Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 12:27:16 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Sebastian Weinberg <bastian@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de>
Hi.
For some parts of my series Ranko 1/2 that will not be based on any manga
I need some input from you.
1)
Let's say there's a girl (We'll call her "R" for now) who makes a wager
with another girl, "A", that she will agree to spend less time as a boy,
*if* "A" agrees to spend one day disguised as a boy herself.
"A" takes her up on it and now I need a good male name that "A" could be
using as a "stage name" on that day.
Hmmm: Otemba? (means tomboy :-)
2)
I would be very grateful for detailed info about japanese public baths:
what goes on in there, how're they partitioned, everything.
Especially the availability of hot and cold water. :)
>From an old copy of the Maison Ikkoku Guidebook, from manga volume 8,
chapter 1 annotations:
p3
Sylvain-san: According to Noriko (my Japanese room-mate) the case
that Kyoko is carrying must be a SENMENYOUGU (dressing case,
where you put your soap, shampoo, brush, etc.).
Tarigan: Kyoko is also carrying a TENUGUI (is a small towel often
made out of thin cotton). This towel isn't very big, being only
about 75cm long, 30cm wide and not very thick. It looks more like
a face towel, but it's also used as a wiper and dryer.
Nevertheless, the bathwater is so warm that it isn't difficult to
dry oneself with this pitifully small towel. Actually, the
western style thick towel isn't terribly useful in Japan during
the humid summer because such thick towels tend to become moldy
instead of drying out.
Liu-san: The same goes for Taiwan. Towels are thin there as well. They
feel cheap, too, which probably isn't the case in Japan.
Sylvain-san: About TENUGUI, Japanese men used to fold it and put it on
the top of the head while bathing.
Liu-san: That can be spotted in many manga.
Carragher-san: I can add a bit to that based on my experience at this
place called the Hotel New Palace. If you want, I can get the
location, but it's on the west coast of Honshu, south of Hagi and
north of Ube. As the name suggests, it's a hotel, but it also
contains sentou. Admittedly this is different from an onsen, but were
enough similarities between what I saw in the manga and what I saw at
HNP.
If you're staying at the hotel, you can go whenever you want.
Otherwise, you pay per visit. Note that if you eat a sufficiently
large meal at their restaurant (a bit expensive, of course, but they
feed you directly from their aquarium), you can take one bath for
free.
Anyway, you give them everything you want them to hold and they give
you a towel and tag. You enter a little genkan and take off your
shoes before going through the hanging noren. Inside, they had a
section with a row of benches for dressing and undressing, plus
plastic bins to put your clothes and glasses/watches/etc. into. There
was also a couple of sinks. N.B. there were *no* towels anywhere
except for the ones you were given and the wet ones that were already
used. The significance of this didn't come to me at first, but hit me
fully afterwards.
There was another section, enclosed almost fully by glass. The
exceptions were the part adjacent to the hotel (wood/concrete) and the
part (I presume) adjacent to the female section (bamboo). Yes, it was
segregated by sex. There was a row of movable stools next to shower
heads for bathing, plus a single stall for those who liked to stand
up. I presume it was also for handicapped people, though I saw no
obvious handles nearby. However, I did note that the stand-up had
greater water pressure, which proved quite useful.
Finally, there were two separate sentou, one that was basically a
shallow pool, though very large, and one that looked more
"traditional," in that its bottom and sides were wooden, and the water
came through a bamboo "pipe." I had no illusions that either were
onsen, but I thought that they might be adding minerals to the
"traditional" sentou. It turned out they added minerals to both. I
guess some of the guests just prefer pretending they're in an onsen,
and they can't imagine well enough in the pool. At one of the ends of
the pool was a huge window which looked out onto the Sea of Japan (and
the nearby islands). Quite nice and relaxing, really.
Okay, now that you have a picture of what I saw, let me tell you why I
decided to put this little story here. I had been told by my mom that
I should first wash off before entering the sentou. In fact, I'd also
seen this procedure in anime as well, and thought it eminently
logical. So imagine my surprise as I follow a bunch of ojisans into
the bathing area, only to watch them each grab a plastic bowl, scoop
some water out of the big sento and douse themselves, and then *step*
*right* *in*. And here I was about to wash myself *before* getting
in!! I figured, screw it and just followed them. I made sure to wash
myself thoroughly afterwards, though!
Of some curiosity was the fact that they went into the big pool first,
then washed, then entered the smaller, "traditional" sentou. Hey, no
one ever told me about this. I would've followed them, but, as I'm a
slow bather, and because I knew everyone else would be waiting for me
outside, I decided to just wash off and get dressed. Besides, by the
time I finished, the ojisans were already dressed and gone anyway.
