The Japanese Bath

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About The Japanese Bath

Product 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 Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Bathing Entry The Datsuiba The Outside within the Inside Created Scenery Color With Darkness and Without Yuagari (afte bath) and Yusuzumi (enjoying the cool of the evening) Without Silence Bathing Japanese Style With and Without Clothing The Time of the Day Materials About Wood The Tools of Bathing Bathing Together Glossary Resources 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 Bruce Smith lover of history and historical writing, write on the Arts and Crafts movement, bungalows, craft, and food. Smith was the editor of American Bungalow News and associate editor of American Bungalow magazine. Smith co-owns The Arts and Crafts Press in Berkely, California, publishers of The Tabby: A Chronicle of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Yoshiko Yamamoto, lover of history and historical writing, write on the Arts and Crafts movement, bungalows, craft, and food. Yamamoto is both a student of life and of history. Yamamoto co-owns The Arts and Crafts Press in Berkely, California, publishers of The Tabby: A Chronicle of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Excerpt. © 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.