Wellness: The Jimjilbang Korean Spa Experience
The tradition of Jimjilbang -or Korean spas, has been known amongst those interested in wellness for years and talked about XYZ.
Participating in this multi-generational experience here in South Korea was such a treat and I hope if you're ever here, or thinking about coming, you definitely should do it.
History - Facts: A jjimjilbang (Korean pronunciation: [t͈ɕimdʑilbaŋ]; Hangul: 찜질방; Hanja: 찜질房; MR: tchimjilbang) is a large, gender-segregated public bathhouse in Korea, furnished with hot tubs, showers, Korean traditional kiln saunas and massage tables. Jjimjil is derived from the words meaning heating. In other areas of the building or on other floors there are unisex areas, usually with a snack bar, ondol-heated floor for lounging and sleeping, wide-screen TVs, exercise rooms, ice rooms, heated salt rooms, PC bang, noraebang, and sleeping quarters with bunk beds or sleeping mats.[1] Many of the sleeping rooms have themes or elements to them. Usually jjimjilbangs will have various rooms with temperatures to suit guests' preferred relaxing temperatures.[2] The walls are decorated with woods, minerals, crystals, stones, and metals to make the ambient mood and smell more natural. The elements used have traditional Korean medicinal purposes in the rooms.[3]
Most jjimjilbangs are open 24 hours and are a popular weekend getaway for Korean families.[4] During the week, many hardworking Korean men, whose families live out of the city for cost savings, stay in jjimjilbangs overnight after working or drinking with co-workers late into the night. The cost is around 8,000-12,000 won to enter, and one can sleep overnight and enjoy the bathhouse and sauna.
We visited the Jimjilbang at Spa World in Busan - twice actually because we liked it so much. For XYZ we were able to soak in gender-separated hot springs and then come together to walk the reflexology friendly outdoor footbath and visit the various saunas to sweat out all the toxins we've been consuming lately. The XYZ sauna was the most intense and made me feel better than I had in years.
Many people come to a jimjilbang to deal with a hangover and sleep it off before they head home. What was most interesting to me was the varied ages of everyone there. I saw a middle aged woman walking her 75+ year old mother around and helping her in and out of the tubs. I saw another young mother maybe 35 years old with her 6 year old daughter plunging in the pools. In Korea, families typically visit the jimjilbang once a week - together! What an epiphany that wellness, and taking care of the body is ritualized into regular life. What do we in the West need to learn about such rituals of being in the body and taking care of the body? Perhaps this is the fountain of youth we all seek (In South Korea, health facts here).
As an American, I never see this kind of wellness experience unless you seek it and it always comes with a bit of a hefty price. If you go to a spa for a massage or a soak it is typically an expensive thing that many judge you for as a thing of privilege. Though you may see mothers and daughters there, they are probably not naked (and comfortable in their nudity no less). Observing this self and family-care wellness system in action and knowing that it is affordable and part of the routine was a game-changer for me and had me thinking deeply about what kind of person I would be if this was part of my weekly schedule? How would this affect my mother and father or how would it have eased the body pains of aging that I witnessed my grandparents experience before their passing? As a NY-er friend of mine mentioned when I told him what I witnessed, we would be living in a totally different society...And doesn't that just say it all! What do we take away in the West from these experiences of being in the body, in balance that are ever-present in the East?
Interested? Have a look at the Spa World website and these videos which do a good job of explaining the experience more than what I wrote. PS you can find Korean spas in major cities throughout the US where Korean communities are. I plan on visiting next time I'm in NY.