Now, here's the real reason for the story: that 75cmX30cm towel
*does* *not* dry you off if you follow this sequence! You see, you
haven't absorbed enough heat from the sentou, or rather most of the
heat you *did* absorb has already radiated. So the moisture doesn't
evaporate as quickly, and, as I found out in little time, that tenugui
just didn't cut it. And because I didn't know a lot of Japanese, and
because I hadn't paid much attention to the layout as I came in, I
didn't know how to get a new towel. So I ended up using the blow
dryer that was in the dressing area. I was quite thankful that nobody
was around, except for one obasan who came to check the water
temperature. (She had asked me if it was fine; I was clueless and
shot back a few "sumimasen"s. She eventually lost interest.)
A final note, though: the water temperature was *not* in the 60-65C
range. I'd say it was no more than about 40C. So even if I'd done it
"by the book," I probably would've run into the same problem, though
not as quickly.
[...]
p8,6
Tarigan: A NOREN is a type of half-curtain made out of hanging pieces of
cloth usually sown together at the upper part such that the hanging
parts easily split apart for passing through. Noren are different from
ordinary curtains in that they aren't used at windows, but are instead
used as a sort of door at entrances.
Noren made out of thick cotton dyed in the color indigo, dark-blue,
brown, etc., are the traditional signs hung in front of the entrances
of some stores, restaurants (sushi, tempura, udon, sukiyaki, yakitori,
etc.) and public baths. They generally have upon them the name of the
business.
From what I've seen, it's more common to have the women's bath on the
left, and the men's bath on the right side.
The women's and men's baths weren't always separate. Before western
ideas of prudery invaded the country, men and women used to bathe
together without any embarrassment. They still do, in some rural areas
of Japan--places where the sight of a foreigner is a rare sight
indeed.
[...]
p8,7
Sylvain-san:
Note how the place is designed: At right, people are washing before
going in the water. They sit on little benches and wash in front of a
faucet (out of the frame, but can be seen on page 241). They use the
buckets to soak their tenugui with soap, then rinse with clean water.
At left is a large bath where the hot water keeps on pouring. The bath
is usually at the same temperature as the natural hot springs, but
they have to heat the bottom of the bath in some places. It is HOT,
very HOT. So hot you don't dare to move. By the way, it is very
impolite to swim in an onsen, like Kentarou.
This place is commercial. There are some natural resorts, and Godai
will go to such a place in a future chapter.
Williamson-san: Kentaro's young, he doesn't know any better. You think
his mom has drilled Miss Manners into him? ^_^
Tarigan:
It seems a bit weird, but I guess if they treated this like a swimming
pool, then you could say they were skinny-dipping. }
Mark-san:
re: What area is the Onsen in?
When I was visiting Japan last August, I did my homestay in Gunma
prefecture. This is supposedly THE onsen place in Japan, or in Kanto
district, anyhow. There are three big ones, Kusatsu, Minakami and
Ikaho. I went to Kusatsu on a road-trip, but wussed out of going into
the onsen (it was a nasty, drizzly day; I was afraid of catching cold
by going out into the rain after bathing. Also the pervasive smell of
the sulphur in the water was a big turnoff--it was literally
everywhere you went. Maybe if there's better weather next time,
though...)
The procedure at Kusatsu is supposed to be: You stand on the edge of
the onsen (which is sex-segregated, like in the story [of this MI
chapter]) and there's a kind of long board that you stir up the
water with before you get in. This is supposedly to cool the water
down, which probably isn't a bad idea since my old guidebook says the
usual temperature is 60-67 degrees celsius! Then you get in the onsen
for 3-4 minutes. The idea is to stay motionless, because the
experience is trying enough on its own. There's a guy who calls out
"3 minutes to go", "2 minutes", etc; then finally "please get out of
the water _slowly_!".
[...]
p11,6
Sylvain-san: The Kyoko that Godai is seeing is, in fact, a teen Kyoko.
Compare with the Kyoko of the facing page (PW240) and you will see
that she looks quite younger here.
Carragher-san: I noticed this as well. However, the comparison used is a
little deceptive. A better comparison might be with the Kyoko in
panel 4 on this page. Also, I thought that the aforementioned Kyoko
might be very relaxed and perhaps a little sleepy from the hot onsen.
The other two women show this same "effect," and promptly lose them
when they start showering.
Hey wait, I just realized ...!!
Tarigan: What did you realize?!
Carragher-san: Okay, here's my impression of the "proper" way to take a
bath at a sento or onsen: you wash the crap off your body before you
get into the bath itself. So after having written that 100-line
description of my experience at a sento [see Carragher's annotation on
p3. Ed.], I suddenly realized that what I thought was my breach of
etiquette was somewhat duplicated by the women in the above-mentioned
panels. That is, they were in the onsen, and now they're washing each
others' backs.
But somebody recently posted that it's "okay" if you wash off, but
don't SCRUB, so I guess this is proper bathing etiquette. Besides,
Kyoko would *never* do something improper. B-)
More about onsen than simple public baths, but many of the principles
are the same, I suspect. There are pleny of public bath scenes in
Ranma; e.g. check out when Happy first shows up....
- Harold