Rub-a-dub-dub with the neighbors

Public bathing is Japan’s town square

This public bath is high tech. There are shower heads.

“You will share the toilet with Yoshida-kun next door—it’s in the passage between your apartments. There is no bath or shower, but the public bath is just down the street,” my new landlady Mrs. Yano told me. It was my fourth day in Japan.

Luckily I was 22 years old, a silly putty American boy happy to do as instructed. Who was I to question? Share a plop toilet with a guy named Yoshida, and bathe each night down the road. Got it.

Before handing me the key, Yano-san called Yoshida-kun to come out to meet me. She was his great aunt not just landlady, so she bossed him around. I couldn’t understand what they were saying—fourth day and all—but knowing today how Japan works I’m sure this was the gist:

Yano: “Nephew! Get out here. Meet your new neighbor, Jack-u. He understands nothing, so you’re in charge of him.”

Yoshida: “Okay...”

Yano: “Understand? Nothing. Zero. He depends on you. We all do, got it?”

Yoshida: “Mm, yeah.”

Yano: “Take him to the public bath tonight. Explain everything, demonstrate, actually show him how.”

Yoshida: “Okay...”

Yano: “Nephew! Focus. Don’t mess this up. You are his neighbor and I am his landlady and everyone within a 5-kilometer radius already knows it! I’ll be damned if he goes into there clueless, screws the pooch in front of literally the CITY, and brings shame on all of us just because YOU were too dim to realize that a new arrival FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY can’t be expected…Who do you think looks like the monkey when he gets the tubs all dirty or when he starts bothering everyone with English questions?? Him? No. You and I, that’s who!”

Yoshida: “Okay, got it. Sheesh.”

I smiled hi at Yoshida and made a sheepish “I bet you need to take care of me like a hole in the head” look.

Poor Yoshida-kun did his best to apply his grade school knowledge of English to his sudden assignment as the foreigner’s Culture and Survival Guide.

“Bath. 6PM. 240 yen. Are you…America?” Yoshida was a notably non-expressive guy but he smiled a bit when I answered hai. We were almost the same age and over the next three years we became close friends.

That first evening Yoshida-kun knocked on the thin internal door our apartments shared and told me to bundle up. Though the public bath was only a few minutes down the lane, the October night was blowing cold.

He showed me his bathing tub, a large plastic bowl that everyone carried to the baths from their homes. In his he had his favorite shampoo and body soap, a plastic comb, and a scrub rag for body cleaning. He probably had a razor and a toothbrush in there too. Yano-san gave me my first “starter” tub, and until I could fill it with my own toiletries, I borrowed from Yoshida’s bottles.

We walked to the bath and got in a short entrance line. Everyone held his or her own plastic tub. Steam poured out of the building’s cracked windows into the cold black street. The old concrete and wood structure looked like a Factory of Cleansing and we were the products being lined up and fed in for processing.

Mrs. Serizawa, the matriarch of the family that owned the bath since the Meiji Era, sat at a high perch seat just inside the entrance taking the 240 yen entrance fees from each visitor one by one. The large building was split internally down the center. Women entered the bath to the left of Mrs. Serizawa’s perch, males to her right. She cheerily greeted each and exchanged quick gossip with those who were her closer friends. Yoshida-kun explained that I had just moved in next to him and he was taking me for my first visit. Who knows, but Mrs. Serizawa likely sarcastically said “lucky you” to him, but gave me a welcoming smile and held her hand out for my coins.

Yoshida-kun and I entered the large changing room. We picked out two lockers and like everyone unceremoniously stripped bare. After locking up our clothes, we slipped our rubber banded locker keys over our right ankles.

The room was full of naked men and boys, I’d say ages 5 to 90. The children yelled and danced and played tag games unashamedly, while the older males quietly shuffled toward the sliding glass doors that opened into the bathing area. I noticed that each of the men either used a hand or his wash rag to cover his groin. No one seemed to do this out of embarrassment—rather it looked more like manners to not “flop” around indecently. I copied.

