Dream Sauna, Daegu, Yong San Dong (드림)
Dream Sauna (드림)
First visited in July 2010. Last visit 6th May 2011. Dream Sauna is a smallish bathhouse in Yong San Dong (용산동), Daegu and is a five-minute bus ride from Song-So, Mega Town where the Lotte Cinema Complex is. Since my last visit there seems to have been a few changes and I found more to appreciate than on my first visit.
The bathing facilities are modern and clean with a large cold pool, large warm pool and smaller hot and ‘event’ pools. The saunas include a steam room, pine sauna and a yellow mud sauna (황토방) with a charcoal wall, interesting art work and a resident television. The salt room (소금방) is fantastic as the salt is ankle deep on the floor and at first you think you’re entering a room of snow. You can even lay in it though the room is not specifically designed for this. The salt ‘font’ and seats have all been decorated to look like they are encrusted in rock salt. Quite an enchanting room. The salt sauna houses the television which can also be viewed from two other sauna rooms.
The large cold pool, beside a small jade, ondol sleeping area, has tiled artwork of dolphins above which three windows with colourful ocean scenes, are illuminated by sunlight. The smaller windows down the side of the bathhouse have floral designs. With bright tiling, the ambiance is light and roomy and a contrast to the black marble of Hwang So.
Plan
Dream Sauna - Bathhouse design (male)
The bathhouse: has a large rectangular changing area with a small recess containing a television and sofas for relaxation. There are around twenty sit down shower units and a bout the same number stand up showers. Shoe shine and a barber are on site.
Cost: 4000 Won
Location: This is very easy to find as the sauna is right next to Tesco Home Plus in Yong San Dong. If you come out of Home Plus and turn left, you will find Dream Sauna less than 3 minutes walk on the left hand side. There is a large opening on the ground floor with a sign over it and the ticket booth is in the lobby. (Wikimapia Link)
Ambience – bright, very clean bathhouse.
Waygukin – none but only my second visit.
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Bathhouse Basics 5. A 'Handbag' or 'Shopping Basket?'
Bathhouse floors are always slippery and a danger to move over quickly unless you’re under 10 years of age and impervious to falling over on hard surfaces. Hence, besides being naked, you’re compelled to walk in a manner looking like you’ve just been buggered; don’t worry, having been forced into wearing open back sandals, bath slippers and flip-flops for most of their lives, the geisha gait, that nancy little shuffle of a walk, is how many Korean men and boys walk both in and out of the bathhouse.
A typical bathhouse bag
To increase your incredulity even more, why not adorn yourself with a bathhouse ‘handbag’ or a bathhouse ‘shopping basket.’ Both are used to hold you shampoo, hair conditioner and shaving kit etc, and are ideal tan ideal accoutrement to take into the bathhouse complex with you.
The bathhouse ‘handbag,’ which is waterproof, comes in various designs and colours, mine is pink and has never raised an eyebrow. The ‘handbag’ can be carried openly, adorning your mincy walk, or carried discreetly in a larger sports bag. In the monsoon season and summer months the bag can sometimes get moldy so it is necessary to dry it out occasionally and a regular session in the washing machine will give it an additional clean.
A camper version
"Hello Sailor!"
The bathhouse 'basket'
The bathhouse ‘shopping basket’ seems to be more popular among women and is frequently seen being carried to or from the bathhouse. I can’t recall seeing a man carrying one. Likewise, they are not all that common in the male bathhouse but being open, they are easily aired and if you own a separate small locker in a bathhouse, they will easily fit inside.
I keep deodorant, pumice stone, shampoo, mouthwash, toothbrush, shaving gel and razor in mine and as I hire a small locker in my jjimjilbang-bathhouse, (3000 won a month), I leave this permanently on the premises. Though I’ve rarely seen men using ‘baskets,’ most either having ‘handbags’ or simply carry items individually, no one has paid it any attention. I use a deodorizer in my locker during summer just to remove any damp odours. If I visit another bathhouse I use my pink ‘handbag.’
