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A bathing ape
I'm coming to the end of my summer in Japan. I fly back to my real home -- the Karl Marx Allee in Berlin -- on October 1st. Last night I played the last scheduled Momus concert of 2004, an energetic sex-themed cabaret at Osaka's Noon Club. The reason I was so zingy and frisky is that just an hour before taking the stage I'd been soaking in a nearby sento, absorbing the electric current flowing through the water before being rubbed and pneumatically massaged by two different mechanical massage chairs. The culture of bathing has become my obsession this summer; hardly a day has gone by when I haven't tried some new spa, sento, onsen or rotenburo. I really have become a bathing ape.
Actually, at some hot springs you can bathe with wild monkeys. Since there's a possibility that I'll be spending a couple of months in Hokkaido this winter, that's now become my big ambition: to bathe with red-nosed monkeys in a landscape white with snow.
I've been reading up on the history of bathing, and it's amazing how similar ancient Roman baths were to modern Japanese ones. Like the Japanese, the Romans left their clothes in a cupboard. Unlike the Japanese, though, the Romans -- at least the ones stationed at Bath, in Britain -- had a crime problem; cloaks were often stolen. (The Romans had 'curse tablets' which they hung in an outer room of the baths, demanding that thieves and other malefactors have their intestines eaten by wild birds.) Like the Japanese, the Romans washed first, splashing water from ceramic jugs rather than plastic buckets. Like the Japanese, they proceeded from a tepid bath to a hot one and then a cold one, 'to close the pores'. (There was a sign in the sento I went to yesterday saying that if you go from hot to cold water four times, your body is strengthened and you won't feel weak or lightheaded after your bath.) Unlike the Japanese, though, the Romans had slaves to stoke the fires that heated the water, and to scrape them clean with a key-like scraper called a strigil. Like the Japanese, the Romans decorated their baths lavishly with mirrors, statues, tiles and murals. In fact, Roman baths were more like the newer 'supersentos' which are now springing up in Japan, like the one in Odaiba, Tokyo; they were complete culture and leisure centres, with manicure and massage rooms, gyms, places where, according to Bath Council's blurb, 'people could swim, jog, wrestle, or show off their weight-lifting':
'Ball games of all kinds were popular, including games which used heavy medicine balls. The less energetic could play board games; we have ivory, bone and glass gaming counters to prove this, as well as dice made of agate and rock crystal. Some baths also had gardens and a library reading room. A lot of them had snack bars, and in the Caerleon legionary baths archaeologists have found shellfish remnants, mutton chops and chicken bones. Poets recited their work, and hoped for a dinner invitation. The unfortunate Seneca, who had to live above all this activity, was bothered by the noise: ‘...the man who likes to sing in the bath; men who jump into the water with an almighty splash; and then the cries of "Cakes for sale" and "Hot sausages".’
Like the Japanese, the Romans excelled at feelgood ecumenical sleight of hand. Just as a Japanese sento might contain both Shinto and Buddhist references, so the Romans at Bath managed to blend Sulis, the Celtic goddess of the spring, with Minerva, their own 'household goddess' and healer. They made a little shrine to her at the baths, those 'temples of the flesh'.
Temples of the Flesh happens to be the title of a book by Alexia Brue, published by Bloomsbury. Alexia, a rather pretty blonde New Yorker, went round the world on a bathing tour, which sounds like nice work if you can get it. At Takaragawa onsen she tried the mixed sento, emerging naked only to realise that although the bathing was mixed, everybody else was wearing towels.
Well, we all make mistakes. I made one when I said that nobody in medieval Britain took a bath for 500 years. In fact, some castles did have dank rooms you could fill with moat water and bathe in, reaching towards a gargoyle-shaped peg for your scrubbing brush. Me, I'd rather bathe with a troupe of monkeys in a Hokkaido hot spring, looking out at a landscape of snow.
I don't think Britain is going to rediscover public bathing any time soon. The paranoia about, for instance, adults seeing other people's naked children just gets screwed tighter all the time in my beloved no-longer-homeland. The latest dogfight in the battle of the British with their own bodies was reported yesterday in the Education Guardian in a story headlined Complaints Prompt Review of Nude Art. Morley College, a London art school, is trying to decide whether to continue displaying nude drawings and paintings in the public spaces of the college after 'a few people raised a concern over the nature of some of the student artwork displayed at the college'. A decision will be made later this week. I wait with bated breath, on the edge of my sauna seat.
Actually, at some hot springs you can bathe with wild monkeys. Since there's a possibility that I'll be spending a couple of months in Hokkaido this winter, that's now become my big ambition: to bathe with red-nosed monkeys in a landscape white with snow.
