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.

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.

Zenspa in Beijing has rooms and massage tables in a traditional-style house [Photo: Internet]

In the cavernous front room of the Evian Spa by Three, which rises several storeys, 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.

China had its own spa tradition - reflexology parlours dotted city streets - but most traditional massage places were simple affairs or, occasionally, fronts for prostitution. Many of the country's hotels 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.

Luxury hotels have opened some of the classier spas in China.

In Lijiang, 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 in the spa experience.'

Rather than just depending on Western experts, many new Chinese spas incorporate local elements.

In Beijing, Zenspa has built its rooms and massage tables in a traditional-style house, whose interior courtyard naturally filters out much of the noise from outside.

Inside Dragonfly, a Chinese spa chain, designers have blended stone and traditional dark wood, paying homage to classic Chinese homes.

Often open until the wee hours, Dragonfly offers many of the same massages as hotel spas at far lower prices.

Spas in China can draw on millenniums of sophisticated Chinese medicine, which includes cupping, acupressure and many other treatments to improve blood circulation and yin-yang equilibrium.

At Chi, a spa at the Pudong Shangri-La hotel in Shanghai, guests can fill out a questionnaire that helps figure out their Chinese element: metal, fire, wood, water or earth. Chi's spa therapists then help guide treatments depending on which elements dominate.

At Zhuhai Chinese Medicine Valley near Macau, visitors can soak in pools filled with tea, milk or Chinese herbs [Photo: Internet]

Like several other Chinese spas, Chi uses traditional Tibetan elements. It uses tsampa, a kind of roasted barley flour, in one rubdown and offers another Himalayan treatment involving hot stones heated in oil. The masseuse uses the oiled stones to apply deep pressure and sometimes leaves the stones on parts of the patient's body because the heated rock supposedly can improve the flow of energy.

Banyan Tree's Shanghai spa also tries to use traditional products, focusing on incorporating local herbs like ginseng into treatments.

Hard-core Chinese medicine enthusiasts have even built an entire traditional medicine theme park in Zhuhai, a city in southern China near Macau. At the Zhuhai Chinese Medicine Valley, visitors can soak in pools filled with tea, milk or Chinese herbs.

In one of the stranger new attempts, the Jiaosu Spa in Shanghai offers a treatment based on dust from juniper wood and rice husks.

Mixed with enzymes and live bacteria, the dust turns into a hot, dry dirt bath, like the ultimate summer sandbox. Guests sink their bodies into the dirt pit and spa attendants use a kind of shovel to cover them with this mix of earth.

Though one might wonder whether someone who spends days slugging through Shanghai's sooty air wants to rinse off with dirt, supposedly by sinking into this hot pit spa-goers can elevate their metabolism, cleanse their skin and even bolster their immunity to diseases.

As they move upscale, many Chinese spas are even addressing their biggest failing, finding staff who can emulate the grace and warmth of Thais and Indonesians.

Some still struggle but at the most upscale, like Evian, spa-goers could easily imagine themselves luxuriating in Phuket or Bali. At least until they go outside again.

NYT