Akiko knocks on my door. She says, “my grandmother wants me to tell you that the bath is ready.”

Thus starts my day. This is not out of some English high society novel where servants are preparing baths for you. This is daily living in Japan.

We share a small deep common bath that is heated to around 40 degrees Celsius. Although this bath is old and in a 100 year old Japanese style house, there is a cute woman’s voice that comes on from the bath tub heating device that tells you in Japanese that the bath is at temperature and ready.

This is one of the things that fascinates me in Japan, the old and the new. Technologies that bring a more human touch to interactions, like your toilet talking to you and providing you with the opportunity to customize your experience, your car telling you the door is open, or your bath telling you it is ready for you.

The true cleaning takes place before the bath when you sit on a small plastic stool with a plastic basin and hishaku water scooper to clean yourself, which I do rather awkwardly, shivering, and anxious to get into the warm water quickly.

There is a low shower-type device and I tried to use that the first time but first it takes a long time to heat up and wastes a lot of water.

In a household that tries to conserve water and energy at every turn, from wearing more clothing inside the house when the weather becomes cooler, heating up only the room that is being used, drying clothes on racks and lines inside and outside the home, and carefully recycling, showers seems blatantly wasteful.

I notice my North American routine and habits that I miss but are very wasteful I admit, and the bath experience in itself is helping me become more mindful in living here

While Japan has all the distractions like we have at home, the cell phones, the video games, the computers, the TV, you name it, I find the people in general more mindful, generous and kind then they are at home.

There is rushing but not carelessly so that we drop things because we are not thinking, trip because we are not careful about where we are going, or push others aside with our back packs by mistake in our rush to get somewhere else. I’m afraid that’s me sometimes.

In a line-up you don’t see people impatient and giving you stressed loud sighs or rude stares if you take more time at the counter. Everyone knows that waiting is part of the process of waiting and if there is any question of who goes first, it’s always given to the other person.

In a long line-up at a busy ramen restaurant last night, I was standing beside a group of high school boys. The server came out to ask who’s next. I didn’t say anything because I understand about what half people are saying. It’s a different world I live in here when people expect me to be like them but I am not. I understand, sometimes more, sometimes less, and this was a less moment.

What surprised me is that the boys spoke up to say I was next, gesturing to me kindly to go ahead, and the server came to me in a friendly manner to ask me to stand next to the door because I was next. This I understood and I was touched. I don’t see this happening often back home.

Back to the bath. After washing myself as clean as I can get and trying to throw water everywhere on my body as I don’t want to leave any soap residue in the bath water, I open the hard-plastic covers to the bath and enter. It is warm and comforting though when I sit down my legs are scrunched up against my body. I wonder how people manage that are taller than me.

I think that’s part of what keeps the older generations that live in the house, including Akiko’s mother and grandmother in her eighties so healthy. The bending, the squatting, the crawling, the entering into small places, the sitting down at low tables with legs crossed, the bringing out of the futon and covers every night to sleep on and then putting them away every day in the closet, and the sleeping on the floor, would be tiresome to us, but is part of their daily lives and is in fact keeping them healthy.

We go to yoga classes back home to do this kind of stretching, especially bending and squatting, and are told that if we keep on doing this we will stay healthy and flexible as we age. Living here is proof of this. In fact, lots of workers begin their days with stretching exercises at their offices. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnZJINpzhs

I also believe living in community keep us healthy. Here there are four generations living together in two houses side by side on Akiko’s grandmother’s property and one dog that nobody wanted so the grandmother took in. The generations help each other, in particular the mother and grandmother help with the daughter and her family to make their lives easier, in particular taking care of her young child when the day care is not available or when the child is sick.

Back to the bath. I often don’t take baths at home because I don’t make the time, think it will take too long, and don’t like my body getting colder while my bottom half is warm and no matter what position I’m in I can’t seem to get comfortable. Don’t worry, I do take showers. When I do go for a bath, it’s a luxurious thing for me like a spa night or when I’m not feeling not well with a cold.

The Japanese style bath makes sense in that the warm water is farther up on the body and the whole family uses the water that is not for cleaning but solely for relaxation like a hot tub. I find that there are many ways that the Japanese pause and are still in their day to day lives, bathing is one of them.

Being still and breathing into the present moment is something we don’t do enough, me included. Popular travel writer Pico Iyer, who lives in Japan and I have had the good fortune to speak to recently, speaks brilliantly about the art of stillness in his Ted Talk that over 2.7 million have viewed.  https://www.ted.com/talks/pico_iyer_the_art_of_stillness

We want more peacefulness and stillness in our lives. Then why don’t we bring more in? What are we afraid of? Why do we crave our cell phones or other distractions when are still?

I admit that I once even binged on Netflix while I was in the bath, the lap top well positioned away from the bath in case you are wondering, and while fun at the time, I felt guilty for having to have a diversion even in a bath. And I was so tired, I fell asleep and woke up in a cold bath with Netflick waiting for me to continue. Not exactly a mindful moment.

I am fascinated by the Japanese approach to living and baths. My Japanese heritage is sometimes buried deeply beneath by my Canadian roots. However, with every bath here and chance to be still, I am becoming more mindful and coming home. I am turning Japanese!

Also published on Medium.