A Review of Perfect Sweat: From Japan to Turkey

 

In a new broadcast series titled  Perfect Sweat, author and photographer Mikkel Aaland documents the current state of sauna around the world. He examines the turnover of generational trends and makes the point that the experiences that put us most in touch with our own humanity endure. Here, I continue my reviews of each of the seven episodes. Streaming info here.

Manga Sadou: Manga de Yomu Sauna-dou, the story of a man who becomes passionate about sauna 
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Japan

“One of the teachings of Zen is to be clean and pleasant. It’s about the inside and the outside…It is one way to achieve world peace.” 

–monk at Kennin-ji temple

Aaland travels to Japan where there are a great variety of ways to bathe and sweat in this country of hot springs. What is surprising is the rising popularity of Finnish style saunas alongside a renewed interest in the old bathing traditions, especially among young people. Aaland’s hosts in this episode are Miki Tokairin, photographer and sweat bathing expert who describes sauna as a way to deal with the stress of modern life, and Sho Ikushima, dancer, actor and sauna enthusiast who finds sauna useful for muscle recovery after a workout. 

There have been hot rooms in Japan for hundreds of years, often associated with Zen Buddhism. In historic Kyoto, Aaland and his guide visit a traditional kama-buro or kiln type of sweat bath heated with an oil stove. They visited a monastery at Kennin-ji temple to view an historic musi-buro, a meditation room that looked to me like a cabinet bed. Underneath, it would have been heated by a wood fired pot of water which created steam. They also visited a sentō, a public bath house in Tokyo where people affordably bathe in communal pools. As traditional as it is, this one has been remodeled to include a Finnish style sauna and cold plunge. It has also added food, drink, DJ’s and an art gallery. 

Another aspect of a Finnish style sauna that seems to excite Japanese bathers is the occasion to leave the city and take a sauna in nature. Aaland and his hosts visit a party of sauna tents set up near a lake where sauna goers enjoy cooling off and communing with nature. Aaland interviews manga/comic book artist Katsuki Tanaka, author of Sadou/ The Way of Sauna which has helped popularize sauna in Japan. He says, “Sauna gives us a great feeling which we call totonotta, a sort of mindfulness.” This episode illustrates the interesting east/west merger between the pursuit of mindfulness, as in Zen Buddhist meditation, and that relaxed contentment that follows a sauna experience.

Modeling hamam textiles at Çiragan Palace/ Kempinski Hotel 

Turkey/Türkiye

“This comes from our old traditions. Now there’s a trend to bring back the old. We’re trying to give re-birth to these traditions.”
–Woman in the hamam

The place for Turkish sweat bathing is called a hamam, its traditions go back to ancient Roman times. This episode really caught my interest because of the grandeur and history of the architecture, the joyful celebrations that took place in hamams and the highlight on textiles. Aaland was joined by host Elizabet Kurumlu, film producer, expert on Turkish bathing and excellent local tour guide.

The episode opens with a visit to Çukurcuma Hamam where Aaland and Kurumlu happen upon a “pledge hamam,” an event like buying a round of drinks—a donation to the community, a benevolent gesture offering free bathing for others in the hope that it makes a wish come true. Within the hamam, the scene is very much like something from a Roman frieze: women draped in towels and turbans sit in a spacious marbled hall (heated to about 113 F degrees); they dip bowls into pools of cool water and gently wash themselves. Their heels click languidly as they walk along the heated floor in takunya, wooden clogs. They cleanse their arms and legs with wash cloths in preparation for their Turkish massage. Once clean, women lie down on a warmed stone bed and get a spectacular massage involving lots of foamy bubbles. 

In this predominantly Muslim country, hamams are segregated by gender. Aaland later joins a “soldier hamam,” a party for a young man going off to do mandatory military service–there is music and dancing, bathing, shaving and eating. Later, Kurumlu visits a henna party at a hamam for an American woman marrying a Turkish man. The party of women moves in the traditional way from the room where people initially gather and dance followed by a transition to a moderately heated space as they bathe, finishing with the hottest room and the soapy massage.

As if the amazing architecture of these hamams was not enough, I was super fascinated to learn more about traditional towels and textiles. Aaland and Kurumlu visit the Çiragan Palace/ Kempinski Hotel which dates to the Ottoman Empire. There they have a hamam fashion show of gorgeous hand embroidered textiles from the 18th Century. During a visit to the textile hotspot of Bursa, Kurumlu explains that the “three musketeers of the hamam textiles” are 1) the pestemal that wraps around the body 2) the peskir, a smaller towel that can go over your shoulder or cover your hair and 3) the towel that you use at the end to dry off. This episode deepened my appreciation for the unique cultural expression of sweat bathing in Türkiye and truly made me wonder, where can I find a hamam? The experience looks heavenly.

Stay tuned for reviews of the final two episodes in Perfect Sweat: Norway and Burning Man