the jjimjilbang experience

I finally made it to a traditional Korean spa this week - only 10 months into living here. Many Koreans go a couple times a week.

The spas (찜질방 - roughly "jjimjilbang" - in Korean, extra stress on the first J) come in different sizes and with different amenities, but they're basically sites where communities gather to scrub, soak, sleep, chat and chill out. They're roughly $5 to $10 to get in, and you can stay as long as you want - many feature sleeping rooms or mats for open floor space. The bathhouse areas - equipped of some assortment of hot tubs, showers, saunas and pools, are separated by gender and you go sans clothing. But other areas of saunas, open spaces, television, PC rooms, karaoke rooms and massage offerings are coed and you wear standard-issue gymsuits. There's a pretty good write-up here if you want more info.

I honestly didn't know much about them before, and I'd been a little hung up on the naked part of the venture - not really wanting to hang out there nekked by myself, fending off what I was sure would be 10 times the normal amount of stares you collect as a foreigner just walking around fully clothed, and feeling odd about being seen in my birthday suit by co-workers, who have been the only other easy option of companions. But being a short-timer at a job gives you immense freedom, and going to the jjimjilbang is turning into the thing everyone does, and maybe I'm just over it anyway ... I finally bit the bullet and just went. And it was totally fine - great, in fact.

Whole families turn out together - multiple generations hanging out chatting and escaping the often grueling pace of life outside. It's a quiet and friendly and bustling place all at once, a stronger sense of community than anywhere else I've seen in the country yet, and such a vastly different world than exists in Western culture.

And the naked part, well turns out that was quite alright, too. There are stares, but you're staring too, a little, and mostly it's just not a big deal. Everyone's got a body and they're all different and the same - and you just get over it. Like being in a swimteam locker room again, but with hordes of strangers from age 2 to 82. It's really healthy dose of reality for Western inhibitions, I think. Strange that it's in the same place where it's considered daring to bare your shoulders or collarbones in public, but whatever.

Anyway, if you come to Korea, get to the jjimjilbang quicker than I did. It's cool.