Growing up in Switzerland in the 70s, our house had two bathrooms, a bigger one with a bathtub, mainly reserved for our parents, and a slightly smaller one with a shower, predominantly used by my brother and me.
I actually don't think that the shower was being used much in those days, at least as far as I remember, and certainly not by us kids. We would just wash our faces upon getting up in the morning, and then once a week (always Saturdays) it was bathing day, when our parents would order us to get into the bathtub and get properly clean. While weekends were always welcomed, of course, the bathing ritual was clearly not!
In subsequent years, the weekly soak in the bathtub was replaced by a daily shower in the morning, and the places I lived in after moving out of my parents' house always came with a bathtub that mainly functioned as a shower, with a curtain to prevent the rest of the bathroom from being flooded...
Fast-forward several decades: Having a bath twice a day - once in the morning and then again in the evening - is part of my wife's and my daily routine - except for the hot summer months, when we opt for a refreshing shower instead.
How did I go from an enforced weekly bath in my childhood to a twice-daily soak in the bath that I can hardly imagine my day without?
Well, the Japanese, not unlike the Romans, have a long-standing bathing culture. It stretches back to the 6th century, and from the very beginning it was much more than just a routine to wash the body, but it was believed to also cleanse the spirit and improve one's health. That has endured to this day.
But while for centuries it had been reserved only for Buddhist monks and the upper classes, it was in the early 17th century that public bathhouses (so-called 'sento' ) brought bathing to the daily lives of commoners. And it was from the 1920s that buildings were increasingly built with internal baths, making home baths the new norm.
But when I say 'bath', it's not just a place to get clean. Oh no! A Japanese bath is so much more. It's an experience! In fact, you don't even use the bathtub to get clean in the first place. You do that before you enter the tub, because that itself is reserved for relaxation!
But before I go on, let me, so to speak, take a step back:
A Japanese bathroom always consists of two distinctly different parts: The part you enter into first, with the wash basin. And then, divided by a door, there is the wet area, which is set up like a walk-in shower, but with a bathtub.
A Japanese bathroom never ever houses a toilet, because the bathroom is a place to get clean and relax, while the toilet is reserved for the kind of business that is considered 'unclean'.
So the toilet is always separate, which also means that in a house or flat with only one toilet, you will never find yourself frantically knocking on the bathroom door while your spouse is having a shower or a bath and you urgently need the loo...
Back to the Japanese bathroom. Let me illustrate:
So, here's the first part, which houses the wash basin and mirror, similar to bathrooms in Western countries.
Next to that, you will always find a dedicated space for the washing machine, very much in contrast to British houses, where you will typically find the washing machine in the kitchen (which I personally find rather puzzling...).
And then, upon opening the door that separates the two parts, we enter the pièce de résistance: The wet room!
So here we have the bathtub, exclusively for relaxation purposes!
And next to it the shower, to get clean before entering the tub. This takes on particular importance when considering that the same bath water is usually used for more than one person. Typically you will fill the bathtub only once a day for the whole family. In our case, we run a bath in the evening for both of us, but will use the same water also the next morning.
But won't the water get cold, you ask?
The answer is a clear and emphatic 'no'. Simply because of all the technology behind it. Because running a bath in Japan is not the same as elsewhere, where you just turn on the tap, then have to somehow figure out whether you got the right temperature, and then make sure you don't forget to turn it off once the tub is full, in order not to flood the entire house...
No, you operate a panel in the wall of the bathroom (usually with another unit located in the kitchen), where you start the process of filling the tub with the exact water temperature you want (in our case, which is pretty much standard in Japan, it's 42 °C or 108 °F), and then the tub magically fills itself from below and will stop automatically when it's full, signalling to you with a tune that the process is complete.
After that, it will automatically keep the same temperature for as long as you like. Or you set the timer in the evening, so that it will heat it up to the desired temperature in time for getting up in the morning.
I realise when travelling outside of Japan, how much I have embraced the convenience of the Japanese bath, and how much I miss it when it's not available to me!
If I were pressed to name my favourite Japanese invention, the Japanese bath would probably be it!
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