Sauna Culture In Japan - Transcript

JC: Julie Yu-Wen Chen

EAH: Eetu-Antti Hartikainen

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Announcer: This is the Nordic Asia Podcast.

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JC: Welcome to Nordic Asia Podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region. My name is Julie Yu-Wen Chen, Professor of Chinese Studies at University of Helsinki, Finland. Join me today to talk about sauna Culture in East Asia is Eetu-Antti Hartikainen, a research student at Hokkaido University in Japan, who is embarking on his PhD to continue his research on sauna culture in East Asia. Actually, Eetu-Antti was a formerly a student at the University of Helsinki specializing in Asian Studies. His former master's thesis was related to sauna culture in Japan and he has also work experience in this industry. So I think he's the best person to come to our Nordic Asia Podcast to share with us his views on the sauna culture in Japan. Apparently, sauna has originated from Northern Europe and even in Finland I think a lot of households has their own sauna. So it is a bit curious and intriguing why sauna would be popular or this is actually a question mark. Is it popular in some parts of Asia? Eetu-Antti, welcome to Nordic Asia Podcast. Can you briefly introduce yourself? What are you doing in Japan now?

EAH: Thank you so much, and I'm really glad to be able to participate in this podcast. My name is Eetu-Antti Hartikainen. I did both my Bachelor's and Master's degrees Asian Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland and currently I'm here in Sapporo doing tourism studies at Hokkaido University. Yeah, as you said, my state is currently this research student, so I'm hoping to officially join the PhD program starting next spring. Simultaneously I am working as an export manager for a Finnish sauna export company. So, I also get their practical side of doing sales and marketing of saunas as well as going through the whole of these export processes to both Europe and East Asia.

JC: Do you think people in East Asia are interested in sauna?

EAH: Yes, I definitely think there is a strong interest in saunas and especially talking about Japan since that is the context that I am most familiar with. There has been a huge sauna boom in Japan in the 2010s and I think it even got more intense. During the coronavirus pandemic, there were a lot of like new sauna facilities constructed. And there was a demand for this type of, for example, outdoor saunas that you can go to like head away from the bustle of cities and go have your kind of own time of peace and relaxation in the middle of nature. And then this kind of private rental saunas that you can, for example, rent with like a really small group of friends, even though there's like all kinds of social distancing going on.

So I feel like there's been like several new sauna facilities that have been popping up all across Japan. It's not just these new facilities, but also saunas being incorporated into older bathing infrastructure. For example, the centre public bath facilities that you can find in several neighbourhoods across Japan and then also these different kinds of hot spring resorts that want to integrate saunas in their facilities. And I think also like especially looking at my work site, I think there's been a lot of interest from China as well regarding saunas and especially there seems to be a lot of demand for finished wood and wood products. I think the quality of finished wood is seen as like really good over there. So people are willing to pay a lot in order to get these Finnish imports. And with this I'm especially talking about this kind of more high-end project, for example luxury hotels, elegant club rooms and these different kinds of well equipped gyms that want to have kind of saunas as part of their experience. So I think this all has to do with this kind of changing perception that saunas can be consumed as part of this kind of healthy and wellness kind of lifestyle and can be integrated into like one's own lifestyle.

JC: Among East Asian countries, which country is most into sauna?

EAH: You might already guess this from what I just told you, but I would definitely have to say Japan, because sauna business has been very established in the country. I think it already began somewhere in the 1950s and 1960s and there was the first sauna boom already in the 1960s, which was mostly triggered by the Tokyo 1964 Summer Olympics. And I think since then there have been constantly these new actors coming in, different kinds of organizations and Businesses, especially in recent years, there have been a lot of like notable investments have been made in Japan regarding sauna. Japan has been identified as this growth opportunity, this kind of business. So I really think that if these major Sona manufacturing companies have not been looking at Japan before, I think they definitely are looking in the direction of Japan now to see kind of where the situation developed, like whether this is just a more short lived boom or something. That's actually more kind of sustainable and long-lasting when I'm traveling around in Japan, like I find saunas in even the most remote locations away from bigger cities. This has also been enabled by these different kinds of mobile saunas that have been. Very popular in Japan, for example, kind of sauna huts that you can you put like wheels under them. So it's basically you can tow the sauna behind you with a car and take it with you for example to a camping site elsewhere in the country. And also these kind of tent saunas that you can pack up in a really compact space and then set up really quickly elsewhere. So I think there's this also, aside from wellness and health, there's this strong association of saunas with the kind of more adventurous outdoor culture. But I think this is so far this, this has been a phenomenon in Japan, but I hope this kind of outdoor culture with saunas could spread maybe somewhere else but in neighbouring countries as well in the future. And also one aspect that I really find interesting in Japan is also these sauna products and goods that they're selling. Of course, we also in Finland we sell these kind of, for example, sauna, hats and towels. And they have become also kind of like global phenomena. You can find them in different countries as well. But in Japan, they've kind of taken this commercialization and kind of productization a bit further in that you can find a lot of, for example, sauna hats with different huge and beautiful unique designs. And they might have this kind of logos and slogans of different sauna facilities in them. So I think in a way you could talk about this process of localization, like a global kind of global sauna products being kind of custom-tailored to the Japanese market, and demands of Japanese customers. So I think there are still lots of different kinds of processes going on in Japan right now.

