April 27, 2017
Cleanliness is next to Japaneseness
Cleanliness is deeply embedded in the culture and religions of Japan. After all if "baptism" can wash away your sins, then rinse and repeat! Westerners have also noted this fact for as long as westerners have visited Japan.
In Shogun, James Clavell has his 16th century protagonist John Blackthorne (based on the real Will Adams) point it out. A few centuries later, in the mid-19th century, U.S. Consul Townsend Harris observed that "Everyone bathes every day."
Though that they did it all together in a public bath (sentou) alarmed him.
The sentou goes back a millennia. The hot spring resort (onsen) has been around for even longer. Not a few can claim that a "famous person bathed here." A private bath (o-furo) for the working man is more recent. When families could afford a gas-fired one after the war, it was a big deal.
The shower, by contrast, is a modern import. In the sentou, you soap up and rinse off with buckets of water. Outside the tub! Because you wash yourself first before getting into the tub! This is important! The tub water is for soaking, not for washing.
The bathing-at-night thing (anime and manga fans will have noted this) developed because that's when you went to the sentou. Cleaning the baths and firing up the boilers once took all day. You could spot a sentou a mile away because of the smokestacks (in a residential neighborhood).
The old-school home o-furo was a square tub with a water heater directly attached. The tub was the tank. Even today, apartments with western-style (tank) water heaters are rare. Fill the o-furo (with cold tap water), turn it on, and come back in thirty minutes.
When I lived in Osaka, the hot running water in the kitchen ran off the o-furo heater, but you couldn't shower and run the hot water at the same time. Point-of-use tankless water heaters remain ubiquitous.
Again, the bath itself is not for washing (well, except in Spirited Away, when it's required to purify a polluted river spirit) but for soaking and relaxing.
Showers are more popular now, and have taken over the wash & rinse duties. Budget o-furo are still made out of molded plastic, but as Japan has gotten wealthier, they are more and more resembling western bathtubs.
More home baths means fewer public baths. The number of sentou in Tokyo has declined from 2000 to 600 in the past 30 years. And yet ryokan and hot springs resorts have never been more popular.
Even the staid NHK doesn't shy from onsen travelogues featuring naked kids and naked butts (male only, sumo having made the male butt an inconsequential sight; on camera, women sport white bath towels).
In Shogun, James Clavell has his 16th century protagonist John Blackthorne (based on the real Will Adams) point it out. A few centuries later, in the mid-19th century, U.S. Consul Townsend Harris observed that "Everyone bathes every day."
Though that they did it all together in a public bath (sentou) alarmed him.
The sentou goes back a millennia. The hot spring resort (onsen) has been around for even longer. Not a few can claim that a "famous person bathed here." A private bath (o-furo) for the working man is more recent. When families could afford a gas-fired one after the war, it was a big deal.
The shower, by contrast, is a modern import. In the sentou, you soap up and rinse off with buckets of water. Outside the tub! Because you wash yourself first before getting into the tub! This is important! The tub water is for soaking, not for washing.
The bathing-at-night thing (anime and manga fans will have noted this) developed because that's when you went to the sentou. Cleaning the baths and firing up the boilers once took all day. You could spot a sentou a mile away because of the smokestacks (in a residential neighborhood).
The old-school home o-furo was a square tub with a water heater directly attached. The tub was the tank. Even today, apartments with western-style (tank) water heaters are rare. Fill the o-furo (with cold tap water), turn it on, and come back in thirty minutes.
When I lived in Osaka, the hot running water in the kitchen ran off the o-furo heater, but you couldn't shower and run the hot water at the same time. Point-of-use tankless water heaters remain ubiquitous.
Again, the bath itself is not for washing (well, except in Spirited Away, when it's required to purify a polluted river spirit) but for soaking and relaxing.
Showers are more popular now, and have taken over the wash & rinse duties. Budget o-furo are still made out of molded plastic, but as Japan has gotten wealthier, they are more and more resembling western bathtubs.
More home baths means fewer public baths. The number of sentou in Tokyo has declined from 2000 to 600 in the past 30 years. And yet ryokan and hot springs resorts have never been more popular.
Even the staid NHK doesn't shy from onsen travelogues featuring naked kids and naked butts (male only, sumo having made the male butt an inconsequential sight; on camera, women sport white bath towels).
