Bathing - By Abraham Lincoln

When I got to Japan in 1953 I didn't know how the Japanese bathed. A young lady worked at Camp Sendai in the Post Exchange (PX), and I had asked her for a date and she accepted and I followed her home. While walking down her street I saw families wearing kimonos (yukata), and sandals walking in the opposite direction. I asked her who these people were and where they were going. She told me they were going to the public bath house to take a bath.

I did not think that a public bath would be 'the' place for me to go with this young lady but she actually asked me if I would like to go. I was 19 years of age and I had visions and agreed to go with her to the public bath.

We went to her house first and she gathered the things she would need to take with her to the bath. I don't remember what all she took but I do remember that it was a yukata and wooden platform shoes (gatas). I went with what I had on.

Little did I know, much less think about, that I would be the odd character at the public bath (This was about 8 years after the war and most young children had never seen an American, much less a naked American). We walked from her house to the public bath. I had a white towel in one hand and as we passed people coming from the bath the families all smiled when they passed us (I should have guessed that I would be on display when those leaving the bath turned around and followed us back inside).



There is a protocol you are obliged to follow at these places and I was guided through this process with statements like: "Take all your clothes off and put them in a little pile over here. Then fill the basin with water from the faucet and squat down. And then you pour the water over your head. Then you can take that soap and wash yourself off. Then you should fill the basin again and pour it over your head and rinse off."

She took her clothes off, stacked them there, got a basin of water, squatted and poured the water over her head. She took the soap and lathered herself up and with another basin of water she poured it over her head and rinsed herself off. Nobody, but me, was even looking at her.

It turned out to be a great place to see an embarrassed American soldier when I began taking my clothes off. And everyone in the bathhouse was having a ball just watching me. They sure smiled a lot. Any thoughts I might have harbored about some liaison with a beautiful lady from Japan had evaporated.

I was standing there as naked as a Jaybird and every eye in the pool was looking me over. If what I had was out of view, the person looking would stretch until they saw what they were looking for—I guess. They always smiled.