JC: I'm curious because you mentioned Japanese and Chinese are using sauna. How about the Koreans?

EAH: They actually have a really strong tradition of sauna culture. They have "jjimjilbang" (찜질방), this kind of traditional kiln saunas that they like to go to, but our company does not have business in Korea at least yet.

JC: And also I'm curious about this movable sauna, are they from Finland or Japan?

EAH: Actually both. I think a lot of these kind of movable saunas are imports from Finland. But I think there has recently been a lot of interest in making these kinds of domestic products as well. And I know that there are some domestic products made in Japan, but I think it's still kind of a process because somehow if you buy the import from Finland, there's this certain promise of quality and you know like what you're getting, but it's still like unclear what kind of quality domestic product would be like. Both options are available at the moment, but I think the situation is developing a lot all the time.

JC: You know, in Finland I have not tried movable sauna. So I'm wondering, is movable sauna more popular in Japan than in Finland?

EAH: I think so, definitely. I think there has been like surge in popularity Finland as well. Recently I've seen this kind of different kind of projects centering on these movable sauna and people like this more social type of sauna. They want to be like spontaneous and set up in sometimes maybe even in surprising environments like the middle of the city or maybe somewhere a bit further from the city in a natural environment. Japan has kind of really reached new heights with this and it's really, really popular in Japan currently.

JC: Another relevant question is that the Japanese and the Koreans, they all have their own hot spring bathing culture. So don't they have something similar already? why do they want to look for something from Northern Europe?

EAH: Yes, they definitely have like their own hot spring bathing culture to begin with. Even more than that, like I mentioned previously, like the Koreans have their own this traditional kiln sauna culture. But also in Japan actually the word "furo" (風呂) udo which you used to refer to this kind of deep-water baths was originally used to refer to this kind of steam baths where you envelope yourself in steam. And I guess it's technically a bit different from saunas, since the idea is that there's this kind of boiling water where you get the steam and that is directed towards the room instead of in saunas, where it's like rocks or a specific stove that that you use to generate the heat. But it still demonstrates that there's this kind of consciousness among East Asian people. They're familiar with this type of bathing like bathing in steam. So it's not entirely like unfamiliar to them, like some people might think that like OK, East Asian people they go to like hot springs and they might not know much about like saunas or like how to go into a sauna. But I think like some of the tradition can speak that there's a lot of familiarity with this type of steam bathing. I think it's really interesting like also talking about like hot springs in the contemporary era because as I said before, like saunas have been incorporated into a lot of these hot spring facilities or like hot spring resorts. So whether you're going to this hot spring resort for the hot spring or if you like to go to the sauna, you kind of get both in the same experience. And I think this speaks a lot about the kind of changing role of bathing since everyone nowadays has these like private bathrooms at home, so it's not purely just about like this hygiene and cleaning yourself, but the entertainment aspect has been getting stronger. So I think a lot of bathing facilities they're looking to incorporate these all kind of novel and new forms of bathing in their facilities and I think like this so nice, you know still likes it's a bit different especially like the Finnish style of sauna going. So people are looking to kind of incorporate this kind of interesting and new experience that people are demanding to have in their own.

JC: Are you aware of any difference or major difference between the sauna culture in Japan and the one in Finland or other Nordic countries?

EAH: Yes, there are a lot of differences. First of all, they have like some of their domestic elements here in Japan, which I have not seen anywhere else. And I think one of the most significant ones is the concept of "totonou" (ととのう) - the "sauna trance" achieved by alternating between hot and cold. It is based on the idea that there is this kind of cycle in sauna going where you first go into the sauna to kind of heat yourself up and then after that, you enter the cool pool, "mizuburo" (水風呂), where you kind of cool down yourself and then after that you relax, preferably in a separate outdoor space reserved for that. But sometimes this relaxation space might be kind of reserved indoors and then this sauna. The idea is kind of that you do several of these sets in tandem to kind of reach this state where like due to kind of change in blood pressure you kind of start to feel this feeling of kind of euphoria or you kind of get a certain kind of high, kind of achieve this state of sauna trance.