I've been reading up on the history of bathing, and it's amazing how similar ancient Roman baths were to modern Japanese ones. Like the Japanese, the Romans left their clothes in a cupboard. Unlike the Japanese, though, the Romans -- at least the ones stationed at Bath, in Britain -- had a crime problem; cloaks were often stolen. (The Romans had 'curse tablets' which they hung in an outer room of the baths, demanding that thieves and other malefactors have their intestines eaten by wild birds.) Like the Japanese, the Romans washed first, splashing water from ceramic jugs rather than plastic buckets. Like the Japanese, they proceeded from a tepid bath to a hot one and then a cold one, 'to close the pores'. (There was a sign in the sento I went to yesterday saying that if you go from hot to cold water four times, your body is strengthened and you won't feel weak or lightheaded after your bath.) Unlike the Japanese, though, the Romans had slaves to stoke the fires that heated the water, and to scrape them clean with a key-like scraper called a strigil. Like the Japanese, the Romans decorated their baths lavishly with mirrors, statues, tiles and murals. In fact, Roman baths were more like the newer 'supersentos' which are now springing up in Japan, like the one in Odaiba, Tokyo; they were complete culture and leisure centres, with manicure and massage rooms, gyms, places where, according to Bath Council's blurb, 'people could swim, jog, wrestle, or show off their weight-lifting':
'Ball games of all kinds were popular, including games which used heavy medicine balls. The less energetic could play board games; we have ivory, bone and glass gaming counters to prove this, as well as dice made of agate and rock crystal. Some baths also had gardens and a library reading room. A lot of them had snack bars, and in the Caerleon legionary baths archaeologists have found shellfish remnants, mutton chops and chicken bones. Poets recited their work, and hoped for a dinner invitation. The unfortunate Seneca, who had to live above all this activity, was bothered by the noise: ‘...the man who likes to sing in the bath; men who jump into the water with an almighty splash; and then the cries of "Cakes for sale" and "Hot sausages".’
Like the Japanese, the Romans excelled at feelgood ecumenical sleight of hand. Just as a Japanese sento might contain both Shinto and Buddhist references, so the Romans at Bath managed to blend Sulis, the Celtic goddess of the spring, with Minerva, their own 'household goddess' and healer. They made a little shrine to her at the baths, those 'temples of the flesh'.
Temples of the Flesh happens to be the title of a book by Alexia Brue, published by Bloomsbury. Alexia, a rather pretty blonde New Yorker, went round the world on a bathing tour, which sounds like nice work if you can get it. At Takaragawa onsen she tried the mixed sento, emerging naked only to realise that although the bathing was mixed, everybody else was wearing towels.
Well, we all make mistakes. I made one when I said that nobody in medieval Britain took a bath for 500 years. In fact, some castles did have dank rooms you could fill with moat water and bathe in, reaching towards a gargoyle-shaped peg for your scrubbing brush. Me, I'd rather bathe with a troupe of monkeys in a Hokkaido hot spring, looking out at a landscape of snow.
I don't think Britain is going to rediscover public bathing any time soon. The paranoia about, for instance, adults seeing other people's naked children just gets screwed tighter all the time in my beloved no-longer-homeland. The latest dogfight in the battle of the British with their own bodies was reported yesterday in the Education Guardian in a story headlined Complaints Prompt Review of Nude Art. Morley College, a London art school, is trying to decide whether to continue displaying nude drawings and paintings in the public spaces of the college after 'a few people raised a concern over the nature of some of the student artwork displayed at the college'. A decision will be made later this week. I wait with bated breath, on the edge of my sauna seat.
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That stuff about moving from hot to cold is totally true- it's like your body gets re-set after you do that a few times. Wonderful stuff.
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-tomas
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The college I teach figure drawing and other classes at is frequently leased to church groups on weekends. On Monday mornings, I find the Life Drawing display cases covered floor to ceiling with newspapers taped onto the glass.
other baths
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Some birdwatching might be in order as well.
Live snowmonkey webcam: http://www.outdoorjapan.com/webcams/webcams-jigokudani-1.html
W
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herpes
(Anonymous) 2004-09-21 11:29 pm (UTC)(link)much luck,
mobo
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If the men's floor is Asia, the women's (this month anyway; next month they rotate) is Europe. Which means you get a French bath in front of a big photo of the Arc de Triomph, a Napolitan grotto, a Finnish sauna, a Spanish footbath and waterfall room, and a Greek herbal pool with a planetarium!
What, no English-themed room? Shouldn't there be a room full of cold white iron baths with water that runs cold half way through, intrusive security cameras, and policemen standing by with notebooks? No, just as there are no English restaurants here in Japan, so there's no English bathing worth importing. Cinemas, however, are all showing 'Live Forever', a documentary about BritPop. And I should remember that that's why I'm here, ultimately. To supply our only really exportable commodity, British popular music.