If you feel self-conscious during the ‘walk-of-shame,’ that is the transition from where you undress to the bathhouse complex, both ‘baskets’ and ‘handbags’ are ideal to faff about in which helps take your mind off the fact you’re naked and the center of attention.
© Nick Elwood 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Migwang Spolex (Jjimjilbang), Daegu, Song-So. (미광스포랙스)
Migwang Spolex (미광, 성서, 대구)
First visited February 2009. Last visited September 28th 2012. Migwang Spolex is my favourite local jjimjilbang, bathhouse sports complex. Migwang has five stories of amenities including squash courts, billiard rooms, and a very well equipped and friendly gymnasium. It is very clean and has well laundered towels which smell fresh. The bathhouse, a large one, is one to enjoy and relax in rather than to use solely for washing and cleaning. Sunday afternoons and holidays can be very busy. The gym is very well equipped and spacious and home to many Muscle Marys, especially in the evenings. In summer, the ice rooms, of which there are two, one in the bathhouse and one in the jjimjilbang, are a refuge from the summer heat and humidity. I particularly like the changing areas as there are very roomy and with small poofes on which to sit while putting on socks’ etc – I hate having to do that sat on the floor or while trying to balance on one leg. Friendly staff.
The ‘event’ and warm pool (male)
The warm and hot pools in the female complex
Women’s facility
Unlike many other businesses in Korea, many which simply border on existing, I think Migwang is doing very well, financially. I’m told it has over 1000 members with a monthly membership. More to the point, I notice Migwang regularly installs or renovates features during major holidays. A new ceiling and what looks like a new water feature is currently being built (October 2010). However, the water feature seems to have stopped mid program. In April 2011 new poofes appeared. Migwang is always impeccably clean and the staff very friendly – oh, apart from some grumpy old guy!
Migwang’s sit down shower units
This is what the British call a ‘poofe.’
The male ‘powder’ room
The warm pool with the pine, steam and ice room (L-R) in the background. A large TV sits above the central circular window
Plan
Migwang Spolex. Bathhouse Design (male)
The stand up showers (male)
The women’s cold pool
Location – five minutes walk from the Song-So (성서) industrial Complex subway station and just 2 minutes walk from E-Marte. Come out E-Marte, turn right, turn right again at the cross roads and walk to the crest of the hill where the road bears left. The complex sits on the turning on the left hand side. (Wiki Map link )
Times – 24 hour jjimjilbang and bathhouse. Gym open from around 6 am Mon-Sat until around 11 pm. Sundays 8 am – 8 pm. Double check opening and closing times as they occasionally change.
Facilities – 2nd floor, reception, women’s bathhouse, women’s hair dressers. 3rd floor jjimjilbang, 4th floor men’s bathhouse, 5th floor gymnasium. Also squash facilities, martial arts, aerobics classes etc.
Jjimjilbang – ice room, various saunas, sleeping rooms, children’s play area, refreshments and food, small pc room, televisions, etc.
Jjimjilbang area
Bathhouse (men) – around fifty stand up shower facilities and around the same number of sitting down shower units, event pool, (이벤트탕), hot pool (열탕), large warm pool with jacuzzi (온탕), large cold pool (냉탕), small tepid pool (안마탕), ice room, steam room, 2 jade saunas, relaxation area, heated sleeping area. Large changing room with television and sofas. Televisions are also located in front of the e-bente-tang and hot pool, and in one sauna room but which can be viewed via from the other saunas.
Cost – bathhouse 5500 Won, jjimjilbang 7000 won. Monthly all-inclusive (including the gym) once a day usage, 100.000 Won (£50).
