public bath

An interesting article I read while I was on the plane today (edited and translated by me as usual):

When I was a child, there were very few houses in Tokyo that had a bath.  Having a bath at home implied a special kind of status.  My family actually did have that status, but there were more than ten people living together so some of us ended up going to the sento (=public bath).

Back in those days, the prewar totalitarianism was still strong, and adults scolded children even if they were not their own.  All adults were a threat to children.  And sento was a place where that kind of totalitarianism appeared especially strongly.  There, we learned not only morals but also our rebel spirits -- when someone scolded us, we would later sneak up from behind and grab his crotch before running away.

Campus activism and union activism were supported by these sento generations, and it seemed as though they declined once people started having baths at home.

Sento was a place where we observed adults.  Young and old and rich and poor were all equally naked, and the rumors that we usually heard on the streets disappeared once we opened the door to the bath:  A good-for-nothing drunkard would look brilliant while the leader of the neighboorhood association would look unhappy and weak.  It was their body and their way of treating children that mattered, and we saw something totally different from what we saw beyond the curtains (that divided the sento from the rest of the world).

And there was one thing I wondered: why did all the adults groan when they got into a hot bath?  No child groaned.  Nor did young men.  But they would start groaning as they got older, and yes, this was what we all call ho-etsu (法悦).  In the dictionary, it says: the ecstacy you feel when you hear the teachings of Buddhism.

Of course, no one lectures the teachings of Buddhism in a bath, and no children understood the ecstacy the adults found in the mere hot water.

Later on in life, it was when I found myself groaning in the bath that I realized how old I had become.  People usually find themselves thinking when they groan.  But the ho-etsu groan you let out in a hot bath is totally unrelated to the brain -- it's the voice of your body.  So the moment you're groaning, you never even feel embarrassed.  My groans have become louder as I've gotten older.

Lately, there are places such as super-sento and healthyland and many people from the sento-generation visit them early in the morning just to groan.  And my recent discovery is that young people these days don't hide their crotch with their towels; they don't even have a towel.  So have the Japanese forgotten the spirit of shame?  I sometimes feel like scolding the young ones but I have no courage.  And when I notice the many skin-caring goods they bring like girls, I realize the world has changed.  Maybe these young men won't groan when they get older.  Maybe my groans make them think: shameless old bastard.

- Jiro Asada