Before going into the bath, Yoshida-kun motioned for me to step onto an old rusty  scale in the corner. I was taller than Japanese guys in those decades and I’m sure he was simply curious to know how much an American weighed. He called a few friends over to witness themselves the naked foreigner getting measured. Several other men gathered around too—this was not every day.

I didn’t care. As this was my first kilogram scale, I was curious too to learn my number. Yoshida peered at the dial and called out, “Seventy two!” The room went whoooo. They were impressed it seems. One ancient skeletal guy said “Great-o!” in heavily accented English.

Weighing done, I followed Yoshida-kun into the bathing area. He said, “Copy all like me” so I did.

He sat on an overturned plastic bucket and filled his bathing tub with hot water from a faucet at his station. He then poured the water all over himself, refilling and redousing over and over. He covered his head, face, and each arm one by one. Then each leg and down his back and chest. I copied every move. It was all much busier and involved than standing in a shower but the heavy, hot pouring did feel purifying. The large room echoed with crashes and splashes from each man’s rinsing.

Yoshida-kun had a top-to-bottom order to his bathing. First shampoo head and face, then rinse. Next, heavily soap and lather the wash rag and scrub scrub scrub from the neck down to the toes. We bathed sitting down, and I quickly learned to never rush—scrubbing in Japan is more purposeful than I was used to. The longer one cleans before climbing into the shared bath, the more conscientious and well-bred he is.

For an American, used to the jump-in and jump-out of a four-minute shower, I later understood what I was being taught. Bathing here is a pausing of time for everyone, a nightly step away from whatever daily grind he or she wrestles with, be it study, office work, or home hassles. Although we were all stripped naked and cleaning quite private nooks and crannies in a group, there was something healthy and civilized to what we were doing.

The men scrubbed each toe and finger and of course carefully between all 20 digits along the way. They meticulously built up tall, thick foams on their skin, without periodically rinsing—soon the room seemed to be filled with puffy white Michelin Men of soap. When the scrubbing and foaming was deemed sufficient, the wash tubs were once again filled with clear hot water and the foam suits got rinsed away with great crashes and splashes.

“Now we do the bath,” said Yoshida. “But very important rule. No soap or dirt in bath.”

I watched as he triple and quadruple rinsed to ensure not a bubble was left on his body from the soaping stage. Only then, free and clear of impurity, are we welcomed into the giant shared bath. (Once as I headed toward another bath after too quick of a rinse, I got loudly warned by an old man that I had missed a spot of soap on my back. I sheepishly returned to my sitting bucket to rinse three more times.)

The bath is scalding. The men laughed as I sat on the edge of the tiles so I could gingerly lower my toes, then my ankles, and then my ass into what is essentially lava. In a week or two, I was used to the temperature. I still am decades later.

I was happy to be fully submerged in the bath one night, just my face visible above the water, when I found out that Mrs. Serizawa regularly marched in to start cleaning up from about 9pm. She dutifully entered with a bucket and brushes and got down on hands and knees to scrub tiles among any naked stragglers, men or women. That way the bath closes every night in pristine condition, ready for business the next evening.

I joked that she uses a toothbrush to clean the tiles. No one seemed to sense the humor.

Some people talk quietly in the bath, but of course no yelling or loud stories. Again no one is in a rush, so maybe they are sharing news, making reminders, or suggesting outings for other days. We could always hear much more talk coming over the wall from the ladies’ side. Chirp, chirp, chirp. Tee hee!

Those first few nights, I felt surrounded by strangers. I learned quickly they are nothing of the sort. The bath is Japan’s town square and everyone not only knows each other, most of them grew up together. They were the 6-year olds screaming and playing naked tag right in this same building 60 years ago! Next to me in the bath might be the mailman who delivered a letter today. The guy working on his foam suit over there is the coffee shop owner who loves Chopin.

I was simply the newest addition. The 72-kilogram American who rents a place from Mrs. Yano just up the lane.