Japan in Motion---Pro-web casting from across Japan.

Mixed Bathing

Japan's　Mixed-Sex Baths
“　Excuse me, Miss, may I borrow your towel?　”
Want to get up close and personal with the natives? What better than to join the ‘skinship’ of one of Japan’s mixed-bathing onsen? Men and women relax togetherin the baths, keeping alive a social tradition with ancient roots. Just don’t stare.

mixed_bath

It’s difficult for many foreigners to figure out just what the Japanese attitude to nudity is. On the one hand, nude photos of young women regularly appear in general circulation magazines and even newspapers. There are a number of festivals around the country in which crowds of young men wear nothing more than a loincloth, and foreign residents in Japan soon grow accustomed to the sight of men urinating in public. On the other hand, Japanese ‘adult films’ are famous for pixilating all the naughty bits, and there are, apparently, no nude beaches in the entire country.

Public bathing is an interesting place to watch this tension at work. There are two types of public baths in Japan. Generally, onsen are heated by natural hot springs, and sento are smaller neighborhood baths using heated tap water. In practice, the distinction is often unclear, and there are carefully worded legal definitions for both. Historically, mixed-sex public bathing was the norm in both types of baths. Only the wealthy could afford private baths, and most of the population bathed at their local bathhouses. In such places mixed-sex bathing was virtually universal, and it was not until the end of the Edo period that the government began to make sporadic attempts to enforce separate baths for men and women. Generally, these failed, and early western visitors to Japan were shocked by the habit of communal, mixed-sex bathing. It may have been partly in response to such reactions that the government began to pass and enforce a series of progressively stricter laws against mixed-bathing.

However, while such laws are stringently enforced at sento, many onsen, especially those in rural areas, continued the tradition of mixed-sex bathing. And whatever indecencies may have been conjured in the minds of Victorian travelers in Japan, the reality more closely resembled a large family bath. Many Japanese, responding to the steep decline of neighborhood sento since the 1970s, lament the loss of ‘skinship’ that group bathing fostered. They may be right. Today, many younger Japanese are too self-conscious to enjoy even segregated public baths.

Onsen have had a revival of sorts since the 1980s. Though the majority of onsen are segregated, it’s still not especially unusual to find smaller, rural onsen where men and women bathe together. Travelers looking for thrills, however, are probably in for a dose of reality instead. Most of the bathers at these onsen will be older, local residents who are less embarrassed than their grandchildren about hopping naked into the hot water in front of the opposite sex.

Still, it’s an interesting experience, and available for those who want to try it out. Just remember a few rules. Don’t gape at others as they get in and out of the tub, leave a space between yourself and other bathers, and if you’re comfortable with even simple Japanese, try talking to the other people around you.

●Misasa Hot Springs

>>History
800 years ago, according to legend, a samurai named Okubo Samanosuke was traveling through modern day Tottori prefecture. In return for his having spared the life of a white wolf, Myoken, god of the North Star, appeared in his dreams and directed him to a steaming hot spring, the origin for the famous onsens of Misasa.

Today people come from all across Japan to soak in the radium-rich waters, which are said to treat a wide variety of ailments. For those of a more intrepid stripe, the town also has a free bath below the Misasa Bridge in the center of the onsen area. A statue of the legendary samurai and the white wolf stand nearby, and the small bath is not only mixed-sex, but bathers are visible to anyone crossing the bridge.

The radium hot springs pose a dilemma for some travelers. Every August the town holds a Marie Curie Festival to honor the pioneer in the science of radioactivity, complete with a delegation from the French embassy. Of course, it was Curie’s discovery of radium and subsequent investigation of its properties that almost certainly led to her death by aplastic anemia. On the other hand, cancer rates in the Misasa area are demonstrably lower than elsewhere in Japan. Visitors to the area must make up their own minds about how long to soak in the waters, if at all.

But the onsens aren’t the only attractions here. Misasa is charming, like many small hot spring towns, with people strolling the streets in colorful yukata and a host of craft shops and teahouses along the eastern bank of the Mitoku River.

mixed BATH

If you’re in the area, you should also consider visiting the famous Nageire-do temple, perched almost impossibly on stilts gripping the cliff face beneath a rock overhang. The temple was built by Tendai monks, perhaps as early as the eleventh century, though local legend holds that an ascetic priest named Ennogyoja simple gathered up the lumber and simply threw the temple into place. However it was built, it’s an amazing sight.

>>Open Hours & Holidays
Kawarano-yu Hot Spring: 24 hours, No holidays

>>Access
Airplane
Yonago Airport====(by bus, 40min.)====JR Yonago Station====(by train "Tottori Liner", 55min.)====JR Kurayoshi Station=====(by Hinomaru bus, 20min.)====Misasa

Train & Bus
JR Okayama Station====(by Hakubi line and Sanyo-honsen line, 3 hours.)===JR Kurayoshi Station=====(by Hinomaru bus, 20min.)====Misasa

Car
Chugoku Express Way, Innosho IC====(Route 179, 1hour)====Misasa

>>Map
Sanin region map>>>Click here to view
Misasa town map>>>Click here to view

>>Website
West JR (English, Chinese)
Japan Rail Pass (English, Korean, Chinese, French, German)

-Matt Mangham