Related posts
The public bath
Onsen
When in Rome (or Japan)
Labels: history, japan, japanese culture, nhk, onsen, shogun, social studies
February 09, 2012
Japanese Inn
The definitive account of an Edo period highway inn is Japanese Inn by Oliver Statler, a narrative history (at times more or less imagined) of the Minaguchi, a family-owned inn near Shizuoka that dates back to the 16th century.
Statler's description of a visit to the inn (where he was a regular guest) in the 20th century could just as well apply four hundred years ago.
Choruses of "Irasshai!" (accompanied by bows) can still be heard at most retail establishments in Japan. Big department stores deploy squadrons of attractive young women at every entrance to do the honors.
Statler's description of a visit to the inn (where he was a regular guest) in the 20th century could just as well apply four hundred years ago.
A kimono-clad maid comes running, calling back messages to the interior, and sinks to her knees on the straw matting of the entrance hall. Bowing almost to the floor, she says, "You are welcome to the Minaguchi-ya."
Round-faced Yoshi, his bald head gleaming, rushes out to take forcible possession of my bag. "You are welcome! You are welcome!" he cried.
And from the interior appears buoyant, bubbling Isako, the mistress of the inn, tall, slender, and young in heart. She too slips to the floor and bows. "Please come in. Your room is waiting. It is your home."
Isako rises to lead the way.
Choruses of "Irasshai!" (accompanied by bows) can still be heard at most retail establishments in Japan. Big department stores deploy squadrons of attractive young women at every entrance to do the honors.
Labels: history, japan, onsen, serpent notes, serpent of time
January 26, 2012
Onsen
Unlike public baths (sentou), where tap water is heated by a boiler, an onsen (温泉) or "hot springs" (the literal meaning) is fed by geothermally heated and therefore often heavily mineralized water.
Sitting squarely on the "Ring of Fire," Japan has no shortage of hydrothermal vents and no shortage of onsen. But seismic activity can also change the "character" of an onsen, or turn off the tap entirely.
Although the sentou has declined in use over the past fifty years, the onsen has seen increasing popularity as what was once an upper-class luxury became a middle-class vacation destination.
Whether a corporate retreat or spring break, the "traditional" ryokan-style inn with an onsen has become practically de rigueur. The onsen is a travel show favorite.
Even the staid NHK doesn't shy from onsen travelogues featuring naked kids and naked butts (male only, sumo having made the male butt an inconsequential sight; on camera, women sport white bath towels).
Incidentally, "mixed bathing" (kon'yoku) can still be found a small number of onsen, though the typical Japanese would find them as exotic in actual practice as the typical American.
The onsen featured in chapter eleven is based on the Katsuragi Mishima Onsen at the Hidaka crossroads in Katsuragi.
Sitting squarely on the "Ring of Fire," Japan has no shortage of hydrothermal vents and no shortage of onsen. But seismic activity can also change the "character" of an onsen, or turn off the tap entirely.
Although the sentou has declined in use over the past fifty years, the onsen has seen increasing popularity as what was once an upper-class luxury became a middle-class vacation destination.
Whether a corporate retreat or spring break, the "traditional" ryokan-style inn with an onsen has become practically de rigueur. The onsen is a travel show favorite.
Even the staid NHK doesn't shy from onsen travelogues featuring naked kids and naked butts (male only, sumo having made the male butt an inconsequential sight; on camera, women sport white bath towels).
Incidentally, "mixed bathing" (kon'yoku) can still be found a small number of onsen, though the typical Japanese would find them as exotic in actual practice as the typical American.
The onsen featured in chapter eleven is based on the Katsuragi Mishima Onsen at the Hidaka crossroads in Katsuragi.
Labels: japanese culture, onsen, serpent notes, serpent of time
December 29, 2011
The public bath
The public bath described here is actually a steam bath (蒸し風呂). During Japan's medieval period, the residents of the "low city" couldn't afford the cost of heating enough water to fill an actual sentô (銭湯). It's cheaper to bake rocks to create steam and dole out the hot water parsimoniously.
The sentô as a public institution reached its high water mark during mid-20th century, before people became wealthy enough to afford their own baths. A sentô's best advertising was the tall chimney rising above it, as they would burn anything they could lay their hands on to heat those massive amounts of water.
Those chimneys are giving way as well to gas-fired boilers.