A lot of young people especially have been interested in that and kind of become sauna enthusiasts because they like to seek for this experience and this cold pool like the mizuburo I think is something really unique to Japanese sauna culture since for example, in Finland we are also familiar with this kind of cold plunge. We make hole in the frozen lake during winter and then we dive in it. But this cold pool is a bit different in that it's usually like set up the sauna space like next to the sauna room. So there's like quick access from the sauna to the cold pool. So I think it's something that I haven't seen anywhere else and almost all of the Japan. And in saunas, they are sure to kind of incorporate this mizuburo cold pool in their facilities.

And then talking about different elements from, for example, Finland and other countries, many like the Finnish style of sauna going because it's considered to be kind of relatively mild, somewhat around 80 degrees Celsius, which is a temperature that allows you to stay in the sauna for a longer period of time and maybe to kind of socialize if you have the opportunity and then the atmosphere is a bit more wet the compared to maybe other types of saunas because you're kind of actively casting water on the stove to generate this steam that then spreads around the sauna room. But I think it's also interesting how in Japan like some of these Finnish style saunas are made on Japanese soil. But then this kind of agency of casting water on the stove yourself has not really spreadt around that much yet, because there's a lot of precautions and worries about if people actually got to kind of regulate the amount of steam in the sauna room themselves. They might, for example, get hurt if they don't know the customs. So, there's a worry of like getting a burn or like injuring yourself when you're kind of interacting with the stove. So for a long time facilities, they either automatized this casting water on the stove or they had the specific sauna staff who came inside the kind of sauna room to do this. But like currently there's been a more of like a demand for this own agency. People want to be able to do more themselves and that is why a lot of facilities have started allowing this kind of people casting the water on the stove themselves. So it's interesting to see how this develops also in the upcoming years and what kind of elements of Japanese want to take from Finnish sauna culture and what they do not want to.

One big country where the Japanese get inspiration from is Germany because the Germans have their own sauna tradition of this "Aufguss" or "Aufuguusu" (アウフグース) where the idea is that there is this sauna master who comes inside the sauna room and they have this towel where they've infused aroma like essential oils. And then they swing this towel around in the sauna room to kind of spread this aroma and heat waves. Around the sauna room and the Japanese have really like integrated this tradition in their sauna going and they have their own institution that provides kind of licenses for practitioners to practice this. In saunas and they have also created their own kind of domestic form, which is known as neppa" (熱波) - literally means "heat wave", a Japanese sauna tradition similar to Aufguss but with more performative and entertainment elements. There's a person who comes inside the sauna room and they swing the towel around. In the sauna. But then there is a certain kind of more performative elements in that they play these certain characters, so while they're swinging, they'll towel around. It's all about also the kind of entertainment and keeping the customers inside the sauna. This entertainment kind of resembles maybe kind of a stage play or theatre as well. So that was a really interesting experience for me, experiencing that social activity for the first time in a Japanese sauna. But yeah, like just to sum up would say that in Japanese sauna going, they have like some domestic elements, but then they also take in these different elements from different sauna culture, but still also interpreting them in different ways so that they form something that is I think distinct to Japanese.

JC: In Germany if you're in the public sauna, very often you're naked and male and females are mixed well. In Finland in public sauna, usually you have to wear swimming suits and then male and female can mix. How about in Japan?

EAH: Yes, I think a lot of the places are still like gender segregated. So they have like male and female sections traditionally. They have also had these kind of male-only facilities that are only catered towards men. It has been like traditionally these kind of businessmen, like kind of oriented towards these businessmen who want to be able to like, relax, enjoy themselves after a busy day of work. So it might only be they might allow access only for men and like some of the facilities have this heritage can be seen like in the contemporary facilities as well, so that they're only oriented towards men. But then we have these like gender-segregated ones and also these different kinds of like outdoor sauna for example, and like private rentals sauna they allow kind of like mixing the genders, but it's usually you wear swimsuits, but then you can go together with a group and enjoy the sauna atmosphere together, regardless of gender. And then also in really recent years for example in these male-only facilities, they've started to hold these kind of Ladies Day ("rediisudee", レディースデー) events that they open the male-only facilities for women on a specific day. It might usually be like once per month within a certain time period that they kind of opened the male facilities like exclusively to be used by women during that time. And there also have been like some developments of creating these women only facilities where only women can enter.

JC: I notice in Asia sometimes they don't really allow children to participate.

EAH: There is some worries because I've been asked this question a lot of time that people don't really want to bring their children into saunas because it's seen as kind of a health hazard. They usually try to ask me for advice like what is the age like when I can bring my children into soil, like I want to get them  acquainted with saunas because usually the parents themselves like to go to sauna very much and they want to introduce their children to their custom. It's really difficult for me to answer because I think I've been going to sauna all my life and like kind of my parents have guided me on the ways of how to do it since I was really young. So, it's really hard to kind of give an estimate of where, when, starting what age and like how many minutes you should, you can be able to put your child in a sauna space. There is a consciousness that saunas are possibly very dangerous and that maybe children shouldn't be allowed to use them.

