Working at a Japanese Sento: Work in Progress Japan #2, Honami Enya at Kosugiyu
The team here at Kintopia is proud to bring you the second episode of our ongoing Youtube series, Work in Progress Japan!
After exploring what it's like to be a young and entrepreneurial Japanese tea master, we look at another staple of traditional Japanese life: the bathhouse.
Japanese public baths, or sentos (銭湯) have been around since the introduction of Buddhism to Japan in the 6th century. They became immensely popular during the Edo period and peaked after the Second World War, back when most households didn't have their own bath. Now that households are equipped for personal hygiene, the number of sentos nationwide is declining, from over 11,000 in the early 90s to just over 3,500 in 2018. While the decline is steep, there are still more sentos in Japan than there are McDonalds or Starbucks; a testament to their enduring popularity.
For this episode, we followed Honami Enya, a freelance illustrator and manager at the very popular Kosugiyu sento in Koenji. She told us about what the sento means for her personally, how Kosugiyu is connected to the broader community, and her efforts to adapt and preserve the tradition of public bathing in the modern era.
The concept behind Work in Progress Japan is to take you deep into the lives of a few Japanese innovators who are busy reimagining Japan's cultural and societal landscape. It can be pretty hard for those not part of Japanese society to form an accurate impression of what it's like to live and work in Japan. Overseas media are usually not much help, publishing only stories that feed into a preconceived narrative regarding Japanese culture. That's why our mixed team of Japanese and foreign staff look at the kind of lifestyle that is quintessential to the Japanese way of life, yet often overlooked or forgotten.
Feel free to leave a comment on our Youtube page or reach out to us on social media with any feedback or ideas of workstyles you'd be curious to see in our series!
Once again thanks for watching, and stay tuned for more episodes early next year.
Happy holidays!
Directed by Dan Takahashi. Written and produced by Alex Steullet. Videography and film editing by Hayato Tamura. Special thanks to Honami Enya, Yusuke Hiramatsu, and the team and patrons of Kosugiyu and Kosugiyu Tonari.
Writer
Alex Steullet
Alex is the editor in chief of Kintopia and part of the corporate branding department at Cybozu. He holds an LLM in Human Rights Law from the University of Nottingham and previously worked for the Swiss government.
Editor
Dan Takahashi
Dan is an editor and photographer for Kintopia's Japanese twin website Cybozu-shiki. He is the most recent member to join the corporate branding department at Cybozu.