"Mixed bathing" (混浴) vanished for good from the public sentô during the post-WWII Occupation. During the mid-19th century, though, U.S. Consul Townsend Harris observed that
Shogun (which, like Mr. Baseball, is a more accurate depiction of Japan than is given credit for, though often despite itself) had much fun with the fact that Europeans of the period were a dirty, smelly lot. This is one facet of Japanese culture whose commonsensical superiority remains unquestioned.
Toilets of the era were more advanced in Japan, and still are. The year-end cleaning rituals continue to this day.
The sentô as a public institution reached its high water mark during mid-20th century, before people became wealthy enough to afford their own baths. A sentô's best advertising was the tall chimney rising above it, as they would burn anything they could lay their hands on to heat those massive amounts of water.
Those chimneys are giving way as well to gas-fired boilers.
"Mixed bathing" (混浴) vanished for good from the public sentô during the post-WWII Occupation. During the mid-19th century, though, U.S. Consul Townsend Harris observed that
Everyone bathes every day . . . both sexes, old and young, enter the same [public bath] and there perform their ablutions in a state of perfect nudity. I cannot account for so indelicate a proceeding on the part of a people so generally correct.
Shogun (which, like Mr. Baseball, is a more accurate depiction of Japan than is given credit for, though often despite itself) had much fun with the fact that Europeans of the period were a dirty, smelly lot. This is one facet of Japanese culture whose commonsensical superiority remains unquestioned.
Toilets of the era were more advanced in Japan, and still are. The year-end cleaning rituals continue to this day.
Labels: advertising, history, japanese culture, onsen, serpent notes, serpent of time
August 29, 2011
When in Rome (or Japan)
How propriety easily gets confused with morality is amusingly illustrated by a pair of anecdotes from Michael Hoffman's historical overview of Japan-U.S. relations, written for the Japan Times (an informative and entertaining read).
First we have U.S. Consul Townsend Harris remarking in 1856 on the cleanliness of the Japanese people and the fact that staying clean involves, you know, bathing. Together. In a public bath. "In a state of perfect nudity."
A few years later, a Japanese delegation at a state function was equally shocked to see American women "nude from shoulders to arms," and was offended by the "insufferable" sight of "men and women, both young and old, mixed in the dance."
Japanese men and women have always danced together at festivals, but these resemble line dances (no touching involved). In any case, ballroom dancing has since become perfectly acceptable, as illustrated in the wonderful film, Shall We Dance?
Mixed bathing (kon'yoku) was frowned upon mightily during the U.S. Occupation (1945-1952) and persists only at a handful of hot springs resorts, certainly not at local public baths (sentô), which are still prevalent though not as ubiquitous as before.
"B-list celebrity visits local hot springs resort" (not of the mixed bathing sort) is a favorite travel program genre on Japanese television. Japan has no shortage of local hot springs resorts (onsen) with long histories and quaint local customs to explore.
Anytime an anime series needs a lame excuse for a bunch of gratuitous nudity or low-brow humor (or both), it sends the characters to a hot springs resort. The onsen episode of Full Metal Panic FUMOFFU (episode 9) is one good example.
First we have U.S. Consul Townsend Harris remarking in 1856 on the cleanliness of the Japanese people and the fact that staying clean involves, you know, bathing. Together. In a public bath. "In a state of perfect nudity."
I cannot account for so indelicate a proceeding on the part of a people so generally correct.
A few years later, a Japanese delegation at a state function was equally shocked to see American women "nude from shoulders to arms," and was offended by the "insufferable" sight of "men and women, both young and old, mixed in the dance."
Japanese men and women have always danced together at festivals, but these resemble line dances (no touching involved). In any case, ballroom dancing has since become perfectly acceptable, as illustrated in the wonderful film, Shall We Dance?
Mixed bathing (kon'yoku) was frowned upon mightily during the U.S. Occupation (1945-1952) and persists only at a handful of hot springs resorts, certainly not at local public baths (sentô), which are still prevalent though not as ubiquitous as before.
"B-list celebrity visits local hot springs resort" (not of the mixed bathing sort) is a favorite travel program genre on Japanese television. Japan has no shortage of local hot springs resorts (onsen) with long histories and quaint local customs to explore.
Anytime an anime series needs a lame excuse for a bunch of gratuitous nudity or low-brow humor (or both), it sends the characters to a hot springs resort. The onsen episode of Full Metal Panic FUMOFFU (episode 9) is one good example.
Labels: anime, culture, history, japan, onsen, social studies