JC: I think in Finland you put your baby into the sauna already.

EAH: Yes, definitely. Yeah. I think in Finland, it's more about the kind of feeling of trying out sauna maybe little by little for the first time and then maybe when you get a little bit older just like taking you in the sauna for like longer period of time. And it's all about the kind of listening to your body and like when it gets too hot, then you know immediately it is too hot, you will get out and cool down.

JC: Well, my next question, and perhaps the last question is related to your research. What have you found your master thesis? Are you continuing the same kind of research at Hokkaido University?

EAH: Yes, I'm actually doing a different kind of research at Hokkaido University, but kind of expanding from my master's thesis. Since in my master's thesis, I’ve looked at this kind of social distinction of sauna enthusiasts and in seeing how they make distinctions to non-enthusiasts, but also distinctions and differentiations between each other. I interviewed 67 sauna enthusiasts all across Japan, some online and some I got to do locally after the coronavirus restrictions loosened up a bits between January and March 2023. I kind of looked at the ways of these things like for example how they may make differentiated themselves to non-enthusiasts. They had like these different types of values and norms that they used to differentiate themselves to non-enthusiasts, for example in how they kind of thought that they can like manage their bodily and mental health aspects better by going into the sauna and being able to refresh themselves after a busy working week. Being able to find this kind of certain strength for next week and be prepared for next week's challenges. And then also there's a lot of shared consensus about how travel was kind of expected and required for sauna culture participation because people don't really have saunas in their own private bathrooms at homes. There were like these different kinds of coronavirus restrictions. People managed to kind of stay connected on various platforms, for example in the digital environment, like social media. But like what was really interesting was how people made, like sauan enthusiasts made distinctions to each other in how they tested the kind of like social boundaries. For example, people in this central public bathing facilities in neighbourhoods they had like these frequent patrons who had been coming to the same facility for several decades, they had this sort of prestige, kind of higher hierarchical position in the facility. People who don't do not come to the sauna as often had maybe difficulties like challenging this position and their kind of cultural capital that they have.

Even more popular with younger sauna enthusiasts is that people like to go travel around Japan experiencing the unique features of different saunas, and then disseminating this information in social media. And in this way kind of bringing in this information and their prestige that that they're like really experienced sauna enthusiasts. And I also found out like some differences regarding money and time restrict the possibilities to do this kind of sauna going and therefore your sauna experience might be really different from others. Because of that and also for example, your gender affected this centrally as well because I mentioned that there are for example these male-only facilities. So for some women living in certain areas with only these male-only facilities might be really difficult to find sauna for themselves. So it might affect this distinction and your kind of personal sauna experience a lot, but I found out basically that there were a lot of these delineation between age, gender and social class. And they had a lot to do with kind of the different kind of core categories or themes that I found.

JC: During the COVID time, if people went to sauna, did they have to wear mask?

EAH: Yes, actually this is a good question because the one thing that they did is that you didn't necessarily have to wear a mask, but you were not permitted to talk inside the sauna room. And this was kind of supposed to be a way of preventing like the spread of the coronavirus. So this one reason why this kind of idea of silent and meditative atmosphere has been kind of accepted as this social norm. In Japanese saunas, especially in bigger cities, because people want to kind of avoid the spread of the coronavirus, the solution was that people should not open their mouths to talk. So we could keep these public sauna facilities open. But I've seen some people wearing this kind of custom sauna mask that you can use also inside the sauna and in wet environment.

JC: And about your future research at Hokkaido University, can you briefly tell us?

EAH: What I really want to do in my PhD research is to kind of expand on these topics or this kind of social nature of sauan going that I discussed. I want to look at especially this phenomenon of saunatabi (サウナ旅) which is this sauna-centered tourism in Japan. So basically you take like saunas as your primary objective for your travel and it kind of changes the lot of different kind of priorities and motivations that you have in mind when doing this kind of trip because it's really centered around the like different sauna locations. So what I want to do in my PhD, I would like to look at the social, green and digital skills. That are utilized in these different sauna building projects. For example, in my MA thesis I found out that there are a lot of these different kind of needs, wants and desires regarding sauna going and how sauna should be utilized, as a place for enjoyment. So I want to see how the sauna entrepreneurs kind of utilize these social skills and negotiate between these different kind of objectives and needs to create this sauna environment, digital environment. There is really an online database kind of elaborating on the different saunas around Japan and the database contains now even more than 12,000 saunas which you can search for according to like different criteria in the system. And then also different kinds of social media are utilized really effectively to promote sauna and do this kind of like sauna related marketings.

JC: You have been listening to the North Asia Podcast with me, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and to Eetu-Antti Hartikainen at Hokkaido University in Japan.

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