Re: Mini-lift entrepreneurs take note...
In most residential High Schools or Universities, students stay in "dormitories" that are not like the ones that we might think of in the west. In China, they are like medium-sized bedrooms, but stuffed full of bunk beds - often 8 people per room, but sometimes 6. Students just get used to the lack of privacy and other things - they seem like fire hazards, but this is partially dealt with by limiting use of electricity, sometimes switching off the electricity supply at 23:30 each night, and having people who inspect the rooms - it's a bit like a quasi-military set up, but with less insistence on tidiness. Showers are often communal and in different buildings all together.
In my 5 years in China, teaching there at High School and university level, I saw slight changes to what we in the west would see as being more acceptable, but it is very slow. Foreign students are almost always housed in more luxurious places, barred to Chinese students, and more in keeping with Western Standards.