Monday, July 28, 2008
What's Old is Nude Again
I've returned from Tottori with my face and neck bright red from all the sun. It seems that despite the cloudy skies and the refreshing breeze blowing in from the Sea of Japan, the sun was just as hot and strong as ever. The view from atop those dunes was worth the scalding.
[long post warning!]
We only stayed one night in Tottori but Mako made sure that we spent that night at a hot springs resort. Whenever we take a domestic vacation, Mako tries to book us at one of these places. They tend to have very similar features: the room is Japanese-style with tatami mats and very little furniture, we dress up in comfortable, old-fashioned Japanese clothes while inside the hotel, we eat an elaborate, multi-course Japanese meal (often served in our room), and there are a number of indoor and outdoor bathing options.
Allow me to run through my thoughts on these standard offerings: as much as I prefer sleeping in a proper bed, I got used to lying on a tatami-mat floor during my nine month stay at Kansai Gaidai, so I have no real issue with the occasional night on my back. Sitting on the floor is quite a different matter though. No matter how many cushions or legless "chairs" are available, there is no comfortable way for me to spend time on the floor. One of my feet always falls asleep, followed by a leg and eventually my waist and balls go numb as well. If you've never experienced pins-and-needles in your genitals, take my word for it...you don't want to.
Dining on the floor is even more awkward because it forces my body to assume a posture that will allow for eating and drinking and then hold that position for the length of the meal. Since I cannot sit seiza and tuck my legs under my ass like every Japanese person can, this means I must try to slide my legs under the table and do my best not to move them at all, else I knee the table from underneath and knock over everyone's drinks. If the table is too low and I can't fit my legs underneath, I have to try and cross my legs and then lean forward so that my torso is reasonably close to the food. Our hotel this weekend solved both of these problems by putting a few normal chairs in our room and serving us our meals in a private room that featured a space beneath the table, allowing me to sit comfortably (and normally) while I ate.
The outfits we get to wear around the hotel are always nice and every time I put one on I seriously consider investing in my own personal set to wear around the apartment. The one drawback is the one-size-fits-all slippers that come with the deal. Japanese hotels, schools, nursing homes and similar institutions all rely on these uniform "guest slippers" to keep things tidy. The styles and colors vary from place to place, but there's always a single size for all visitors. This is, in a word, unjust. If humans could seriously all fit into a single dimension of footwear, shopping for shoes would be as simple as dining at McDonald's. I know that I'm slightly larger than the average Japanese person, but when it comes to shoes we're talking about a difference of just one or two centimeters. Yet the public slippers I encounter are more than just tiny, they're not even close to fitting me correctly. My heel hangs over the back by a wide margin and my toes actually hurt if I try to cram them all in the front. Put simply, I refuse to believe these slippers comfortably accommodate even those men's feet which are significantly smaller than mine (Japanese women, of course, have microscopically-small feet that could fit into an envelope). Rather than one-size-fits-all, it's one-size-fits-women-and-small-children.
Traditional Japanese dining is an elaborate affair that few people outside Japan can really understand. I know Japanese food is growing in popularity around the world, but that growth is typically limited to certain subsets of Japanese food. Sushi, ramen, yakitori - I love all these foods but enjoying them is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to a "proper" Japanese dinner. Put simply, no Japanese restaurant would offer a traditional Japanese meal abroad because then they would have to try and explain what everything on the table is. I used to try and ask about all the little dishes I was presented with at various Japanese meals, but I learned to stop asking after each answer only led to more questions. In that sense, eating a Japanese meal is a lot like having a Japanese conversation (at least for me). Rather than picking apart and investigating everything I don't understand, I just smile and nod, enjoying as much as I can.
Dining at these hotels is a long process. The table is wide and packed with little colorful dishes. Having no idea what to eat first vs second, I always just follow Mako's lead and pick up whatever she picks up. Sashimi and cold dishes usually come first, while rice and soup usually come later. There's usually some kind of a bowl or pot that has to be heated where we cook or boil our own individual pieces of fish or beef. Personally, I'd much rather the chef did that for us, because he or she knows a hell of a lot more about cooking than I do. That, and I find the giant steaming bowl of whatever to be a real nuisance in navigating the table of other small dishes. Let's not forget that I'm wearing a kind of robe at the table with a big, loose sleeve which I have to take great care to avoid dipping in any plate of food before me. In the end, I enjoy much of the meal and there's plenty of it, but I always look back and think how much happier I would have been with a single, delicious entree instead of the Voltron-style combination of a multitude of micro-servings.