Others – hairdressers, massage and rub downs, parking, associated buffet restaurant opposite (Arden Hills), and Screen Golf Range. Various seasonal discounts. Very close to E-Marte and from there the Song-So Industrial Complex subway station, and surrounded by various restaurants and some excellent coffee shops Vincent Van Gogh, Hands Coffee, Sleepless in Seattle). The barbers now seems to offer massage, haircut and shave all being a euphemisms for a hand-job – cost 30.000Won. Barber’s is closed on Monday and residency of the barber’s now seems to shift between the actual barber and the ‘girls’
Ambiance – relaxing, mid-level lighting, subdued television, very clean, very comfortable, friendly.
Waygukin – I’m gradually seeing more and more westerners here. For a year I didn’t see any, but in the last year I have seen a total of 5. Some just shower, while others use the pools, some are friendly, some clearly do not want to speak.
Address – Daegu, South Korea, 1250-14번 지 (behind E-mart)
Website – (Migwang Spolex Website Link)
Migwang Updates
Migwang on a Sunday Morning (August 1st 2010.)
© 林東哲 2010. Creative Commons Licence.
Bathhouse Basics 4. The Bucket Seat
I have seen only a handful of westerners in bathhouses though if I were in downtown Seoul I’d probably see more but one thing I have yet to see is a waygukin sitting on a bucket seat!
A Bathhouse 'bucket' seat.
In orange
These are simple plastic seats the size of a bucket and on which you sit at the sit down shower units. Bathhouses always have stand up shower units and rows of sit down facilities. Initially, I avoided sitting as I felt the squat position required undignified but you quickly adjust. Koreans often spray the shower over the top of them before sitting and often, once they have finished using them. Some Koreans also sit on the floor especially when cleaning their feet.
Bathhouse sit down shower units
Sitting on the floor is also common
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
Bathhouse Basics 3: The Italy Towel
The Italy Towel. (이타리 타월)
Other than water, the Italy towel is probably the most universal item in a bathhouse and in some quarters, “Korea Design Heritage 2008,” has been ranked as number 5 among items over the last 50 years, which have defined Korea. Apparently, Gil Pil-gon who ran a textile factory in Pusan, discovered the cloths’ ex-foliating properties in a piece of fabric imported from Italy. The rest, as they say, is history.
Defining icons, food delivery boxes, Nong-Shin ramyon and the Italy Towel.
Though available in a range of colours, the predominant colour is ‘silver,’ which is actually the green one. In addition, they all seem to be made by the same company, BC Choi and hence, the towels, manufactured in Korea, are 100% Korean! Like sandpaper, Italy Towels come in different gradients and these are denoted by the colour. ‘Pink is the least abrasive, followed by ‘silver’ (green) with the most abrasive and capable of removing the deepest ingrained grime, being yellow.
Other colours are manufactured, including red. The green one is actually described as 'silver.'
Italy towels are not to be confused with the larger version cloth which is also supplied in a bathhouse and which is usually red.
The larger, and milder, ex-foliating cloth
What typifies the Italy Towel is its size. My hand barely fits into it. The cloth is used to scrub the skin, usually in one direction, top to bottom and in straight lines and if used effectively a line of gray, dead skin is produced. The towel is fairly abrasive and needs to be used with caution on the face. Minimal soap is used in order to maximise the towel’s abrasive quality. Koreans will scrub their entire body with this cloth in a process which can last well over an hour.
If anyone accompanies you to the bathhouse, a friend or relative, it is natural for you to scrub each-other’s back. Usually you sit behind the person whose back you a rubbing, though people sometimes stand. For men, that your ‘partners’ dick is dangling in you face is no more of an issue than any other part of their body. Between men, one of the defining features of a ‘go-ch’u-ch’ingu’ (고추 친구), literally translated as a ‘penis friend,’ basically a close friend, is that penises are ‘acknowledged’ rather than shunned with fear. It is this tacit, sometimes even verbalised ‘acknowledgment’ which helps define a close, male relationship. In the western male, heterosexual psyche, a penis is threatening and ‘acknowledging’ your male friend has ‘one,’ seeing ‘it,’ talking about ‘it,’ and even being too close ‘it,’ have the potential to terrify. It is not at all uncommon to see a row of school boys or students all sat in a chain as they have their backs scrubbed while scrubbing the back of the person in front. Between family members the towel is used much more intimately and again, it is very common to see parents and children mutually scrubbing each other’s entire body. This is not restricted to small children. Mutual cleaning and the intimacy involved are an expression of the concept of ‘skinship.’
