Canadian artist’s Hong Kong Baby Girl show

Old Hong Kong

Ko Tak-tin, haircut master of Shanghai Kiu Kwun Barber Shop, in December 2016. Photo: Dickson Lee

Haircut tools of Shanghai Kiu Kwun Barber Shop. Photo: Dickson Lee

Shanghai Kiu Kwun Barber Shop in North Point. Photo: Dickson Lee

Mr Shek, a massage guru, massaging a customer at Shanghai Tung Kee Yuk Tak Chee Bathhouse in Mong Kok the day before its closure in 2006. Photo: Felix Wong

Uncle Ball has been a Shanghainese pedicurist since the early 1960s. This is him at work in 2018. Photo: Olivia Chan

Taxi dancers were a feature of nightlife through much of the 20th-century, in Shanghai and other Chinese cities, as well as in HK. Photo: Getty Images

Undated photo of a mo lui, or taxi dancer, with a patron. Photo: SCMP

The neon sign for the New Tonnochy nightclub in Wan Chai in 2014. Photo: neonsigns.hk

Remember Hong Kong’s floorwalkers – men with a certain bearing paid to walk round department stores?

Customers shopping at Lane Crawford’s Des Voeux Road location in 1977. Photo: SCMP Archive

Exterior of the old Lane Crawford House on Des Voeux Road. Photo: SCMP Archive

The Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co Ltd department store in Singapore in the1920s. Photo: National Museum of Singapore

How Sikh doormen became a symbol of old Hong Kong, welcoming visitors to banks, hotels and homes

Kam Singh, a doorman at the Excelsior Hotel in Causeway Bay, in February 2019. Photo: SCMP

Sikh doormen at the entrance to The China City nightclub in Tsim Sha Tsui in 1993. Photo: SCMP

In 1995, a policeman stands beside a Sikh security guard outside the Sham Shui Po branch of Kwong On Bank, where a robbery had recently taken place. Photo: SCMP

Sikh doormen at Club Deluxe in Tsim Sha Tsui open the door for one of the club’s captains, Tommy Lai, circa 1980. Photo: SCMP

How Cantopop really began: Ren da Silva’s Diamond Records helped birth Hong Kong’s most-loved music genre

Popular 60s soul band The Mystics are among the formatitive Hong Kong artists that cut their demo discs with Diamond Records, an incubator for what would become Cantopop. Photos: SCMP Archive

A CD collection by The Mystics, Anders Nelson & The Inspirations, The Menace and Joe Chen from Diamond Records

Hong Kong-based Portuguese businessman Renaldo Alberto da Silva, known to a generation of aspiring local artistes as “Ren” Silva, was the owner of Diamond Records. Photo: SCMP Archive

The Mystics and other once-popular bands – all cut their demo discs with Diamond Records

In the 1950s and 60s, da Silva’s Diamond Records produced albums for Hong Kong artistes such as Joe Junior and bands like The Mystics

Why night markets are a quintessential part of Asian nightlife, from Bangkok to Hong Kong

While some of the sparkle may be fading, night markets have played a vital role in the social tapestry of cities across East and Southeast Asia, with Hong Kong’s Temple Street night market, pictured here in 2023, a well-established tourist attraction. Photo: Elson Li

A seafood stall at the Tai Tat Tei night market in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, in 1986. Picture: SCMP

Temple Street night market in Yau Ma Tei. The Hong Kong government has embarked on plans to revitalise the city’s after-hours offerings to entice tourists to the city. Photo: Jonathan Wong

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Short Reads

Shanghai-style bathhouses and the personal grooming services available therein arrived with the influx of post-1949 mainlanders, and the name all but guaranteed sterling quality


As mainlanders flocked to Hong Kong after 1949, they brought with them Shanghai-style bathhouses and their many personal grooming services – and the term ‘Shanghai’ become a byword for quality


Hong Kong

Shanghai

Hong Kong society

Wellness

Beauty

Chinese history

History

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


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Then & Now

Then & Now | When ‘Shanghai’ used to signify quality, full-service bathhouses and first-rate pedicures

Shanghai-style bathhouses and the personal grooming services available therein arrived with the influx of post-1949 mainlanders, and the name all but guaranteed sterling quality