Onsen or hot spring baths are a Japanese obsession. Visiting just the right onsen resort for the season is a finely honed skill. And these bubbling baths loom large on the nation’s cultural landscape. Literary giants Yasunari Kawabata and Natsume Sōseki have set (and written) some of their best-known works in hot spring towns.
Given that Japan is the world’s most geologically active region, home to over 100 volcanoes, it has no shortage of thermal baths. But like many things that cause little stress in other countries — making a cup of tea or sticking cut flowers in a vase — bathing in a hot spring pool can be a cultural minefield in Japan. Onsen resorts hand foreign visitors lengthy documents on bathing etiquette and some have even been know to turn away non-Japanese all together, out of fear that they might disrupt the delicate harmony of the communal bathing experience.
Such incidents are rare, but navigating an onsen remains intimidating for the uninitiated. To begin with one must enter the baths as nature intended — stripped down to the skin. Bathing suits are a strict no-no. Even towels are not permitted into the onsen area save tiny handkerchief-size squares that may be placed on the bather’s head, but may not have any contact with the water. People with tattoos are forbidden entry — more on this later.
A good scrub
Onsens are selfie-free zones. Mobile phones are banned. So are swimming, splashing and chatter. Before entering the pool, bathers must first take a shower and clean their bodies. Really clean their bodies. Like their life depended on it. A quick soaping will be met with hostility. Most onsen these days are sex segregated, although mixed bathing exists. In either case, the eyes are to be turned inward to self reflection, rather than on the anatomy of fellow-bathers.
For many months into my stay in Japan, I resisted visiting onsen, put off by the enforced nudity and simply not sure that a pool of hot water would be worth all the fuss. But from the first time I finally lowered myself in — in a resort in central Honshu’s Nagano prefecture — I emerged a born again onsen-zealot. So much so that I suggested my family spend a school half-term break skiing in Japan’s coldest, northern most island: Hokkaido. In fact I detest the cold and dislike skiing, but to luxuriate in an onsen open to a snow globe-like winter wonderland was the stuff of bucket lists.
At the resort, I breathed in white, cold air as my body melted into 42° centigrade induced relaxation. I took in the pine trees cloaked in snow and felt the softness of the powdery flakes as they settled on my hair, recalling haiku master Kobayashi Issa’s simple verse: Children eat snow,/ Soaking/ In the hot spring.
I felt on the cusp of an epiphany. Some essential truth about the universe was about to reveal itself to my snow and steam-addled senses, when two excitable Thai women came splashing into the water, chattering about their day on the ski slopes. I retreated to a corner of the pool, casting passive-aggressive dark looks in their directions — water off their back. A few minutes later a young Chinese mother walked gingerly through the freezing air towards the waters with a screaming child in tow.
No escape
I beat a hasty retreat indoors, wearing an offended look that no one noticed, only to find a lady lounging, half immersed in the indoor pool, flicking through photographs on her mobile phone. Traumatised by this collapse of social order I staggered to the showers, where a blonde woman was shampooing away without a care in the world about the fact that her entire torso was covered in tattoos.
Contrary to how it felt, it wasn’t the apocalypse, merely an onsen resort in peak ski season that happened to be particularly popular with foreigners.
Nearly 29 million tourists came to Japan last year — triple the number in 2013. And the government wants to reach 40 million by the time of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. This policy-driven opening up to the world is throwing into relief the thorny question of how far Japanese traditions must adapt to become more tourist-friendly.
The tattoo restriction in onsens is a case in point. The reason people with inked bodies are barred from the baths is because in Japan they are associated with criminals or yakuza mobsters, who tattoo themselves as a sign of gang membership. The Japan Tourist Association has recently asked hot spring bath operators to ‘give consideration’ to tattooed foreigners who are wholly outside of the yakuza paradigm. After all, tourist custom brings valuable yen to the industry at a time when domestic economy has suffered decades of stagnation.
Yet making an exception to the tattoo rule for foreigners might not leave the yakuza, long-denied the pleasures of the onsen, very pleased. For onsen owners this is an understandably unhappy prospect. Luckily there’s nothing like soaking in one of Japan’s hot water springs to help solve a tricky problem.
The writer is a globetrotter who is currently parked in Japan.