How often one should use the Italy Towel is a personal preference. If used frequently, the process can rub-away body hair – though I wouldn’t recommend this as a method of waxing. Some Koreans use it every few days, others once a week. Perhaps the best guide is simply whether or not you have a layer of skin which needs removing. I use a pumice stone on my feet regularly and if no skin is being removed I stop the process – this is perhaps the best guide to using the Italy Towel.
I have noticed that you can scrub yourself meticulously and regularly with the larger, less abrasive towel, the one usually provided free in all bathhouses, and that this does not remove dead skin with the effect of the Italy Towel. I was very surprised when after a period of not using an Italy Towel, a friend scrubbed my back and arms and then made a joke about how dirty I was. It is surprising what that little towel removes.
Unlike the larger cloth and towels for drying, the Italy Towel has to be purchased, costing about 1000 Won. I usually keep one for months at a time and have even seen the odd person use ones discarded in the used towel bin.
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
Nancying in the Powder Room. Bathhouse Ballads
A Bathhouse Ballad
In this particular bathhouse (목욕탕) you can sit in the ebente-tang (이벤트탕) and watch the men and boys nancying about in the little ‘powder room’ that are provided in all bathing establishments. This particular ebente-tang doesn’t have any added aromas or coloured water and you might be forgiven for wondering why indeed it is even called an ‘ebente-tang,’ until the pool starts frothing and chomping quite crazily. The jets of water from inside the pool, should you be unfortunate enough to be sat over one as it starts and you fart, are powerful enough to administer a surprise enema. As I’m being buffeted by the jacuzzi jets, I’m busily watching three middle-aged men in the ‘powder room.’ All are stood, independent of each other and two are in straddle stances, or in what martial artists would recognise as a ‘horse stance.’
A 'wushu' version of the 'horse stance'
Traditionally, this stance is used to strengthen the legs and as a position from which to practice various blocks and strikes. As a combat stance it is redundant as it renders a male a potential gelding should a strike to the groin be forthcoming. Don’t forget, the men in the ‘powder room’ are totally naked. Rather than blocking and striking, feet rigidly anchored to the ground, both men are drying their sack and crack with hairdryers. I’m thinking they must have studied at the same school because despite all the variations of horse stance, both are in identical style, technique and positions. Most likely it’s a taekwondo derived stance as it is much higher than in the Chinese version above yet not as high as the one featuring Bruce Lee (이소룡), below. This version is in-between.
이소룡 (Bruce Lee) practicing the sack 'n' crack stance.
The accompanying arm movements are identical: first the dryer is held pointing at the sack ‘n’ tackle before being swung between the legs to windy the crack area. The latest event in the tub, an eruption, has quelled and I’m chuckling to myself as a third man in the ‘powder room’ demonstrates his technique. Clearly, he has been trained in a totally different school. After fiddling with one of the big fans on the long dressing table, angling it into the required position, he turns, get into a straddle and bends over, parking his exposed butt in the fan’s stream. The technique is very different but the stance is identical to that of the other two men and with head almost touching the floor, the fan is probably capable of drying his sack ‘n’ crack all at the same time.
Jeez, Korean men are such ponces! That’s why I like them. Back in the UK, a room such as this would terrify most westerners not just because you nancy about in it naked, but because the purpose of the room involves preening oneself. Actually, I much prefer the safety of the ebente-tang to watch how different men occupy themselves in this task. I never stay long in the ‘powder room,’ not because I don’t like being naked in front of other men, but because I don’t like being naked in front of myself, and like most ‘powder rooms,’ the walls are covered in mirrors.