Now let's talk about the hot springs themselves, which is the main draw to these hotels in the first place and the real reason I started writing today. Mako absolutely loves taking a bath in super hot water, and by extension, every single Japanese person on Earth also loves taking a bath in super hot water. That would sound overly stereotypical except simple logic tells me it's true, because otherwise there wouldn't be a dozen hotels and public baths built on the site of every single natural hot spring in Japan. Television, for what it's worth, also reinforces this theory because if there's anything shown on Japanese TV more than close-ups of food, it's people sitting in baths at a hot springs resort. Not to mention the frequent excursions made by fictional characters in movies and even in cartoons. So, either the Japanese resort industry is so rich that it has lobbied every form of national, popular media to reinforce the "hot springs bath" image as a desirable luxury, or Japanese people really do love taking a bath in super hot water. Occam's razor says I am not a racist.
What's my point? My point is I don't really see the attraction of the hot springs. I often find the hotel to be nice and much of the scenery to be lovely, but I fail to understand the notion that the springs themselves are worth the trip, and this notion is clearly a very popular one in Japan. I have nothing against a hot bath in winter to combat the frostiness of an uninsulated Japanese home and many of my fond memories of ski trips past revolve around the après-ski hot tubbing experience. But the idea of sitting in geologically-hot water for fun, especially in summer time, seems completely bizarre to me.
So why do I keep agreeing to these skin-reddening retreats? Like I said, Mako absolutely loves it. When we go to one of these places, she'll spend half the night exploring every single available environment, inside as well as outdoors, that the hotel offers. And while we always seek out a private bathing option so that the two of us can relax (sort of) in the intense heat, most of her exploits are her own as the vast majority of these baths are gender-separated. Which means the entertainment of soaking in these baths exceeds her interest in spending time with me.
Maybe I'm heading in the wrong direction here. I'm sure for Japanese couples there is nothing more normal than a trip to a resort where two people who love each other spend their evening in separate chambers, naked and sweating. Likewise, a group of friends who go out drinking and partying on Friday night are quite likely to end up visiting a public bath and capping off their evening with steamy, nude conversation. To be frank, the nudity issues at work here are something else entirely which I started writing about but then put it aside for another day. I guess I just don't understand what's so fun about sitting in a tub while the woman I love is sitting in another tub someplace else. Even when we manage to get a tub together, it doesn't seem to make the trip worthwhile. I love to travel for a great many reasons, but an opportunity to take a bath together isn't one of them. We've got a tub in our apartment and trust me, neither of us use it during the summer months. It's too hot for that...unless we're on vacation?
However, there's another possible explanation for all this. Looking at the entire package, going to a hot springs resort is a kind of vacation from modern life. It's a trip where the destination is nostalgic - an idealized vision of Japan's past which no one can truly experience these days, if they ever did before. Think about it: dressing up in traditional clothes that few people still wear, eating impractically-large and elaborate meals which no one could realistically eat at home, sitting around naked in a natural, outdoors setting, far away from the dense urban sprawl where most Japanese people live...aside from the tatami room, nearly everything at these resorts is an escape. And did I mention the tiny, old-fashioned televisions? Widescreen, high-resolution televisions are quickly becoming the norm in Japan, and modern hotels are working to make sure their in-room entertainment keeps pace. Yet hot springs resorts, in my experience, have very small televisions sitting in the corner of the room, almost like an afterthought - a concession to number one medium in the modern world.
So maybe - just maybe - a Japanese person goes to a hot springs resort for the same reason an American goes camping. It's a way to "get away from it all" which just happens to include literally stripping away everything and sitting naked in a pool of super hot water. What significance the bathing has in all this, I can't be certain. Honestly, I'm making up most of this as I go. All I can say definitively is that I can do without the hot water bit. And as my friends well know, I'm no fan of camping in the States either. But I'm a grown-up and a gentlemen, and I'm not going to prevent Mako from indulging in a little fantasy every now and then. Besides, who am I to turn down mutual nudity?
