The Japanese Bath
- Book Review,
by Bruce Smith, Yoshiko Yamamoto
Book Description
In the West, a bath is a place one goes to cleanse the body. In Japan, one goes there to cleanse the soul. Bathing in Japan is about much more than cleanliness: it is about family and community. It is about being alone and contemplative, time to watch the moon rise above the garden. Along with sixty full-color illustrations of the light and airy baths themselves, The Japanese Bath, delves into the aesthetic of bathing Japanese style and the innate beauty of the steps surrounding the process. The authors explain how to create a Japanese bath in your own home. A Zen meditation, the Japanese bath, indeed, cleanses the soul, and one emerges refreshed, renewed, and serene.
From the Inside Flap
In the West, a bath is a place one goes to cleanse the body. In Japan, one goes there to cleanse the soul. Bathing in Japan is about much mor than cleanliness, though cleanliness is certainly important. It is about family and community--the washing of each other's backs before bathing. It is also about being alone and contemplative, time to watch the moon rise above the garden. The idea of taking time and care with one's bath in Japan is as important as taking time and care with the cooking and serving of a meal. There is also a ritual to taking a Japanese bath, a prescribed order of rinsing, washing, and soaking that is passed down from one generation to the next. The Japanese Bath delves into the aesthetic of bathing Japanese style--the innate beauty of the steps surrounding the process along with sixty full-color illustrations of the light and airy baths themselves. A Zen meditation, the Japanese bath cleanses the soul, and one emerges refreshed, renewed, and serene.
From the Back Cover
Time to watch the moon rise over the garden--the aesthetic of the Japanese bath exquisitely captured in photgraphy and text.
About the Author
Lovers of history and historical writing, Yoshiko Yamamoto and Bruce Smith write on the Arts & Crafts movement, bungalows, craft, food, and Japanese aesthetics. Together they have written The Beautiful Necessity: Decorating with Arts & Crafts, and Arts & Crafts Ideals: Wisdom from the Arts & Crafts Movement. Smith has also authored Greene and Greene: Masterworks. They own the Arts & Crafts Press in Berkeley, California, where they print letterpress and hand-bind books and the periodical The Tabby: A Chronicle of the Arts & Crafts Movement.
Excerpted from The Japanese Bath by Bruce Smith, Yoshiko Yamamoto. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction We have lived our lives outside of Japan for more than a decade now. One of us was born in the center of Tokyo; the other merely lived and worked in Japan for four years. Yet, wherever we are now, wherever we live, work, or travel, we both carry elements of that culture that we count as essential to the way we want to live. At home, we eat at least once a week a meal of soba, the buckwheat noodles that are served in hot broth during winter and cold in summer, carefully arranged on a bamboo tray. We value in others that essential part of Japanese communication that places the obligation upon the listener to understand all that cannot be directly said by the speaker. And nightly, we try to bring as end to the mad whirl of the day by slowly, carefully sinking into the hot water of a bath.
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