STEP from the fraying lobby into the tiled interior of Akebono-Yu, Tokyo’s oldest sento, or public bath-house, and there is an almost churchlike silence, interrupted only by the tinkle of spring water and the odd groan of pleasure from one of the elderly customers sinking into its tubs. A mural depicts the iconic, snow-capped Mount Fuji, 100km and a world away from the grime and din of the city outside.
Once attached to Buddhist shrines, sentos still have a whiff of the spiritual. For centuries they were places where neighbours—men and women—stripped and bathed together. The custom was intensely practical. Until the frenetic modernisation in the run-up to the Olympics in 1964, 40% of homes in Tokyo lacked baths, so millions of people depended on sentos for their nightly soak.
Those days are long gone. Across the city’s skyline, the...Continue reading
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