All the flaws of being western are magnified in the array of mirrors and bright lights. Our skin tone tends to be more varied; my face is slightly ruddy, my buttocks lily white, my forearms as tanned as any Koreans and my neck brown. The rest of my body is whitey- pink, like a giant maggot. Then there’s the hair; back hair, chest hair, arm hair and leg hair and it’s all different in colour, texture and shape. My arm hair is smooth, my chest hair a little coarser and the hair on my back is somewhat like the hair on the backs of my arms, long and straggly and the sort of hair a neanderthal might have. I can’t stand looking at myself in those mirrors and always find the ‘powder room’ a little stressful.
All that hair. Yuk!
I touched on the subject of body hair several months ago, in relation to living in an environment free of carpets. It’s only in this type of environment that you realise just how much hair we shed. I am not especially hairy and I sweep my floor everyday with one of those magical wipes to which hair and fluff adhere. Despite this, I find hair everywhere. I’ve found them in the fridge, freezer and only a few days ago I was eating a slice of water melon when what I thought was a little crack on my plate, was in fact a pubic hair. I’m 54 and have a full head of hair non of which I see anywhere, but pubic hair, chest hair and those unsightly, straggly back of arm and back hairs, get everywhere. Korean bodies are so much nicer, more alike in proportions, colour and apart from having pubes that are long enough to perm and which often seemed to be straight rather than curly, are usually pretty hairless. Hair, its antediluvian and barbaric! As I get older I notice my eyebrows becoming wilder and if I don’t trim them I start to develop antennae. Nasal hair is a bugger but is kept at bay with regular burst from a cigarette lighter. And I dread getting ear hair as that looks especially alien.
No hairs in his fridge!
In the ‘powder room’ a couple of men and a boy are preening; an old man is methodically combing his hair with a brush from the selection of brushes and combs which are always available. I’ve never seen any hairs on brushes and assume they are cleaned regularly and in many ‘power rooms’ are small steam boxes similar to those used in doctors surgeries and dentist, to sanitize such items. A boy is cleaning out his ears with cotton buds (q-tips), an item as standard as towels and soap. On the long dressing tables, there is always a collection of face creams, hair gel and skin brace. As with everything in bathhouse and jjimjilbang culture, no two places are exactly alike.
Fat is Here
A Bathhouse Ballad
In the ebente-tang, the aroma of the day is lavender (라벤더). I’m wallowing while I see some guy stood in the cold pool snot-up into his hand and casually just wash it off – into the pool water. Filthy twat! I occasionally take in a mouthful of that water, I guess most people do and, I open my eyes underwater! Pissing in the baths is one thing, at least you are unaware of people doing it, but if you’re going to snot up, be discrete! The snotting incident made me wonder if the water is filtered. It is certainly changed on a regular basis and probably filtered. Neither is it chlorinated but as most people shower before entering the baths this doesn’t bother me. I can remember seeing a few turds in British swimming pools but despite the chlorinated water, I wasn’t going to swim anywhere near them! Often I notice children, usually unaccompanied, get straight into a bath without showering. Last Thursday, which was the eve of Buddha’s birthday, and a public holiday, there were about 10 teenagers running around. Usually, adults get irritated by raucous behaviour but the atmosphere was jovial and I noticed several men lounging in surrounding pools watching them and smiling. There was a definite holiday spirit; they held the door shut to the ice room door trapping friends inside and threw bowls of freezing cold water at each other. For almost an hour the bathhouse, the noisiest I have ever heard it, despite it not being very busy, resonated with their laughter. Then a fat guy walked in and I started thinking…
At one time, when there were few other wayguks around, I used to be the fattest man in Song-So and one of my companions, a woman from Australia, was probably the fattest woman. Though she was excellent company, I hated walking around with her. A fat person, especially one who is 1.95 cm tall, attracts attention but two fat people together, well, the assumption is they are a couple and that all western wayguks are fat. Two fat wayguks together loose their identity in the conflation that reduces them to, ‘they’ and ‘fat.’ If you’re sweating, unable to buy clothes that fit, if you’re seen eating, if you don’t like walking up four floors to your place of work, well, it’s all because you’re fat! And eating an ice-cream in public! No wonder you’re fat! I happen to take size 14 (UK) shoes. You can’t buy them in Korea, apart from perhaps in Seoul. And the reason my feet are so big, despite being the leanest parts of my body? I’m fat, of course! When Koreans see a fatty or a fatty couple, this is how they probably think, and I assume this, as in the west, it is how we think. Even if I see a fat person eating an ice cream on a hot summer’s day, even if I am eating one myself, my immediate thought is, ‘go on a diet, fat arse!’ Two fat people with backsides like hippopotami, holding hands on the beach front promenade, and wobbling like jelly… ‘gross! The contradictory nature of my thought, doesn’t even sully the flavour of my ice-cream.
