My First Sento

I was new to Japan - 6 weeks to be exact. I had learned a handful of words, none of which fit together to make a sentence, and 2 full sentences: "Where am I"; and "what is this called." The newness of Japan was filled with all sorts of exotic experiences - new food, new friends, new rules of society. But the biggest surprise for me was learning what it meant to be a foreigner.

"Outsider" is the literal translation of the word foreigner, and I felt very much like an outsider in my new life. My nose was "tall"; my freckles were an "oddity"; and my hands and my body were termed "big", even "huge". Not one of these terms was flattering, not even kind, and I soon grew tired of being stared at and discussed by the hosts of my new environment.

Wherever I went, whether it was alone or with Japanese friends, my presence was like a parting of the waters - crowds would step back and watch me move, pointing, giggling, gawking. It was endless and it wore me out. I wondered if the populace would ever get used to me, or if I would ever get used to them.

Eventually, I did, I guess, though the bothersome weariness came like waves over the years to come - for awhile the staring would bother me tremendously, then like receding waves at the shore, I'd feel respite as I learned to ignore it.

At the beginning, however, I didn't know how to handle it and I often just wanted anonymity and a place to relax like a familiar room at home.

My first respite came 6 weeks after my arrival in my new world. I was invited to visit Kyoto with Jino Ogawa, a young man at my workplace. He was going home to hi parents' house and he promised me no one would make a big deal about me being a foreigner. I went. And he was right; his family's home was a haven from the crowds of curious strangers I was so ready to escape.

Mrs. Ogawa called me into the kitchen from the living room where I was sitting, pretending to be enjoying Japanese cartoons on TV. I welcomed a reason to leave the noise, though the straw matted flooring where I was sitting was comfortable, and I had enjoyed being alone.

Stepping out of the tatami room where I'd been watching TV, I stumbled over a small yellow bucket at the base of the sliding paper door. Spilling its contents of bathing supplies down the hall, I knelt to gather the mess back into place. Mrs. Ogawa met me at the kitchen door with her warm smile and we both shyly acknowledged my clumsiness.

As I bent down to retrieve the contents and replace them in the bucket, she knelt beside me and asked me a question in her soft voice. I looked at her and cocked my head, smiling away the embarrassment of not understanding. She took my hands in hers, speaking rapidly, then took the shampoo I'd just picked up. "This", she said, as she placed it in the bucket; "and this," she picked up a round bristled brush; "and this," she took a new toothbrush and a tiny tube of toothpaste and placed them in my lap. "This too," she said, taking a long, coarse strip of fabric from the bucket and wadding it up in her hands before putting it back into the bucket.

I nodded my head "yes" for understanding, but my breath was shallow and airy with worry because I desperately wanted to say "no" to her coaxing behavior. I didn't want to offend her or hurt her feelings in any way, but I certainly did not want to go to the public bathhouse!

Jino and I had spent the day wandering around Kyoto. In between temples and other historical sights, he had been trying his best to convince me to go to the bathhouse that evening before supper. He had carefully explained that there were two separate sides - one for the men and boys, and another for the women and young girls. According to him, I had no reason to feel shy or hesitant.

After all day of strongly insisting that I had no intentions of taking a bath with a bunch of women I didn't even know, Jino had apparently turned to his mother with his disappointment. I thought I'd never be able to explain it to her - not only was there the language barrier, I didn't fully understand it myself. All I knew was that I didn't want to go to the public bathhouse!

Everything in Japan was small; people, chairs, tables, cups, cars, everything except me. I didn't want to stand alone, naked, towering over all those curious women. I had tried to explain that to Jino, but my efforts seemed to have failed.

"No," I said in English to Mrs. Ogawa. "I'm not going."

She patted my knees and looked pitifully at me.

Mrs. Ogawa leaned in closer to me and said, "OK, OK, eburi-sing OK." Then she took the bath bucket and looked into my eyes to make sure I was willing to listen. When she was convinced she had my attention, she began her silent explanation.

One by one, she took each item in the bucket and showed it to me. She made a slight gesture as though she was using the object, nodded an understanding, then went on until she had communicated with me about each item in the bucket.

"No! I can't!" I covered my body with my arms and scooted back away from her to gesture that I felt shy. I shook my head again, only stronger.

