A Child Recognizes Godzilla
I recently wrote about Japanese bathhouse etiquette and how I screwed that up, out of mischievous curiosity. After being thrown out of the bathhouse for my immodesty, I concluded that sticking to the ladies part of the bathhouse may achieve the one real goal of visiting which was, to get clean.
After another sticky rainy summer day riding the JNR line back home from work, I didn’t stop home. I went directly to the sento (public bathhouse). There are precise methods and rituals, like everything else in formalistic Japan, to undressing, washing, shampooing, and even relaxing in a sento. I took off my clothes in the ladies’ portion of the bathhouse, folded them neatly, and stuffed them in a plastic bin on the wall, tucking my shoes under a floor rack. I put on the house plastic sandals and carried my towel to the interior of the bathhouse.
I grabbed a shallow bowl that has multiple uses. You can sit on it while scrubbing yourself down with soap in front of a mirror that has a showerhead attached to it. You can use the bowl to pour water over yourself in case you’re not in the mood for a shower and would rather have a waterfall over your head and body. Or you can use it to carry your shampoo, soap, and Japanese nylon meshed washcloth in as you peruse the interior.
I was carrying my plastic bowl on route to the hot bathing pool because the cold one was intolerable. One time I almost died — I think my body went into shock, maybe hypothermia as I couldn’t move at all as my eyes were rolling in the back of my head. My body was frozen, and all I can remember is yelling out help, help, help before fainting in a nice lady’s arms. She rushed me to an area where I was clothed in a warm towel bathrobe and fed. In all bathhouses, you’ll find a hot and a cold pool, not unlike half a Finnish sauna (the Finnish sauna only has cold water).
I plopped the bowl in a corner and was about to step into the steaming (43.3 C degree) or 110 F degree water when a little boy aged four started crying uncontrollably. I turned around to face him and his shocked mother. He was frozen in place, finger-pointing at ME and screaming ‘GODZILLA.’
His mother was embarrassed. She bowed about incessantly and repeated “Gomen nasai” about fifty times. It means sorry, so sorry, very sorry. She couldn’t look at me for fear of losing even more face. I made the vee symbol and smiled at the young child in the hopes I’d get him to laugh. I failed. A bunch of elderly women soaking in the hot tub covered their mouths and giggled. I climbed into the hot tub embarrassed, not knowing if I should laugh or cry. Some ladies, bathing in the tub, gestured to me with a waving motion as if to say, it’s okay, don’t worry, “daijobu.”
From that day on, I promised myself to dye my Henna’ed hair back to its natural medium brown. I didn’t want to scare little kids into thinking I was a monster.