Maybe I’m paranoid, but when my fat female friend and I took a taxi, along with two petit Koreans, and her and I ended up sitting on the same side of the cab, it was clear what caused the problem, and it wasn’t paranoia! The window on our side of the taxi looked directly onto the tarmac while the opposite window framed the full moon. After a hundred meters and a few grating sounds from some part of the vehicle now in contact with the road, the taxi driver evicted us.
In 2000, and probably until fairly recently, I was the fattest person I ever saw in a bathhouse. Even proportionately, no Korean ever came close to my dimensions. This isn’t because I have the girth of Jabba the Hutte, but because Koreans were, and to some extent still are, smaller than westerners. My diary pages from that period provide several references to there being a distinct lack of fat people. In the school at which I taught there was one fat boy, I even remember his name, Jack; a photo of him hangs in my bedroom bathroom, back in the UK. In my taekwondo school was another chubby. Neither boys were particularly fat and today, just ten years later, would be classified as fairly normal.
I need no helpers for this size portion!
In the last few months, I have noticed that on almost every visit to a bathhouse there are one or two Koreans proportionately the same size and sometimes fatter than I. Very often, other fatties are kiddies. Burger bars, fried chicken, Baskin Robbins, Dunkin Donut and plenty of other western style fast food outlets have proliferated, and the price Korea is paying, especially their youth, is the bulging waistline. Ten years ago I went into a Baskin Robbins in downtown Daegu. I was with a Korean friend and her daughter and when I arrived at their table with a tray containing three, what I considered ‘normal’ size ice creams, they starred in amazement. One tub, they told me, would have been enough for all three of us but to me, they were the sort of size you would buy yourself back home. In the ten years interim, I now have two Baskin Robbins within a 7 minutes walk of my home and occasionally I will treat myself to an 11.000Won (£5.50), pot of ice cream. I think it holds about 5 scoops. I can easily eat this and could also finish off one of their larger buckets. Even if I buy the smaller pot, smaller than a Macdonald milkshake cup, staff will ask how many spoons I want. Shame prevents me from replying’ ‘one’ so, pondering in thought for a moment, as if counting the number of people back home waiting for me to deliver, I reply, ‘four.’
Along with the western fast food diet, fat has finally arrived in Korea
Korean proportions are always piddly and I’m not really into the act of sharing my food, especially ice cream. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a Korean meal, even at a buffet restaurant, and left feeling properly stuffed, stuffed western style where you can’t breathe properly and feel you’ve mutated into an enormous maggot. In the west, there are countless times I’ve gone for a meal and reached the point where Mr Creosote, in Monty Python’s, The Meaning of Life, cannot eat another chocolate wafer. But in the midst of a Korean public, usually much skinnier than I, being a fatty fills me with guilt and curbs my glutenous instincts. The fatties I now see around me at the bathhouse, and who attract more attention than I because, they are Korean and fat, which is novel, and not wayguk western and fat, which is common, certainly know what it feels to be ‘stuffed’ and all I am left pondering, as I wallow in my scented bath, feeling more like a warthog than large bottomed hippopotamus, is how do you pig out on Korean food? Fat has finally arrived and the blubberier it becomes, the slimmer I feel.