Mrs. Ogawa took my hands and lifted me to standing. She took the soap out of the bucket, then turned her back to me and began miming the washing of her body. Then she turned to face me and captured me with her eyes locked into mine. I nodded "yes." Next she took the toothbrush and did the same with it, turning away from me for privacy, then, looking back to me to confirm understanding. Again, I nodded "yes" at the end of her demonstration. We moved through this ritual with each time in the bucket. Each time she took a new item, she made that same penetrating eye contact with me, nodded "yes," and guided me to do the same. She lured me in with her passive persistence.

Her communication was more than to explain how to use the bathing supplies. She wanted to make me feel relaxed and comfortable. She also made it clear that each of the items in the bucket was mine - a gift. Saying "no" to her was like making a nasty grimace upon the opening of a carefully chosen gift. I realized I would not be able to stay home from the sento that afternoon, but I comforted myself with the understanding that at least I'd be with her.

"Jino!" she called, her high-pitched voice displaying enthusiasm at her victory.

"Hai!" he shouted back, clobbering down the stairs, his own bathing bucket in tote. "Let's go to the sento!" he exclaimed, a giddy smile across his face like a child at his birthday party.

Sento, I thought to myself; that must mean "bathhouse".

As we put on our shoes at the front door, I suddenly felt scared again. It looked like Mrs. Ogawa wasn't going with us; only Jino and I were going. If what he said about the men and women having separate baths was true, then it appeared to me that in truth, I was venturing out to a public bathhouse experience in Japan completely alone. I hesitated again at the door and looked pleadingly to Mrs. Ogawa.

"Kowai," I said, "I'm scared."

She simply looked at me, then slightly lowered her head. I knew I had to go. Mrs. Ogawa wanted me to go, and I wanted to please her.

Jino and I walked together in the late afternoon dusk along the old, narrow street. The city was not zoned to separate businesses from residential areas, and many of the merchants lived upstairs and in the back of their storefronts. A confectionary, a broiled eel restaurant, a narrow pub with counter seating only, and textile stores were squeezed in between homes, identified only by the plants at the entry or window pots full of fall flowers. Spotted lighting from street lamps guided our way along what looked to me like a beautifully kept alley. I peered into the windows longing to enter one of the shops or homes in lieu of the bathing experience at the end of our destination.

The hoof-like clatter of our wooden sandals was the only sound of our journey and I reveled in the soothing rhythm.

"You OK?" Jino asked.

I liked it that in Japan it was not considered rude to reply with nothing more than a silent glance. I wasn't pouting; I wasn't mad. I just wanted to be quiet and in Japan, I knew that was acceptable.

Jino complied.

When we got to the entrance of the sento, Jino walked in first. We removed our sandals in the stone entry way and stepped into plastic slippers that were lined up at the edge of the blonde wooden floor of the entry hall one step up. He paid at the counter while I waited behind him.

"You go in over there," he said, pointing to the women's side. "I'll see you out here when you are finished."

There were vending machines with hot and cold drinks in the entryway, along with padded benches and a couple of electronic massage chairs. A handful of people sat silently sipping from cans waiting for someone they'd no doubt come with.

Jino walked to the left, I to the right. I slid open the metal door and stepped into a small wooden entry. After removing my plastic slippers I stepped in my bare feet up into the tatami floored dressing room. It was lined with open shelves housing pink laundry baskets and a counter with 3 sinks and mirrors above them. There were 2 long benches in the center of the room and 2 fans rotating on high speed.

I peeked out of the corners of my eyes to see what the other women in the room were doing and how they were doing it. It pleased me to discover that no one was paying much attention to me at all.

Like the other women, I took off my clothes and put them into one of the laundry baskets and then returned it to its cubby space in the shelf. The other women even put their towel into the basket, so I did, too. Curling my shoulders forward in a feeble attempt to hide my nakedness, I took my bucket in hand and went through the sliding glass doors into a large, pink-tiled, steam-filled bathing area.

Faucets lined one wall, set low, no higher than my shins. Mirrors decorated the walls above the faucets and a narrow tiled shelf stretched out conveniently between the two.

