Just before it opens each afternoon, elderly residents gather outside one of Tokyo’s last remaining old-style bath houses carrying flannels, soap and shampoo for their regular soak.
With its communal naked tubs, bright mural of Mount Fuji and sliding wooden entrance under a pointed roof, Inariyu is a classic example of a Japanese public bath, or sento.
Once ubiquitous in crowded urban areas, sentos are now closing quickly as more people take baths at home and owners struggle with faltering machinery, high gas prices and a lack of successors, tempting them to sell their valuable land.
Photo: AFP
Nationwide, the number of bath houses has plunged to about 1,800 from a peak of nearly 18,000 in the late 1960s.
However, some such as Inariyu have been given a new lease on life through renovations, while others are reinventing themselves as trendy hangouts or using data analysis to boost business.
One person pushing to save neighborhood baths is Yasuko Okuno, who discovered them as a way to unwind after working late.
Photo: AFP
“Day after day, my mind was tired. Even when I went home, I couldn’t forget about work,” said the 36-year-old writer for the Tokyo Sento Association.
“Then I went to a sento for the first time in a while, and it felt like a weight had lifted. There was a large bath, and the regulars greeted me kindly,” she said.
Over time, “it began to feel like a home from home,” she added.
Japan has never imposed a strict COVID-19 lockdown, and places such as gyms and sentos remained open even when many offices switched to home working and restaurants shortened opening hours.
Masks are commonly worn on trains and in other public places, but there is no requirement to wear them in sentos, although social distancing and quiet bathing are encouraged.
For many elderly people, it is a “daily routine” that they did not want to stop during the pandemic, and some feel safer taking a bath with others around in case they fall, Yasuko said.
Bathhouse closures can erode community ties, said Sam Holden, whose organization Sento & Neighborhood used a grant of about US$200,000 from the World Monuments Fund to renovate Inariyu.
The group strived to keep the cozy, welcoming atmosphere of the bathhouse — built in 1930 in a low-rise area of northern Tokyo where narrow walkways snake between homes.
Inariyu has customers of all ages, including “a lot of elderly people, many of whom might live alone and be prone to isolation,” said Holden, a 32-year-old American who has lived in the capital for nearly a decade.
“My colleagues and I had a sense of urgency in wanting to preserve some of these historic structures before they were redeveloped into apartment complexes and other things,” he said.
Bathers pay ¥500 (US$3.60) to enter the men’s or women’s bath, a fee set by the Tokyo government.
Leaving their shoes in a small locker, they strip off in the changing room and take a shower before climbing into the tubs for a relaxing soak.
Unlike Japan’s hot springs, known as onsen, the water in sentos is usually heated with gas.
Shunji Tsuchimoto, who runs Inariyu with his wife, said that the bathhouse is paying 50 percent more for energy than it did last year.
However, he hopes that holding events in the renovated buildings would raise revenue by drawing younger customers.
“I want them to know this sento culture,” he said.
One sento that has managed to draw a youthful clientele is Koganeyu in eastern Tokyo, which reopened in 2020 after a full makeover.
On a recent Saturday, the bathhouse was packed with young customers drinking craft beer and listening to vinyl records.
Tech worker Kohei Ueda, 25, traveled an hour to use Koganeyu’s sauna with a friend.
“I do have the image of sentos being where grandpas and grandmas gather,” he said.
“But a sento like this that’s more trendy and modern is not like that... I feel more comfortable coming here,” he said.
Kom-pal, another sento, might not have hipster appeal, but 36-year-old owner Fumitaka Kadoya has managed to increase footfall using data-crunching skills he acquired in his previous job as a technician for optical equipment maker Olympus.
Kadoya’s family has run the sento since the 1950s and when he took over three years ago, he set up a database to track information about customers and the timing of their visits.
The data have allowed him to make targeted business decisions, such as hiring female staff to encourage more women to visit and opening on Sunday mornings to ease crowds.
“Sentos have always been a part of Japanese culture,” Kadoya said, and nowadays, leaving everything in a locker while you soak can be a kind of “digital detox.”
“That’s exactly what I think young people need these days,” he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in