Link to Crazy Fat Korean Video
Bathhouse Basics 2 – The Jjimjilbang (찜질방)
'25 hour' JJimjilbang (찜질방) Song-so, Daegu.
Jjimjilbang (찜질방) – while bathhouses often provide predominantly water related ‘entertainment, jjimjilbangs provide a space where families and friends, regardless of gender, can intermingle. There is no English term for a jjimjilbang and as they contain saunas and adjoining bathhouses, they are often conflated with ‘saunas,’ ‘bathhouses’ or ‘spas.’ In practice, they are very different.
Common to all jjimjilbang are clothing, ondol heating (underground), large sleeping areas, an adjoining bathhouse and a broad range of entertainment. Television are conveniently located, PC rooms, children play areas, a variety of dry saunas using various minerals, mud or salt rooms, ice rooms, restaurants, libraries, refreshments and in some cases cinemas. Massage chairs, are fairly common and are coin-operated. There are usually other features to provide both comfort and visual appeal – large tree trunks, for example, on which you can sit or play, and various levels of floor decking. Blankets are available in abundance. The size of establishments varies but very often can accommodate several thousand people and like the bathhouses, jjimjilpang may have restricted hours and or a days closure a week, or be open 24 hours.
When you purchase your ticket at the booth and you ask for the jjimjilpang you will be given some form of costume, sometimes a gown or t-shirt and shorts. Usually these are emblazoned with the establishments logo and the may be colour coordinated, one of my local jjimjilbang provides blue for men, pink women and yellow for children.
A selection of jjimjilbang photos giving you an insight into the range of facilities and individual establishment ambiances.
A group outing
Games
An ice room
Busy and buzzing
Tranquility
Early morning - weekday
With a library
Weekends and holidays are usually busy (spot the beer cans!)
It has to be a drama!
Baroque?
Mother's meeting
Poker?
Refreshments
Skinship
Even the kids can 'chill.'
Main jjimjilbang area with numerous side sauna, ice rooms etc.
Jjimjilbang uniformity
Colour coordinated
Crash out - wherever!
A children's play room
Bathhouse Basics 1 – What is a bathhouse? (목욕탕)
Aquatic Symphony
Bathhouse (목욕탕) – exactly as the name suggests. Simply a place to wash. However, while some establishments are not much more than a place to administer yourself a thorough scrub down, others offer the chance to wallow in luxurious ambiance. The range is broad and bathhouses often have their own distinct atmosphere shaded by the time you visit. What you will find common to all are: nudity, segregation by sex, places to shower, both standing and sitting and a number of pools. This is the most basic I have experienced. Others will have a number of adjoining ‘rooms’ containing various saunas, steam rooms, ice rooms (어름방), salt saunas, yellow mud sauna (황토방) sleeping rooms, and a place to be scrubbed down by an attendant. Once again, the variation is extensive. Pools vary in size and number and like the various ‘rooms’ often utilise specific minerals which are believed to promote good health. The most common are probably hot pools (열탕 – yeol-tang), warm pools (온탕 – on-tang), cold pools (냉탕 – naeng tang) but I have also bathed in pools of gold and saunaed in silver. Baths may contain herbs, or green tea or be built with health inducing minerals. In addition, some bathhouses have heated areas around the pools where it is possible to take a nap and these may be heated by ondol (온돌) heating (underground heating) or by infra-red lights.
Changing rooms
Chilling
In the bathing area, bathhouses often have:
conveniently located televisions
various types of massage
soap, towel, body clothes, toothpaste
a large stone on which to eradicate hard skin
In the changing area:
sofas, television
a room in which to dry and preen yourself
toothbrushes, shampoo, Italy towels, hair conditioner
socks, underwear, ties
soft drinks, some snacks, especially smoked eggs
In the steam room of the Kayasan Hotel Bathhouse
A typical seated shower area
Grouped around the bathhouse (목욕탕):
barber, hairdresser
shoe shine facility
shoe repair facility
a sports complex or some exercise facilities
a jjimjilbang (찜질방)
In the pools
Some may have outside areas or indeed, be located in outdoor settings. Finally, some establishments have limited opening hours while others are open twenty-four hours.
