Sunday, December 26, 2010

Jim-jil Balm

After leaving Thomas on the dance floor the night of my friend Isabel's birthday in December, Rebekah and I headed for the frigid temperatures on the streets of Itaewon-dong, eventually to rest our eyes and relax our bodies in the smooth luxuries of the nearest jim-jil-bang: Korea's purported paradise get-away, the public bath house. We ascended the three flights of stairs to the entrance of "Itaewon Land," intimately secluded just a block further from the main strip of the district's expensive establishments, and stepped indoors.

Once securely inside, Rebekah and I paid our 8,000 won, stored our shoes in tiny footlockers resembling campus mailboxes at TLU, and collected our pajamas for the night--a matching set of over-sized pink lounge-wear resembing a fraying pair of my mother's old shorts. Attendants then handed us two grey handtowels each, and neon yellow, curly rubber keychains with numbers on them to coordinate with our first-floor shoe slots and lockers upstairs. The numbers were shaped like keys and a magnetized circle of metal formed the blunt end that fit into the keyhole. "If you need anything," Rebekah tutored as we walked up the stairs carrying our bags and newly-rented luxury goods, "swipe your key and you can pay for it downstairs." Just like an old Western bar tab.

We ascended the stairs to the left of the check-in desk, only to descend a different case of them from the upstairs common area to the downstairs women-only showers. It was there that the two of us found our lockers and changed into our less-than-becoming sleepwear. As I had nothing else to don for church in the morning, I carefully folded or hung my clothing to keep it somewhat presentable.

After shedding our winter attire and collecting spare necessities like cell phones, which we might find useful as alarm clocks, we took a tour of the jim-jil-bang's other floors: the second, with its round-the-clock restaurant and loud communal room, suitable for families and late-night watchers of T.V.; the third, populated with expensive private baths; and the top floor, equipped with an all-night PC bang and a large room with shelf-like bunks for individuals. As none of the others had accomodations suitable for our quiet, single-women needs, the last floor was our stop for the night. Rebekah found me an unoccupied sleeping mat and a rectangular pillow, rare items indeed for a busy Saturday night, and we firmly installed ourselves on two of the top shelves.

It was like stepping into a memory of Alamo City's World Shakers youth camps or remembering Jubilee Ranch's three-tiered bunk beds, this fourth-floor salon: Sleeping spaces were built-in to each wall, with a large space in the middle for gathering. The room itself must have been thirty beds long and three bunks tall, with bed-space only as high as the second bunk. Each bed consisted of a box-shaped space with room enough to toss and turn, but not to stand up effectively. Inside that space was a miniature ondol floor, the traditional method Koreans use to heat their houses, only this one was a granite slab that, if turned on, stayed warm in the winter or cool in the summer.

Though my companion contested otherwise, I didn't need the added heat of the ondol, because throughout the night--despite the lack of such creature comforts as a warm blanket or soft pillow--I was hot. She had warned me to take my scarf as added warmth while I slept because "it gets cold up there," but I hardly needed the thing. It must have been 95 degrees just like the attic in my childhood home, I thought as I lay there fitfully for several minutes. Though Rebekah had fallen asleep right away, I couldn't. I finally roused myself to trudge downstairs to my locker and my five-hundred page book on world language history; perhaps reading a section of that might ease the heat and allow a few hours of sleep to come.

In the morning, just shy of six hours' sleep, the fun began: visiting the public bath. Rebekah had scooted off her perch minutes before me, so we blissfully missed each other in the communal shower room. She had already warned me about how the system worked, though--fully undress at your locker, place your postage-stamp towel anywhere strategic, and waddle with your bath necessities the hundred yards to the door of the cave-like room.

As I gingerly stepped foot into the dark-grey, cavernous public bath house, naked but for my pile of meager belongings clutched to my front side, an ajuma stooped with age crossed directly in front of me. I kept my eyes focused on the bright yellow elastic keychain she wore on her right ankle, lest my gaze float to a place other than her eyes. "Is this your first time?" she chirped in perfect English.

"Yes," I said hesitantly.

"You need these--" She stopped in front of neatly piled bath-house supplies and picked out a set for me: one small bowl, one larger one, and one stepping stool used for crouching on. She then proceeded to walk me to one of two partitions toward the back of the room, where older women stooped at a wall-full of mirrors and knee-high sinks to scrub each other clean.

Intimidated by the wet, sultry scene in front of me, I squeaked to myself, "Can't I just take a shower?" Quickly I found myself a vacant nook next to the stone wall separating the partitions and piled my bathing supplies atop its glassless window ledge.

The eye-level mirror I stood in front of was plastered with a colorful, water-resistant sign in hangul, an alphabet system I have by now managed to sound out, yet still find difficult to comprehend if not displaying a recognizably English word or cognate. If the sign read, "This is how you make the hot water HOT," I was unable to decipher it--and therefore stood for an agonizing ten minutes in a stream of ice-cold droplets.

In the mirror past the sign, I could see myself reflected from shoulderblade to head, but mercifully nothing else. I stared at my still-made-up face, trying not to notice another woman also populating the reflection. It was the first time I remember consciously not looking at myself as I bathed: Having to do something so private in front of strangers was bad enough; better not reinforce the fact that while I accomplished it, I was clothes-less.

As I stood there self-consciously in my corner, I saw another ajuma near me, this time stopping to use the shower next to mine; it was from her that I learned what my twin bowls were for. From the corner of my eye as I took care of my own business, I watched her stop her shower to fill a bowl with water. She then used that same bowl and a wash cloth to scrub some other part of her body, perhaps her hair. Her actions were strangely reminiscent of the scenes I had witnessed in Chungju of older women soaking produce in large vats of water. "Koreans wash themselves like they wash vegetables," I couldn't help but noting.

It was during my execution of the whole process, from locker to public bath, that I realized the front desk never bothered to give us robes. I spied Rebekah as my stitchless body left the shower room, herself fully clothed and sitting on the last step leading to the lockers, obliviously absorbed in a book. I was never so thankful that no one I knew looked up just then to say hello.

Yet in some respects, a robe would have been all but useless to the eastern methods playing themselves out downstairs. What I discovered throughout the unsettling morning was a strange lack of modesty among the Koreans. If they didn't notice me naked, they didn't notice themselves either. I could only liken the visit to the recurring dream that plagues everyone from time to time: You stand in the middle of your office or school, not a stitch of clothes on, and everyone else goes about their buisness as if all is as usual. And the only one who embibes something different is you.

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