I lived in Japan for eight years but didn’t go to a public bathhouse until my last year.  Like a lot of westerners, the idea of walking around naked with a bunch of other people made me really uncomfortable (even when I was in high school nobody took showers after gym class.  We just applied extra deodorant and let the sweat air dry throughout the next class).  It was even worse for me since I was virtually guaranteed to be the only non-Japanese person in the bathhouse, and eyes would be naturally drawn to my white (pale) skin.

So I avoided going to these bathhouses and hot springs, despite all the positive reviews I heard from friends, family and students. I was finally encouraged (forced) to go to one by my wife in the last year of my time in Japan.  And of course it was great.  Different types of baths with a range of temperatures; water that contained a variety of soothing salts; a rustic look of the older bathhouses, and a good view of the surrounding countryside of those that had an emphasis on the outdoors.

And nobody cared about me and my naked body.  I was actually disappointed.  I had geared myself up mentally (and a bit physically) and yet nothing.  I was probably doing more staring than anyone else was, since I was the newbie.

Right then and there I realized that being naked amongst strangers didn’t really matter, and that all my fears and feelings of disgust were built on nothing but false information that had surrounded me while growing up.

A few months after this amazing discovery, I was in a classroom where I was leading a general discussion topic on travel.  One student had recently visited China and was talking about her experiences.  The toilet situation in China was brought up by another student and soon everyone was complaining and expressing shock and disgust at the fact that a lot of the stall doors are missing in public bathrooms there, and that in some places there is only a trough in the ground where individuals would squat, urinate and defecate, all next to each other with no privacy whatsoever.

As the students talked about this I realized that they sounded exactly like how I had been when I was terrified of being naked in front of strangers.  And if I could get over it so easily in a society where people don’t care about public bathing, why couldn’t I squat next to a stranger and squeeze out a bit of fecal matter?  Does it matter?  Obviously there are smell and sound factors that aren’t present with public bathing but isn’t the importance of those particular factors also a result of social conditioning?

I pointed out to my students that if I could become comfortable bathing with strangers then they had a good chance of being OK with dumping some bodily waste next to someone they didn’t know.  Surprisingly, this point wasn’t all that well received.

But it’s a valid point.  All we know is that which we have been told (see my upcoming article, “Why is my kid better than yours?” for insight on training kids who essentially come to us as blank canvases).  In today’s information era where everyone has an opinion and they’re all the same, knowledge is seemingly more important than thought.

So embrace those differences when you’re in a different society.  It’s safe while you’re there and you’ll carry a bit of that experience back with you when you return to where you’re from.  That bit of experience will build collectively with those around you and change will happen.  Most of the twentieth century (in North America) was about those changes as the rules of society were continually looked at as being unnecessary (the way women, people that weren’t white, and homosexuals were perceived and treated are obvious examples). 

So as silly and petty our society can be at times (Obama likes French mustard on his burgers.  Oh no!) there is always hope that we can move past what we are simply told and learn to think about why it is being said.  Maybe in the future there will be public bathhouses in North America were everyone is naked together; Japan might install tiled troughs with waterfalls for everyone to relieve themselves in; and China, who knows?  The future is wide open.  It just has to be thought up.

Image via Wikipedia