Words by Jon Perry, picture by David Piper
I am delighted to introduce a new article by our gifted wordsmith in Japan, Mr. Jon Perry. Jon’s previous piece for our Every Day is Sunday collection was incredibly well received, and I’m sure you’ll love this one too. Jon is now a veritable force of locutionary labour, composing missives left and right on his amazing blog, Takaihana. If you are interested in following Jon’s lead, and contributing an article for Every Day is Sunday, why not type it up and send it to me here? dave(at)sundayink(dot)com.
And now, enjoy the Art of Onsen.
Onsen (n): Water from a geothermally heated spring that is directed into a bath. Traditionally these baths were outdoors, but these days onsen are often incorporated into public bath houses and ryokan (Japanese style inns). Since the source is usually volcanic, onsen water generally contains lots of minerals and is therefore believed to have different health benefits, depending on its chemical composition. Baths in onsen are segregated by sex and taken naked.
Sento: As above, but the water is artificially rather than geothermally heated. Usually found in suburbs and cities, as opposed to onsen which are often more rural affairs.
If you had told me before coming to Japan that within two years one of my chief pleasures in life would be getting in a hot bath with other men in the altogether, I believe I may have laughed at you. I must be just one of thousands of foreigners in Japan who have gone through the transition from embarrassed first time onsen user to rampant enthusiast within a few months of arrival.
And who wouldn’t be nervous that first time, asked to strip off in front of strangers, given only a small thin towel for modesty protection, and have a wash and a soak in a great communal bath with hordes of other people that you don’t know from Adam. But herein lies the great beauty of the onsen; the very closeness with strangers that is immediately endowed by the anonymity of the experience. After all, when you are unclothed, and all your possessions are outside the door, what is left to define you? If you arrived in a flashy sports car then good for you, but it can’t be seen from here, and your expensive Italian suit is outside in a locker along with your silver Rolex. There is just you, not the frills and ornaments that are so often mistaken for you. In here, there is no difference between the CEO of Mitsubishi and the caretaker who cleans the company toilets. The oft-repeated red herring about Japan being a classless society finally takes on a ring of truth behind the sliding doors to the baths. The Japanese say that you ‘leave your pretensions at the door’ when you enter an onsen, and there are countless tales of young things like myself striking up conversation with the chap next to them in the sauna only to find out later that they were talking with a famous celebrity or the tenth generation owner of Mitsukoshi department store.
Of course, no-one goes to an onsen just because it feels egalitarian. They go because it feels good, and because of its pleasing ritual familiarity. On entering the bath, one first pours a ladleful of hot water (kakeyu) over oneself from a large container near the entrance. This is said to prepare the body for the immersion to follow. Then, one washes thoroughly and well under a shower, or in more rustic baths, a bucket and tap. Only then does one enter the bath, fully cleansed, for a long, contemplative soak. Novices may find the heat to be so great that entry may be a long and slow process, involving careful dipping of toes, then a gradual slide into the water accompanied by intermittent gasps and yelps. It is said that as you get older, you like your onsen to be hotter, so the greater the proportion of old dears who frequent the bath, the more likely you are to feel like a boiled egg. In particularly hot baths (over 42 degrees Celsius), the long and hesitant process of entry is followed by a few minutes of sitting completely still before the subject is well cooked, upon which he should rise, scarlet all over, from the waters and sit outside the bath until he is cooled down. In cooler baths (under 39 degrees Celsius), he can sit for longer, chatting with friends or strangers, or just thinking inconsequential nothings to himself. Both kinds of bath, in their own way, are very pleasurable experiences, and they leave you feeling immeasurably cleaner than any shower or bath you can have in the home.
Onsen, and their humbler cousin the sento, play a vital part in Japanese social activity. Until not so very long ago the majority of Japanese houses didn’t have any kind of washing facility at home, so trips to the sento were not a luxury but a necessity. Those with a time machine and a love of sento should set their dials for 1968, when there were 2687 in central Tokyo alone. Since showers and baths became the norm in new houses these numbers have naturally declined, but remnants of the old system still exist. For example, as sento were traditionally considered necessary for public health, prefectural governments still set an upper limit on the cost of entry. In Tokyo it is 450 yen, while residents of Kyushu’s Saga prefecture can bathe for just 280 yen. At good neighbourhood sento, where the man at the door is in his eighties and the clientele look on him as a young whippersnapper, the baths are hot enough to melt lead, and the old men are enjoying a joke or an anecdote about the old days, it is tempting to think that inside these walls at least, things haven’t changed since the sento glory days of 1968.
An onsen or sento visit will give you a chance to catch the Japanese at their most unguarded (in all senses). Don’t worry about being unclothed; just enjoy the all enveloping warmth, and allow the cares and trifles of the outside world to remain on the other side of that sliding door. I’ll see you in there.