[long post warning!]
We only stayed one night in Tottori but Mako made sure that we spent that night at a hot springs resort. Whenever we take a domestic vacation, Mako tries to book us at one of these places. They tend to have very similar features: the room is Japanese-style with tatami mats and very little furniture, we dress up in comfortable, old-fashioned Japanese clothes while inside the hotel, we eat an elaborate, multi-course Japanese meal (often served in our room), and there are a number of indoor and outdoor bathing options.
Allow me to run through my thoughts on these standard offerings: as much as I prefer sleeping in a proper bed, I got used to lying on a tatami-mat floor during my nine month stay at Kansai Gaidai, so I have no real issue with the occasional night on my back. Sitting on the floor is quite a different matter though. No matter how many cushions or legless "chairs" are available, there is no comfortable way for me to spend time on the floor. One of my feet always falls asleep, followed by a leg and eventually my waist and balls go numb as well. If you've never experienced pins-and-needles in your genitals, take my word for it...you don't want to.
Dining on the floor is even more awkward because it forces my body to assume a posture that will allow for eating and drinking and then hold that position for the length of the meal. Since I cannot sit seiza and tuck my legs under my ass like every Japanese person can, this means I must try to slide my legs under the table and do my best not to move them at all, else I knee the table from underneath and knock over everyone's drinks. If the table is too low and I can't fit my legs underneath, I have to try and cross my legs and then lean forward so that my torso is reasonably close to the food. Our hotel this weekend solved both of these problems by putting a few normal chairs in our room and serving us our meals in a private room that featured a space beneath the table, allowing me to sit comfortably (and normally) while I ate.
The outfits we get to wear around the hotel are always nice and every time I put one on I seriously consider investing in my own personal set to wear around the apartment. The one drawback is the one-size-fits-all slippers that come with the deal. Japanese hotels, schools, nursing homes and similar institutions all rely on these uniform "guest slippers" to keep things tidy. The styles and colors vary from place to place, but there's always a single size for all visitors. This is, in a word, unjust. If humans could seriously all fit into a single dimension of footwear, shopping for shoes would be as simple as dining at McDonald's. I know that I'm slightly larger than the average Japanese person, but when it comes to shoes we're talking about a difference of just one or two centimeters. Yet the public slippers I encounter are more than just tiny, they're not even close to fitting me correctly. My heel hangs over the back by a wide margin and my toes actually hurt if I try to cram them all in the front. Put simply, I refuse to believe these slippers comfortably accommodate even those men's feet which are significantly smaller than mine (Japanese women, of course, have microscopically-small feet that could fit into an envelope). Rather than one-size-fits-all, it's one-size-fits-women-and-small-children.
Traditional Japanese dining is an elaborate affair that few people outside Japan can really understand. I know Japanese food is growing in popularity around the world, but that growth is typically limited to certain subsets of Japanese food. Sushi, ramen, yakitori - I love all these foods but enjoying them is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to a "proper" Japanese dinner. Put simply, no Japanese restaurant would offer a traditional Japanese meal abroad because then they would have to try and explain what everything on the table is. I used to try and ask about all the little dishes I was presented with at various Japanese meals, but I learned to stop asking after each answer only led to more questions. In that sense, eating a Japanese meal is a lot like having a Japanese conversation (at least for me). Rather than picking apart and investigating everything I don't understand, I just smile and nod, enjoying as much as I can.
Dining at these hotels is a long process. The table is wide and packed with little colorful dishes. Having no idea what to eat first vs second, I always just follow Mako's lead and pick up whatever she picks up. Sashimi and cold dishes usually come first, while rice and soup usually come later. There's usually some kind of a bowl or pot that has to be heated where we cook or boil our own individual pieces of fish or beef. Personally, I'd much rather the chef did that for us, because he or she knows a hell of a lot more about cooking than I do. That, and I find the giant steaming bowl of whatever to be a real nuisance in navigating the table of other small dishes. Let's not forget that I'm wearing a kind of robe at the table with a big, loose sleeve which I have to take great care to avoid dipping in any plate of food before me. In the end, I enjoy much of the meal and there's plenty of it, but I always look back and think how much happier I would have been with a single, delicious entree instead of the Voltron-style combination of a multitude of micro-servings.