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(Anonymous) 2004-09-22 04:42 am (UTC)(link)There is proper functioning sort of Mediterranean cafe in the middle of it all. You can check out the subtle design and drainage accommodations for wet people.
There is a room with hot sand. Another with just a huge bowl shaped tub of ice cold water and mosaic decor. A room which isn't particularly themed with some very hot waterfalls also contains some excellent massaging waters on the other side of the room, perhaps it's the Spanish one mentioned.
Everyone likes the lifelike wolf sculptures up against the night sky on the roof of the saunas gazing down on the frigid cold stream running through the Finland area.
Up on the top floor is a swimming suit water park with more hot and cold indoor and outdoor pools, and a giant screen TV array playing a continuous loop of the Vin Diesel "Riddick" trailer.
nicholas d. kent
http://www.artskool.biz/newpics/japan04/travelogue.html
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Your description of the English bathroom just made me laugh out loud and spit pitta crumbs all over my keyboard. Thanks for that!
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(Anonymous) 2004-09-22 04:47 am (UTC)(link)-Maki
>Since there's a possibility that I'll be spending a couple of months in Hokkaido this winter, that's now become my big ambition: to bathe with red-nosed monkeys in a landscape white with snow.
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(Anonymous) 2004-09-22 06:36 am (UTC)(link)RW
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I love sento
i don't like spa world much.
sadly there are no sento near my house but i love sento.
I used to go to the sento with grandpa when i was a kid,
i went there after like 15 years absence and the owner(banto) ...
she remembered me!
drink fruit milk in a bottle is my tradition after bathing!
and were there electric bath (denki buro) in that sento you tried?
it's funky!
I went to see your show last night and that was amazing.
one of the best show i've ever seen thank you.
i enjoyed so much. arigato
Re: I love sento
Yes, I have now overcome my fear of denki buro, but only slightly. I sort of linger very gingerly at the edge of the electricity, jumping when it gets strong. You know how computer users are supposed to use a surge-proof power strip to protect their equipment? Well, I always think 'What if there were an earthquake or something while I'm in this denki buro, and there was a surge in the power...?' To which my rational self answers 'Don't worry, you'd be killed by falling masonry mere seconds after getting the shock'.
i wanted to
i saw you are on upstairs.
i went to see you at shinsaibashi stomps as well.
that was my first time to see you.
you were nice even though my english is so poor.
i had to rush to catch the train.
but i was soooooo satisfied with your show so it's still cool.
when you are singing something "I am shy.. " that reminds me of that situation of me . i wanted to say hi but i couldn't! oh!
about sento..
actually i've never tried denki buro as a kid.
i've been afraid of it. and now i still have abit!
i think i should find my answer!!!!!! or i stole yours
Bathing in Berlin
(Anonymous) 2004-09-22 07:29 am (UTC)(link)no subject
"The local pool provide[d] swimming clubs for youth, private swimming for women including many Muslim women, the only public bathing for the homeless, steam rooms etc. The Council without consultation decided to close the pool without providing viable alternatives."
This is going to sound a bit ass-kissy, but I had a very long, very hot bath a few days ago, listening to "Forbidden Software Timemachine". After reading this post I'm going to have another one tonight. What's good bath music?
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"With that man I shall have much to do," he said to himself, as he noted the big face look up and meet his eye through the glass. "There is something I cannot shirk-a vital relation out of the past of both of us."
And he went to his desk trembling a little, and with shaking knees, as though the memory of some terrible pain had suddenly laid its icy hand upon his heart and thouched the scar of a great horror. I t was a moment of geniune terror when their eyes had met through the glass door, and he was conscious of an inward shrinking and loathing that seized upon him with great violence and convinced him in a single second that the settling of this account would be almost, perhaps, more than he could manage.
japanese baths, tag wie geht's?, I don't know what else to write..
You don't know me but I was just nosing round your journal and found it interesting! A friend of mine is in Japan now and someone else linked your journal on the Japanese baths. they sound great--I would love to try it sometime, and see Japan as well. Anyway, I also saw that you're living in Berlin (no I'm not stalking you). I'll be visiting Berlin for the first time at the end of this month (if plans work out). Two of my Irish friends moved there last February and are in love with the place. Will you be playing at clubs, etc, in Berlin? Probably a stupid question, I know. What do you like about Berlin? What must I see? I'll be staying in Europe for about 2 months (again, if plans work out and I don't go insanely poor).
Enjoy the rest of your time in Japan!
danke,
Angela
p.s. Nice eyepatch
Massage Therapy Clinic London UK Health Medicine
(Anonymous) 2004-12-16 01:40 pm (UTC)(link)