Eagerly Anticipating the Onsen

In preparation for my trip to Japan, I did the dreaded bikini wax.

There is no way I'm going to an onsen in my birthday suit, looking like the missing link. So, it's t-minus-5 days till take off, time to do some grooming. It's bad enough that I'll be a giant in the onsen, a giant, blond American, but a hairy one would just be nasty.

Yes, of *course* I'm going to go! Onsens are relaxing and quintessentially Japanese. I travel internationally to step out of being American for a while, to leave the comfort zone and remind myself that there are many good ways to live in the world.

An onsen is a public bath, although the term translates to "hot spring." Often they are built on or near natural hot springs (it is a volcanic nation, remember), and you go there to soak in the tub. There is a specific etiquette to using an onsen, and it's not as gross as an American might think. You must bathe before you get in the shared tub. You bathe at these little shower stations (called sento) in full view of everyone, so there is social pressure to do a good job. You scrub yourself well from top to bottom and then rinse off. Now, you can go in the tub, which is something like a hot tub in the US.

Everyone's nude, but yes, they do separate the boys from the girls. Children end up with the women. In my limited experience, there aren't too many children.

The tub is hot, like, really hot. You can't soak for too long or you'll overheat. Some onsens have cold pools, you can heat up, then cool off, and repeat. It's quite a shock stepping into the cold after the hot. I think the Japanese think this is healthy. It's exhilarating.  Some onsen have mineral baths of various types. Some have little waterfalls.

I don't think an onsen would work in America. The necessary social conventions are not present. We Americans are slobs, and yet at the same time, we are rampantly germophobic.

I wonder if our obesity problem would change if we regularly saw each other nude, in a non-sexual community context. I think everyone might end up with better body images and self esteem if we had something like this, because people would know what real human bodies look like. Not the over sexualized, corrected, buffed bodies we are only allowed to see here in America.

Secretly, I would like to have a Japanese soaking tub in my house. Either that or a Swedish sauna. Anything to relax and warm up on a cold winter day.