April 24, 2008...6:56 am
Getting Clean(ed) in Korea
Busan, Dongnae Hot Springs
After stripping down and walking through the large locker room area for a couple minutes trying to find the way to the bath area, a woman guided us to the door. As we stepped into the bath area the bright sunlight shocked me. I hesitated momentarily thinking I had made a mistake and stepped outside. It was like one of those dreams when you go into public and forget to put on clothes. But then, as I walked in further I saw all of the other women. It was like a scene from an old Roman painting. There were pools of clear water, fountains, waterfalls, statues, and naked women everywhere. The ceiling was a glass dome so it appeared as if it was outdoors. There were nude children playing in the water, women lounging around the pools drinking iced coffees, and orange juice. Toward the back, there were women standing under high pressure waterfalls enjoying the water massaging their shoulders and backs. Behind the waterfalls there were young girls playing in a cave. Women were eating, chatting, reading, drinking, scrubbing, washing, and relaxing; and doing all of this in the nude. They are not modest at all, unlike the locker rooms in the States where most people cover up with a towel while walking from the shower to the locker. After the first moment of awkwardness, I too, became quite comfortable walking around naked, hopping from one tub to the next.
After we soaked in the tubs, a naked woman approached us selling facials, shampoos, massages, and body exfoliation. The latter is very popular here; Koreans love to scrub their skin so hard that it comes off in patches. I decided I could use a facial, so I followed her to the area. There were five naked women lying on cushioned tables being washed by the naked women that worked there. I was led to a table in the middle and ordered to lie down on my back. Apparently the woman did not understand me when I asked to a facial, or she independently decided that I needed to be exfoliated. I don’t know, maybe she thought, ‘this dirty foreigner must be cleaned,’ or ‘she is too tan, I must scrub this tan off of her skin, and make her white and beautiful.’ So instead of a facial, I received a good hard scrub down. Now you may be thinking, it sounds like something from a sexy movie, with naked women bathing other naked women, but this is not the case at all. It is more similar to a car wash.
First, a bucket of water was thrown over me. Then, I was rubbed all over with a rough loofah sponge. After it seemed like an entire layer of skin was buffed off, another bucket of water, and I was flipped over. I opened my eyes and glanced at the ladies next to me. I felt like one of the many fish that I saw in the market that day, which was being cleaned, descaled, and ready to be eaten. All of my human qualities had vanished, I was now not a vulnerable naked girl, but a piece of meat, a part of a routine process. After the back of my body was descaled, rinsed, and pounded. I was thoroughly lathered and rinsed again. The enjoyable part was the shampoo; the scalp massage was the best I’ve ever felt. I would have gone through it all again, just for the shampoo, but I figured I’d better wait until the top layer of skin grew back, before I tried it again. I was afraid with another treatment, my skin would be scraped off down to the bone. I went out of the spa feeling fresh and squeaky clean, smelling of soap. Then we went directly to Kalbi. I went out of there feeling even better, smelling of meat, beer, and soju.
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