Now I am on the cusp of 30,
I have reached that age where
friends are beginning to eject
babies into the world at an alarming
rate. Everyone seems thoroughly
pleased about it, although from what
I can determine, after the magical
birth and customary coochy-coos,
parenthood properly commences as
an ugly, wild-eyed battle to keep their
precious little squirts quiet.
This is why, I assume, people
are devising increasingly elaborate
ways to help them do so. So-called
‘baby spas’ have risen in popularity
in America and Australia over the
past couple of years, and Beikaiya is
the first company to launch them in
China, in a selection of malls across
Shanghai. The long and short of it is
that babies and toddlers up to the
age of five can be strapped to some
inflatables to bob around a tank
filled with water and lots of toys – an
activity which is thought to improve
everything from brain function to
cardio health.
I head to Beikaiya’s newest
branch in the Bailian Zhonghuan
mall in Putuo district for a day’s
training as a shui yu shi, or ‘water
education teacher’. The spa itself
comprises a row of about ten
separate empty ‘tanks’, facing
out onto a glass wall for the rest of
the mall to see, and a much larger
central pool filled with colourful balls
and toys that resembles a miniature
lazy river. Today I’m shadowing
You Laoshi (Teacher You), who
immediately introduces me to the
rubber stunt baby that I will initially
work with before meeting my first
client. Given that I’m feeling quite apprehensive about it all – you may
have discerned that I’m not much
of a baby person – it doesn’t help
that even the strong-browed stunt
baby, which resembles a Vaudeville
ventriloquist dummy that my mother
once owned, is extremely unnerving.
To begin with, we place a blanket
on the counter, undress the baby
and – gulp – clean up its
diapers. Thankfully, our
stunt baby neither has
clothes nor a digestive
system so this is a
smooth process that
bears no resemblance
to the literal shit-storm
that I understand to
be the reality of childrearing.
We then do
‘exercises’ which
involve stretching
the baby’s arms and
legs out, which You
says is to release
tension. This is the
moment, apparently,
where you are most in
danger of getting weed
on, which presumably
means the baby is more
relaxed than you want it to get.
A tank is then prepared, which
involves a scrub with a highpressure,
high-temperature
steam cleaner, before filling up
with water using a touchscreen
system. At this point, around 11am,
customers start to appear – one
of whom is 14-month-old An An.
Chubby-cheeked and practically
child-sized, he eyes me suspiciously
from his mother’s arms and I eye
him suspiciously back. I ask You if babies can sense fear; she ignores me because she is already making
social inroads with An An.
I hover around awkwardly,
unsuccessfully attempting to
ingratiate myself to him with a rattle.
His mum says I’m the first foreigner
he has interacted with, and because
my clippers have broken, I’m looking
especially scary and foreign thanks
to my unkempt ginger beard.
Finally, it’s time for the qicai
paopaoyou, which in English roughly
means ‘colourful bubble swim’. You
carries An An over to the filled-up
tank, and slowly ‘rocks’ him into the
water in order to acclimatise him.
Once in, he immediately begins
bawling and staff and parents rally
around to distract him with the
bounty of colourful floaty things, and
he soon quietens down.
Usually, a shui yu shi will stand
back to let the parent or grandparent
play with the baby, but at this point I
am left to fend for myself. I’ll admit,
An An and I are an unlikely pair, and
a huge crowd has gathered in the
mall outside to watch us play.
At
first he largely ignores me until I
figure out, when he starts to splash
water everywhere deliberately,
that he is charmingly anarchic. I
respond in kind, which proves to
be extremely mirthful for him. We
continue like this for a while until he
starts chucking balls out of the tank
and laughing hysterically.
Abruptly,
it’s all over when he swallows some
water and erupts in tears again,
triggering a horrifying
chain reaction of howling
among the other babies.
You swoops in to scoop
An An up, and he is taken
for a thorough wash (a
laborious process I’m
made to reenact on the
stunt baby later), dry, and
weigh-and-measure.
You tells me that
the most rewarding
aspect of her job is
its preparation for
motherhood. ‘I’m
not married now,
so it’s good to
learn these skills
so I can be a better
mother,’ she says
as we wave off An An,
who has all but forgotten
us. I then remember that
I’ve left the stunt baby floating alone
in one of the tanks for two hours, and
rush over to yank it out by its head.
You shrieks in consternation, and
concedes that I’m not quite ready for
motherhood yet either.
A qicai paopaoyou at Beikaiya
costs 110RMB for members, and
130RMB for non-members. For
more information or to make a
booking, call 6067 2952.
