One of Japanese cultures that I like the most is “taking a bath.”
Bath tab is usually very small and once you’ve grown up, you don’t have enough space to even spread your legs all the way unless you’re living in a rich house. Yet, it doesn’t matter how small the bathtub is, what matters is your experience there.
When I was little, taking a bath was like a pre school.
This is the place where I played with my brother with toys. Sometimes, we use a towel to make air bubbles to pretend as farting and just giggle together. Many times, I was with my dad because he was the one who’s in charge of kids to learn how to wash the body and how to count numbers properly. Sometimes I was in with my grandma. She wiped my back with a wet towel when we were still in a bath tab. I don’t know why she did that but what I still vividly remember is her gentle touch and it was very comfortable. We even had had some girls’ talk even after I grew up. We had about a 60 years gap, yet that doesn’t matter. We were like sisters.
Once I was in adolescent age, I enjoyed taking a bath for relaxing my sore muscles, enjoying to wash my body with a flavory shampoo, singing out loud, and checking my becoming-an-adult body in a mirror. My house was very small. There was no privacy for anyone. So this place was where we all could enjoy “alone time” in this house.
In our culture, there are two types of public places where people take a bath with strangers. One is called “Sento(u) (銭湯)” for local people. Another is called “Onsen (温泉)” is the same thing as “hot spring” in English.
In Japan, we have many unspoken rules for respecting each other pretty much for everything. So as these public bath places.
For instance, we need to pour water on your body before getting into the bathtub and you have long hair, we need to tie it up to avoiding hairs floating in the bath for sanity responsibility. When you use a little seat for washing your body, we need to pour water on it before sitting down for your own sanitary. It sounds a little bit overwhelming, yet once you understand the reason behind it, it’s not that hard to act like one.
In Japan, there is a word “Hadaka no Tsukiai (裸の付き合い)” meaning, “naked relationship”. It’s a metaphor for boundary. When you two decide to show one’s naked body, that means it’s a trust, acceptance, and/or slender. It might sound odd for westerners or other foreigners who kiss or hug in general, however, as Japanese, we don’t grow up with a lot of that kind of touching, so this “taking a bath boundary” makes your bond stronger.
With all these above cultural experiences and memories in me, taking a bath is not only just a sanitary activity to clean my body but also a magical place where I could interact with others and have some relaxation in that little space.
The photo was taken by his wife.
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