I am hesitant to make generalizations about Japan because many people reading this have far more experience in Japan than I do. I have this sense that they're out there making snarky lists of my errors in a little black book with a padlock on it. Like when I said that the Japanese don't understand minimalism a few weeks ago? Oops. Of course the Japanese understand minimalism. Just look at their food. They all but invented it, whatever Steve Jobs may claim. But the day I wrote that, I had just been exposed to colors that aren't even in the optical spectrum and had come back from Harajuku reeling. I had to watch a silent movie to get my wits together. Though the Japanese understand minimalism they are also masters of multisensory assault, it seems. Duplicitous bastards.
The point is that there are going to be the inevitable exceptions to my observations and I am often wrong. So get over it, black-book-writers. Whew. I feel much better.
Uh, so yeah, naked Japanese men? Well, yes. I went to an onsen this weekend. I think most of you may have heard about onsen, but maybe that's just me assuming again, like I assumed everyone knew what Roppongi was. So for the rest of you: an onsen is a Japanese public bath fed by a hot spring. Japanese custom is to thoroughly wash in the adjacent showers before entering the bath. God help the poor gaijin who sullies the bath water.
The bath, which accommodates at least a dozen, is typically a big stone pool in a big stone chamber filled with steam. The chamber is filled with steam because the water is unimaginably hot, often as high as 45º C (113º F). To the uninitiated such temperatures are tolerable for about five minutes. I am definitely one of the uninitiated and before long I have to climb out of the hellish pit, dizzy and rubbery. My vision inevitably goes black for a moment and I am forced hang onto a nearby wall or naked Japanese man to avoid falling over.
The onsen I went to this weekend wasn't that hot. In fact, it was almost tepid. I was disappointed because there's something soothing about the near-death experience of a really hot onsen. When you get out the volume has been turned down on everything else and your body is pleasantly painful and pink. And even though 113º F probably isn't hot enough to kill anything in the water except me, really hot bath water at least feels sanitary. The onsen I went to should have had complimentary petri dishes next to the guest towels, because I worry that there was a thriving mini-Tokyo of bacteria in the lukewarm water. The water was a bit slimy, too, due to the spring water's naturally high alkaline levels. At least I hope that's why, but maybe it was just from all the cholera floating around in there.
The spectacular outdoor bath more than made up for whatever communicable diseases I picked up this weekend. There are far worse things in life than sitting up to one's neck in a hot spring in the rain, surrounded by pine trees. It felt like a picture in a Japanese travel brochure, except the photographer would have probably made the bathers take the towels off their heads because they look ridiculous.
The towel is for modesty's sake: it's to hold in front of their bits when walking around the bath. When they get into the water they often fold the towel and put it on their head in a little pile. Historically baths were unisex but in recent times most onsen have moved towards same-sex baths. When I think of unisex baths I think of the Japanese Women's Olympic Volleyball Team, but after seeing some of the little old ladies who were staying in our inn I was grateful for this segregation.
Onsens often have a Japanese-style inn on the premises and are a good vacation destination. Some onsen are lavish affairs, like Japanese spas. The Japanese make a weekend of it, drinking and feasting and bathing to excess with extended family and friends. It's a good group activity: who doesn't enjoy watching their naked, sweating great-uncle pass out when he tries to get out of the bath? Onsen are also a good home base for Japanese sightseers. They go and see the local attractions (other onsen) during the day. They sample the local delicacies, which are usually various kinds of bean paste with a twist: it's wrapped in a maple leaf, or something. Then they return to their bath house, wash off the dust from a hard day touring bath houses, and prop up the occasional staggering white guy mid-faint. Afterwards, pink and happy in their rooms, they proceed to drink everything they can find, send for more, drink that, and start telling erotic jokes* about how fried chicken looks like testicles.
Beats driving three days to see the world's biggest ear of corn any day.
*Japanese humor is not incompatible with Western humor. But Japanese jokes are completely incompatible as far as I've seen. They're usually puns or one-liners that twist the Japanese language and presuppose an extensive knowledge of Japanese cultural history. For instance, "I will soon (go to New York/take a bath.)" Or there's the classic:
Q: Do you know how to build a fence?
A: (shrug)
Hilarious.
Great work.
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