![]() In another area, there are baths in a small enclosed porch area with skylights that open in warm weather. A few years ago it was the setting for parts of a movie called "Doku Doku Monster 2." Behind the stage is a mural of Yoshiiku Utagawa's famous painting "Quarreling & Scuffling in the Women's Bathhouse." The place is outfitted with a piano, and is used for small recitals. There is a separate room for karaoke, stage included. Masayoshi Hosokawa, owner of Tatsu No Yu, or "Dragon's Bath," in Tokyo has added a 32-seat restaurant that looks like a small banquet hall. The old YMCA locker room feel is giving way to the atmosphere of a fancy health club. Saunas and Jacuzzis came first, but lately the amenities are getting slicker. Sentos have been renovated like mad in recent years. Certain Japanese baths do offer what is euphemistically called "massage," but the traditional sentos are family establishments. In many places in the world, public bathhouses are associated with sex. There they have a long soak in water usually kept at 105 to 108 degrees, which even in Tokyo often bubbles up from natural hot springs. Only after they wash and rinse off do they immerse themselves in the large communal tub, which can usually accommodate 10 to 15 people. But those tubs are often tiny, with no room to stretch arms and legs, and not nearly as steamy as the public bathhouse.Īt Japanese sentos, which charge about $3 to $8, bathers sit in front of small spigots and fully wash themselves with soap and shampoo. More than 40 percent of Japanese still live in homes without flush toilets, although about 94 percent of Japanese homes now have bathtubs. ![]() Indoor plumbing arrived late in Japan, which didn't open itself to trade with the outside world until the mid-19th century. They have been practical places for other reasons, too. They are meeting places where neighbors swap news and gossip and a sense of community is cemented - all in the buff, in Japan's case. ![]() Over the centuries, they have served the same purpose as the pubs of Ireland, the cafes of Paris and the general stores of New England. Public bathhouses have existed in Japan since the 8th century, when they were central features of Buddhist temples. "For our businesses to survive, we were compelled to think about what we could offer that our customers didn't have at home," said Hisayuki Sarashina, an official of the National Association of Public Baths. Management added a sauna, a small swimming pool and an outdoor bath that offers a variety of waters, including a Chinese medicinal herb bath one day, a bath of "forest" herbs another day and a wine bath on Saturdays. The Akua Sento in Tokyo was renovated three years ago to bring back lost customers. The sign at Utopia! says: "A hot bath is a great refreshment after a day's work!" There are washers and dryers and massage chairs and catchy slogans, often in English, which is considered modern and hip. Where once there were only hot-water taps for washing and a big communal tub for soaking afterward, now there are coffee bars and baths sprinkled with wine. To survive dwindling use and rising costs, the remaining public baths are turning to gimmicks and yuppie comforts. More and more homes here have bathtubs, and new generations of younger Japanese find the notion of bathing naked with their neighbors a quaint but outdated tradition. But the number of sentos has shrunk to an all-time low of just over 10,000, and only about 275,000 people in Tokyo go each day. There were 23,000 public baths in Japan at their peak in the mid-1960s, when more than 6 million people a day visited the baths in Tokyo alone. ![]() Japanese public baths, or sentos, one of this nation's most prized cultural phenomena, have been disappearing for years. "We weren't meeting the needs of our customers just having hot water and a wash is not enough anymore," said Itsuro Nakamura, standing near a display of fancy imported shampoos and conditioners in his bright lobby.įor Nakamura, 44, this is Darwinism of the '90s, survival of the trendiest. Today it is "Utopia!" Outside it's painted pastel pink and blue, and inside there are ferns and skylights, a Jacuzzi and a sauna, blow-dryers and even the Japanese rarity of a diaper-changing table in the men's locker room. By Kevin Sullivan Mary Jordan February 12, 1996įor 40 years, the public bathhouse run by three generations of the Nakamura family was a quiet neighborhood tub known as Inari Yu, a traditional name honoring the fox god of Shintoism.
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