Japan, A View from the Bath

3. Bathing in the Modern Era

42 3. Bathing in the Modern Era With the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan moved rapidly toward modernization , which was largely synonymous with westernization. Scholars, politicians, businessmen, and leaders throughout the country studied Western ways and planned and worked for the building of Japan. It was an exciting time, perhaps matched only by the importation of knowledge from China many centuries earlier. Political structures, social structures, architecture, clothing, education, and many other aspects of the culture were rapidly changing. Bathing too was influenced through the importation of new technologies, but the Western bath, such as it was, was largely ignored since it did not offer features important to the Japanese. The Japanese bath itself was modernized. The Bathhouse Boom In the beginning of Meiji, bathhouses began to proliferate. Indeed, the number of public bathhouses increased threefold. This sudden growth could be traced to the elimination of the warrior elite and their private bathing facilities. But a more important reason was the migration of thousands of people to urban centers with the construction of factories and businesses. Still another factor was the demolition of buildings that had previously housed the large warrior families, now dispersed with the abolition of the old class system. The buildings provided cheap materials for the construction of bathhouses as well as cheap fuel for heating the water. It was a time of economic incentive for bathhouse operators. At first these bathhouses used the well-established zakuroguchi style of bath. But in the tenth year of Meiji (1879) a man named Tsurukawa Monzaemon built a new type of bath based on a style already in use at hot springs. Although this bath was made of wood, too, he eliminated the steam room by building a large wooden tub filled with water and Bathing in the Modern Era 43 raised the ceiling of the bathing area and fitted it with windows to let the steam escape and allow more light in. As this development led to cleaner bathhouses, seven years later the Meiji government prohibited the construction of further zakuroguchi bathhouses, though zakuroguchi continued to function in some areas as late as the first decade of the new century. In the minds of the Japanese, the “traditional” bathhouse is not the type that prevailed during the Edo period, the zakuroguchi, but a sentò that incorporates elements of Tsurukawa’s Meiji-era bathhouse. During the second decade of the twentieth century, as tile began to be used for the tubs and floors of the bathing areas, cleaning became even easier. With continued improvement in the public waterworks and interior plumbing, taps with running hot and cold water began to replace the containers of hot water used in washing the body. In 1923, the Kanto area suffered a devastating earthquake that largely destroyed Tokyo by fire. The bathhouses were gone. People bathed where they could, even in puddles (Ochiai 1973), until relief organizations and the government set up temporary bathhouses. With the building of new Bathing after the Tokyo earthquake of 1923 (Courtesy of Kao Corporation) 44 Bathing in the Modern Era bathhouses some changes were instituted. The most common of these was the virtual elimination of the morning bath—the asayu (Ueda 1967)— which had been an institution since the beginning but was now perceived to be indulgent and superfluous. Although other innovations were introduced at this time, including baths built on second floors and in basements , the basic structure and form for most bathhouses were little changed from Monzaemon’s innovations. With the industrialization of Japan, further urbanization took place. Housing units were constructed at factories for their workers. The apartment complex came into being but baths were not provided, so apartment dwellers would go to the public or factory baths. The public baths continued to be community centers in the urban areas. Despite the changes in technology, the bathhouse remained distinctively Japanese: the exterior of the building retained the Buddhist-influenced architecture ; customers removed their footgear at the door and paid the attendant ; the dressing area remained separated from the bathing area. The dressing area retained much of the flavor of the Edo-period bathhouse, while the bathing area exhibited the newer, cleaner, brighter atmosphere eagerly greeted by customers. Advertisements and paintings adorned the bathing area walls. Typical bathhouse floorplan Bathing in the Modern Era 45 The Typical Bathhouse During hours of operation, a curtain (noren) hangs at the doorway of the sentò indicating that...