Now let's talk about the hot springs themselves, which is the main draw to these hotels in the first place and the real reason I started writing today. Mako absolutely loves taking a bath in super hot water, and by extension, every single Japanese person on Earth also loves taking a bath in super hot water. That would sound overly stereotypical except simple logic tells me it's true, because otherwise there wouldn't be a dozen hotels and public baths built on the site of every single natural hot spring in Japan. Television, for what it's worth, also reinforces this theory because if there's anything shown on Japanese TV more than close-ups of food, it's people sitting in baths at a hot springs resort. Not to mention the frequent excursions made by fictional characters in movies and even in cartoons. So, either the Japanese resort industry is so rich that it has lobbied every form of national, popular media to reinforce the "hot springs bath" image as a desirable luxury, or Japanese people really do love taking a bath in super hot water. Occam's razor says I am not a racist.
What's my point? My point is I don't really see the attraction of the hot springs. I often find the hotel to be nice and much of the scenery to be lovely, but I fail to understand the notion that the springs themselves are worth the trip, and this notion is clearly a very popular one in Japan. I have nothing against a hot bath in winter to combat the frostiness of an uninsulated Japanese home and many of my fond memories of ski trips past revolve around the après-ski hot tubbing experience. But the idea of sitting in geologically-hot water for fun, especially in summer time, seems completely bizarre to me.
So why do I keep agreeing to these skin-reddening retreats? Like I said, Mako absolutely loves it. When we go to one of these places, she'll spend half the night exploring every single available environment, inside as well as outdoors, that the hotel offers. And while we always seek out a private bathing option so that the two of us can relax (sort of) in the intense heat, most of her exploits are her own as the vast majority of these baths are gender-separated. Which means the entertainment of soaking in these baths exceeds her interest in spending time with me.
Maybe I'm heading in the wrong direction here. I'm sure for Japanese couples there is nothing more normal than a trip to a resort where two people who love each other spend their evening in separate chambers, naked and sweating. Likewise, a group of friends who go out drinking and partying on Friday night are quite likely to end up visiting a public bath and capping off their evening with steamy, nude conversation. To be frank, the nudity issues at work here are something else entirely which I started writing about but then put it aside for another day. I guess I just don't understand what's so fun about sitting in a tub while the woman I love is sitting in another tub someplace else. Even when we manage to get a tub together, it doesn't seem to make the trip worthwhile. I love to travel for a great many reasons, but an opportunity to take a bath together isn't one of them. We've got a tub in our apartment and trust me, neither of us use it during the summer months. It's too hot for that...unless we're on vacation?
However, there's another possible explanation for all this. Looking at the entire package, going to a hot springs resort is a kind of vacation from modern life. It's a trip where the destination is nostalgic - an idealized vision of Japan's past which no one can truly experience these days, if they ever did before. Think about it: dressing up in traditional clothes that few people still wear, eating impractically-large and elaborate meals which no one could realistically eat at home, sitting around naked in a natural, outdoors setting, far away from the dense urban sprawl where most Japanese people live...aside from the tatami room, nearly everything at these resorts is an escape. And did I mention the tiny, old-fashioned televisions? Widescreen, high-resolution televisions are quickly becoming the norm in Japan, and modern hotels are working to make sure their in-room entertainment keeps pace. Yet hot springs resorts, in my experience, have very small televisions sitting in the corner of the room, almost like an afterthought - a concession to number one medium in the modern world.
So maybe - just maybe - a Japanese person goes to a hot springs resort for the same reason an American goes camping. It's a way to "get away from it all" which just happens to include literally stripping away everything and sitting naked in a pool of super hot water. What significance the bathing has in all this, I can't be certain. Honestly, I'm making up most of this as I go. All I can say definitively is that I can do without the hot water bit. And as my friends well know, I'm no fan of camping in the States either. But I'm a grown-up and a gentlemen, and I'm not going to prevent Mako from indulging in a little fantasy every now and then. Besides, who am I to turn down mutual nudity?
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