Bathing through Taiwanʼs History

Toshiki Okada, the artistic director of Autumn Meteorite, describes this performing artsfestival as a “banquet of contexts.” At Autumn Meteorite, we provide this free handout inpaper and electronic formats to offer ways for people who encounter this festival to accessdeeper layers of meaning through a more diverse presentation of contexts. In particular,the pamphlet provides background information and related content for the curatedprograms through essays and dialogues, and is filled with essential texts such as first-timeinterviews with artists in Japanese.
This article introduces the Bathing through Taiwanʼs History section of Banquet of Contexts.

Bathing through Taiwanʼs History

Audiences of the Japanese-Taiwanese co-production The Bathhouse of Honest Desires (誠實浴池) may have been intrigued by the performance’s peculiar setting. In an island nation thatbears a resemblance to Taiwan, a long-abandoned bathhouse (hereafter referred to as a “publicbath,” in the sense of a bath open to the general public) has been turned into a well-patronizedsex establishment. Some viewers likely wondered if such places do in fact exist in Taiwan.

People living in Japan generally have a shared idea of a public bath, or sento. While most people today have never been regular visitors to neighborhood sento, which have been in decline fordecades, they are still familiar with the common image of sento that has been reproduced infilms and television dramas. In modern-day Taiwan, however, bathing in a public bath or hotspring is hardly a routine experience. Communal nude bathing is mostly limited to a subset ofpeople who may frequent hot spring resorts in the suburbs or mountains.

Even so, public baths similar to those in Japan once existed in significant numbers in citiesacross Taiwan, and this little-known fact is interwoven with the island’s complicated history.

This complexity is evident in different contexts throughout the performance. “We got newmilitary uniforms each time the government changed,” says a man in one scene. This linereflects Taiwan’s historical experience of being governed by a succession of external powerssince the 19th century—first the Qing dynasty, then Japan, and later the Chinese NationalistParty (KMT). This particular complexity is also evident in Taiwan’s public baths, or perhaps it isbetter to say that public baths offer a glimpse into the island’s complicated past, as I explainbelow.

Taiwan’s Complicated History and Public Baths

Taiwan was ruled by the Japanese Empire from 1895 to 1945. The most basic explanation of public bathing in Taiwan is that baths were introduced around the start of the Japanese colonial era in the late 19th century, and were constructed in large numbers across urban and rural Taiwan during this period. These baths shaped the bathing habits of the Taiwanese population.

Prior to Japanese rule, Taipei had just one public bath where people soaked in hot water, called Yong Yi Yuan (詠沂園). This bathhouse was said to have been built in a style from mainland China by Liu Mingchuan, the Qing governor of Taiwan Province. After the Japanese took over in 1895, they began building their own style of bathhouses, known at the time as yuya (湯屋), which spread throughout urban areas alongside ryotei restaurants and hot spring inns. Local Taiwanese, initially unfamiliar with Japanese bathing customs, gradually began to use the baths and even operate their own yuya. Meanwhile, the Japanese colonial government built numerous public baths in rural areas and smaller towns. This coincided with the development of hot spring destinations in suburban and mountainous areas into spa towns similar to those in Japan. In this manner, the rapid introduction of public baths established bathing culture throughout Taiwan.

Interestingly, one newspaper from the era carries an ideologically-tinted argument that the Japanese are a “nation of baths,” and bathing habits must be instilled in the Taiwanese population to turn them into “bath-loving citizens.” (“Bathhouses and Taipei,” Taiwan Nichinichi Shimpo, Dec. 5, 1911). Through Japanese rule, Taiwan was indeed transformed into a “nation of baths.”

What were this era’s baths like? Taiwanese sento were reported to be “similar in structure to those in Japan,” featuring a front desk (bandai), separate changing areas for men and women, and washing areas and communal tubs not unlike their Japanese counterparts (“Taipei Baths,”Taiwan Nichinichi Shimpo, Dec. 14–15, 1906). There were differences in details—for example,instead of expensive wooden pails, Taiwanese baths used tin or galvanized metal washbasins.The performance depicts a bathhouse featuring a mural of the sea and mountains, a symbolic motif of Japanese-style sento that was brought to Taiwan.

However, other kinds of baths have existed in Taiwan besides Japanese-built, Japanese-style bathhouses. These include Chinese-style private baths operated by Taiwanese owners during Japanese rule, with distinct cultural roots from China. Additionally, the influx of population from mainland China after World War II led to the introduction of “Shanghai-style” baths. These were very different from Japanese public baths, offering a wide range of services such as massage and body scrubbing, and served as social spaces where patrons could relax for hours. In the 21st century, both Japanese-style and Shanghai-style baths have disappeared almost completely from urban areas, but some public baths still remain in hot spring areas and are beloved by locals.

This discussion should make clear that the term “Taiwanese bathing culture” contains various cultural strands. The diverse medley of regional bathing traditions can be seen as a reflection of Taiwan’s complex history.

Public Baths and the Sex Industry

The particular public bath featured in the performance is explicitly identified as a sex industry establishment. Few likely require explanation that bathhouses and the sex industry have been closely intertwined throughout history. Public baths in Edo-era Japan often employed women known as yuna (湯女) who provided services to customers, and historical records show that some were engaged in prostitution. In Taiwan, as well, the famed Báng-kah (艋舺) pleasure quarter (now the district of Wanhua) in Taipei once contained numerous public baths.

The spread and longevity of public baths is also closely related to cultural attitudes toward nudity. During Japanese rule, customs of bathing nude alongside others did make inroads among the Taiwanese population. However, the mainland Chinese who arrived in Taiwan after the war waishengren (外省人) were unfamiliar with Japanese-style communal nude bathing.

The different cultural background of waishengren spurred some Japanese-style public baths in Taipei to shift to accommodate their unfamiliarity after the war, including by converting bathing areas into private bathing rooms. However, private baths became hotbeds for illegal prostitution during the 1970s and 1980s. Harsher police enforcement against these illegal activities in the 1980s was a blow to these facilities and one factor in the decline of urban public baths. Even so, there are still men-only sauna facilities in cities today that descend from the old public baths, including some where sexual services by women are reportedly available. Additionally, one of the aforementioned Shanghai-style baths that catered exclusively to men continues to operate as a gay sauna. Even though pure public baths have disappeared from urban areas, the existence of these successor facilities provides a reference point for understanding the setting of the performance.

Turning our attention from cities to suburban and mountain hot spring resorts, the connection between Taiwan’s hot springs and sex tourism cannot be ignored. One notable example is Beitou Hot Spring, where in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, the American magazine TIME published a controversial photograph showing a naked American soldier bathing with two women. It is true that Beitou attracted foreign criticism as a sex tourism destination not only for American soldiers but also Japanese visitors riding the wave of their country’s rapid economic growth. Prostitution remained legal at the time the photograph was taken, but was outlawed in 1979, resulting in a decline in sex tourism at hot spring resorts. Nevertheless, these historical factors left a deep imprint on the development and character of these resorts that should not be forgotten. It is also notable that all male customers depicted in the performance have military backgrounds. During Japanese colonial rule as well as later under the Kuomintang, pleasure quarters in each city were connected to the military to varying degree (although not a bathhouse, the brothels on postwar Kinmen Island are a well-known example, so much so that the movie Paradise in Service was made about them in 2014.)

As this discussion shows, public bathing in Taiwan is a topic that reveals a deep historical background. Although this essay is just a small window onto this history, I hope viewers of the performance The Bathhouse of Honest Desires will use the opportunity to reflect on these untold complexities of Taiwan’s past.

Public Bathhouse in Shaliao, Taiwan (photo by the author)