To the Western mind, bathing simply means washing. In Japan, the process is broken into several stages. First comes the rinsing, a downpour of clean water over the body to wash away the outer layer of dirt and sweat. Then the washing. Once the body is thoroughly drenched, soap is applied. Not a quick slide of a slippery bar of soap, but a careful scrubbing of every part of the body and every space between every part. During my bathing time in Japan, I discovered new folds behind my ears and between my toes, new sensations along my back and under my knees, and I learned to scrub the scalp around each follicle of hair on my head.

Only after the body is scrubbed and rubbed like a prized trophy is one finally ready to soak in the bathing pools of special waters. There are icy cold tubs and burning hot tubs, tubs with hot spring sulfur water, tubs with magnetic energy and tubs with any variety of natural ingredients from sea kelp to snake venom.

Women sat on small wooden stools in front of the faucets to cleanse themselves. Filling their buckets with fresh, warm tap water from the faucets they'd pour it over themselves in between intervals of vigorous scrubbing. Other women floated discretely in the soaking tubs, strangely private in this public place.

I felt as though I had entered a warm cloud. The heat of the tile felt soft against the souls of my feet. I walked over to an empty faucet, pulled a stool into position, and sat down. I looked around closely examining the facilities. There was no musty smell, no locker-room odor. The faucets were spotless, the drain shinny. Even the grout between the tiles was perfectly white. Not bad, I thought. I was beginning to feel comfortable.

I set my bathing bucket between my feet and unpacked its contents placing them on the shelf in front of me. I looked at myself in the mirror, then averter my focus to the reflection of the women behind me along the opposite wall. Two young girls bent their heads forward and drenched their heads with water as they poured from long-handled buckets. They washed the blue-black sheen of hair that hung like a silk curtain in front of their fragile bodies. I'd never washed my hair in that way before. I filled my bucket and leaned my head back, feeling the warm, soothing liquid ooze over my head, filling my hair and covering my back.

After washing my hair, I lathered the course strip of fabric with the soap Mrs. Ogawa had given me. I expected the scratchy cloth to be uncomfortable, possibly even painful. As I dragged it over my arms and legs, it began to feel like a massage. I pushed harder and quicker. It was invigorating. My skin came alive. The length of the cloth was conveniently perfect for stretching across my back and scrubbing areas I couldn't remember ever being about to reach. It seemed my back had never been touch before and I was discovering a new, glorious sensation.

Mrs. Ogawa had demonstrated the brown bristled brush by as something to use for the feet. As I pressed it into the souls of my feet and against the tough skin on my heels, I became enticed by the comfort. I couldn't stop. My feet felt tingly and war. First they itched. Then they became soft and pliable. I'd never spent so much time washing my feet before.

Once my washing was complete, I rinsed well, and slid down into soft hot water in a tub the size of a small swimming pool. I leaned my head back and let the water hold me. I felt like eternity was cradling me in an old familiar womb. It was then that I heard voices and was brought back to the reality of my surroundings: a bathhouse full of other women, not a mystical moment with my creator! They were strangers to me, and I to them. Ah, but the water comforted me, and I realized that no one cared that I was there, nor that I was an "outsider". I relaxed back into the gentle buoyancy and watched the scene before me unfold.

Four generations lined the wall. A toddler stood at the back of the line, her great-grandmother in front of her, her grandmother in front of her, and the young mother at the front of the line. Her tiny hand clutching the neck of the matriarch, the little girl used her other hand to wash the old woman's neck and back. She held the wadded cloth in her small hand and pushed as hard as she could over the tired old neck and shoulder, her little bottom shaking rapidly in opposition to the vigorous scrubbing.

The eldest of the group moved the slowest, a graceful gliding of her frail arm up and down the back of her daughter. While receiving the washing, the grandmother of the toddler in turn washed the back of her daughter in front of her, the mother of the littlest in the family at the back of the line.

Such family intimacy was like nothing I had ever seen before. It changed me.

I felt invisible as I witnessed the private ritual, for no one was watching me.

Though public, the experience was private, intimate. And for me, it was spiritually awakening. Just as the soap and scratchy cloth had washed away dead cells on my body, the sento experience washed away my outsider eyes and the process of Japanization was birthed in my soul.