A hot shower is a common comfort in all but the poorest parts of China these days, but in ancient times, before modern drainage systems and household boilers, things were not so convenient.
The nobility may have had the “luxury” of being able to bathe once a week in their own homes, while some common folk could access vast public bathhouses that became prevalent in the Song dynasty (960 – 1279). But while private bathing among the masses is a relatively modern phenomenon (in the 20th century Mao Zedong is said to have rarely bathed, for example), possible only after indoor plumbing became prevalent in the late 1990s, Chinese dynasties of the past developed their own bathing cultures.
William Feetham, an English stove maker, invented the earliest mechanized shower in 1767, but bathing culture in China can be traced back over 3,000 years to the Shang dynasty (1600 – 1046 BCE). Oracle bone inscriptions containing the characters 沐 (mù, washing hair) and 浴 (yù, washing the body) suggest that even then people paid attention to personal hygiene.
The Rites of Zhou (《周礼》), a work on Zhou dynasty (1046 – 256 BCE) politics and culture mainly compiled during the Spring and Autumn Period (770 – 476 BCE), recorded that “There were bathrooms in the emperor’s bedroom.” In 2017, archeologists in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, excavated three royal bathrooms decorated with ceramic floor and wall tiles, and featuring drainage holes and sewage pipes. Experts date the bathrooms to the Warring States period (475– 221 BCE), and believe they belonged to the palace of the Qin state.
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