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During one recent
session of the "Naked School" at the Hinodeyu bath house, nine
men sat around the bath, listening to an expert on the ancient
board game Go.
"I think young people would be interested and come back to
communal baths if they knew these kind of classes are offered
here," Tadashi Manayama, a 37-year-old architect, said after
class.
Yuichi Tamura, manager of the Hinodeyu, operated by his family
since 1939, said many young people had never been to a communal
bath because most homes have modern bathrooms.
"I wanted to give them a reason to visit us by offering an odd
event like this naked school," Tamura told Reuters Television.
In its heyday, more than 500 people bathed daily at Hinodeyu
near Tokyo's Asakusa district. Today that number is around 100,
he said.
Traditional bathhouses, known as sento, once numbered more than
2,600 in Tokyo alone in the late 1960s, but since then have seen
a gradual decline and prompted some bathhouses to come up with
novel ideas to lure customers.
At Hinodeyu, the admission price of 460 yen ($4) allows anyone
to attend a class on the topic of the month. Bathers learned
about traditional comedy in April, while the topic for March was
the public bath industry.
Looking ahead to June, bathers will learn how to deal with the
local problem of stray cats.
"It can be anything as long as you have something to teach
people," Hinodeyu's website said.
(Reporting by Hyun Oh, editing by Darren Schuettler)
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