Variations are extensive and endless!
© Nick Elwood 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Coughing One Up
podcast 14
As I lay wallowing in the ‘ebente-tang,’ the ‘special event’ pool (이벤트 탕), today scented with jasmine (자스민) I was thinking, I’ve never heard anyone burp in Korea. In British schools burps are often heard and as a schoolboy, I can remember belching competitions as I was often the winner. In the army we were always burping. And while I have never heard a Korean burp, I am very acquainted with the sights and sounds accompanied with hoiching your lungs up, snorting your nose clear and even haenging the contents of your nose into the nearest gutter or down a wall. While such habits might not be rated high in terms of manners, in the bathhouse at least, they are clearly not taboo. When you have a cold or flu, nothing is worse than having to discreetly snort to keep your nose and throat clear and it has taken me a while to be able to utilise this habit without being too embarrassed. If I do snort, it is not as a habit as I am conscious of its performance and my snorts are still apologetic and reserved.
bathhouse interior
Koreans are far more guttural than we westerners, sighing loudly and mopping their forehead after finishing off a spicy meal and getting in to extremes of water in the bathhouse always elicits a large sigh, often accompanied with long and ecstatic, ‘shiwonhada!’ And the soju? That elicits sounds like ‘wa.’ Snorting, hoiching and ‘haenging’ are all fairly common sounds, at least for men. One occasionally sees older men bent over a sidewalk or on the grass, pressing one thumb against a nostril while ‘haenging’ the other one clear. Though I can recall very few occasions hearing a woman snort, I’ve never heard or seen one hoich or haeng though I’m told females hoich and haeng in a bathhouse, especially older women. I rarely hear my neighbours television or music but every morning, around 6.30am, I’ll hear a man’s strangulated and at times alarming hoichs.
After a spell in the steam room and quick dip in the cold pool, I sit down on one of those bucket seats next to an elderly man I haven’t seen for a while. I attempt to make conversation, telling him I’ve had a string of colds and asking how his health is but he can’t understand me. Of late, I have noted a marked improvement in my Korean but his inability to understand me isn’t doing my confidence any good. When I have to resort to spelling words on the palm of my hand, I conclude he must be hard of hearing! Unable to communicate, we both drift off into the relaxing mental blankness that accompanies scrubbing and cleaning your body and which can at times, especially with the world obliterated by the soothing sounds of water, be almost zen-like in its emptiness.
awesome
He’s scrubbing his foot, positioned on the ledge next to me, as I feel a need to snort. Though I have neither snorted in public or spat one out, along with haenging your nose into the palm of your hand, many seem to do it. The congestion irritates me so I snort and without any forethought, decide to spit it into the gutter. Now, as I was in the process of forming my lips and amassing the clot subsequent to its expulsion, it occurred to me that I’ve heard people snorting, and seen them spitting but wasn’t quite sure if what they were spitting was actually the contents of a snort. I mean, when someone snorts you don’t stand and watch and then inspect what’s been expelled. Right on the edge of expulsion, I realised I had assumed what comprised the spit was what had been snorted whereas it might simply be spit. Too late, I blew out large oyster. Instead of hitting the gutter to be carried off in a river of soapy suds, it landed on the black marble ledge next to the older man’s soap. I quickly doused it with the shower only to aqua plane it towards his toes which he was busy scrubbing. Luckily, I was able to divert it with another blast of water which sent it slinking over the edge of the ledge where it hung like a pendulum before slipping into the gutter. I’m not sure if he noticed but if his sight was as keen as his ears, I doubt he even knew who was sat next to him. I have decided to pay more attention to the expelling of such matter in the future. And then there’s the subject of pissing into the gutter as you’re showering…
© 林東哲 2010 Creative Commons Licence.
Elwood 5566 
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