The Scrub

It's midnight, I lock eyes with my friend Sydney, lying naked on the plastic bed in front of me, our skin floating in brown, slimy clumps around us. We share a sympathetic look as our two charges yank our limbs apart and scrub our most private places with industrial strength Brillo pads. 

Is it a prison camp? A torture chamber? No. In fact, we were paying good money for the privileged of having our bodies publicly scrubbed. We were in a jjimjilbang (a Korean bath house), enjoying Korean cleansing at its finest.

In an earlier post about jjimjilbangs I described everything apart from the Korean rub, which I hadn't quite been brave enough to try, but now I've done it a couple of times and on Thursday I went along with Sydney to 'share' her first scrubbing experience.

The scrub takes place inside the bathing area of the jjimjilbang, more or less in full view of everybody in there. The 'scrubbers' are usually middle-aged women wearing lacy underwear and diamante jewelry. 

You lie on the plastic-covered massage table, where your 'scrubber' throws a bucket of warm water over you and then begins to scrub away at your dead skin cells.

It isn't a relaxing experience and it certainly doesn't deserve the title 'massage' (맛사지). During the scrub the Korean lady slapped my ass to signal when it was time for me to change position, she handled me roughly, like a piece of meat, yanking my lanky limbs around and dropping them carelessly when she was done, and she made no effort to conceal her discontent at my inadequate Korean language skills. 

Getting covered in baby oil and being rubbed, scrubbed and man-handled by an old Korean lady gave me the feeling of being a child, being bathed by a stern, dour Grandmother, like those you see in Victorian films. Pretty weird to say the least, but it's certainly a unique experience.

Thoughts that crossed my mind mid scrub...

I wonder if she's talking about me in Korean. What's going to happen next?!?! Jesus! That's a mole stop trying to scrub it off! Not the nipples... arrrrgh! This is so unflattering. I wonder how much weight in skin I will lose...

Strange as it was for me, as an English woman, I would earnestly recommend everybody try it at least once. Korean women do it on a weekly basis and it does leave your skin feeling baby soft. 

If you are interested in reading a slightly less dramatic account of our scrub experience, click here to go to Sydney's blog.

A Dummies Guide to... Jjimjilbang-ing

Jjimjilbang (찜질방) [noun]: A Korean spa; a public sleeping place; a sauna; a public bath... These are just some of the definitions I've been given by Koreans. The definition you receive could very well influence your decision to visit one or not.

Jjimjilbang (찜질방) [noun]: The place where I learnt that the only thing worse than cleaning your private places in a room full of people, is not cleaning you private places in a room full of people. 

When I first heard about jjimjilbang-ing (not a real verb in English or Korean) I was horrified: getting in a bath, naked, with a load of strangers?! Sleeping on the floor, with a load of strangers?! No thanks.

But eventually, inevitably, I went. And now I'm addicted, I love it. Ric even loves it and he's a manly man.

Here's all you need to know about jjimjilbang-ing:

What should I expect?

• You enter, pay at the desk and are issued with a wrist band, a couple of hand towels, some shorts and a t-shirt. Prices vary from 5,000 - 15,000 won (£2.50-£7.50).
• The next thing you must do is take off your shoes, some places have a shoe cleaning/repairing area by the reception where you can leave your shoes for a couple of extra won. Otherwise, you find a shoe locker that corresponds to the number on your wrist band and store your shoes.
• Proceed to the changing room (여탕 for girls, 남탕 for boys), and find the locker that corresponds to your wrist band. Next, get naked! Or, try to conceal yourself as best as possible whilst changing into your standard issue shorts and t-shirt.
• Then go and find yourself a nice big sauna to sweat in. The sauna area is unisex, hence the shorts and t-shirts. In Europe, saunas are similar to a wardrobe, decked out in pine, with a box of coals in the corner. In Asia they look like this:

• 

  (Google images)

  Large spacious rooms, often clad in salt or filled with pine tress. There are mats and blankets to lie on. And they're not humid like saunas back home either, it's a dry heat.
• Once you've paid you can stay for as long as you like and use all of the facilities. Facilities usually include: massage, massage chairs (these are awesome), a restaurant, smoothie bar, internet cafe, gym, karaoke, tv room, games room, books and magazines, etc.
• When you're done with saunas you head back to the changing rooms for... a bath. Sounds strange. It is. You strip off nude, saunter across the room and slip into one of the many baths (they're more like pools to be accurate). There's usually a scalding hot pool, a couple of reasonably hot pools, and an ice cold pool. I guess the idea is to get gradually hotter and the plunge into the cold pool. And yes, there are other people there too, and they're also naked.

This whole naked bath thing was extremely foreign to me. That sort of thing just doesn't happen in England... or at least not legitimately. I was intimidated the first time I went, I just wasn't used to being naked around so many people.

I found, however, that as long as there aren't too many people around, it's fine. The women don't stare, even though I look at lot different them, it's jjimjillbang etiquette.

Exfoliation
Exfoliation in Korean is as big as Gangnam Style. They're crazy about it. The reasoning is that they want soft white skin (associated with wealth) rather than rough dark skin (associated with manual labour). So in the bathing area of a jjimjilbang be prepared to see women scrubbing themselves with brilo pads until they're red raw.

There's even a 'Korean rub' area where you can go and get professionally exfoliated by another naked woman. I haven't braved this [yet] as I like my tan, and it looks like a painful and undignified experience.

Sleeping
Once you're done bathing you can sleep in one of the numerous designated sleeping rooms. This is actually a really popular form of accommodation in Korea because it's so cheap. We did it once but it really wasn't a great night's sleep; it was too warm, too noisy, too bright, and too public.

Other Facts about Jjimjilbangs

• If you're male, be prepared to see men blow drying their pubic hair. Fortunately this doesn't happen in the women's baths.
• You can buy sachets of shampoo etc. from inside the changing room. This is great because it means you can literally decide, on impulse, that you fancy a bath with some Korean people, and just go, without having to worry about having the right things with you.
• Always shower before you get in the water, for hygiene reasons.
• There are steam rooms in the bathing area too.
• Sit-down showering in very popular in jjimjilbangs, you pull up a little plastic stool, sit in front of a mirror and shower. This facilitates a) exfoliation and b) hiding in a corner if you're a little shy.

It's a very strange concept for a western person, but it really is great. Definitely something everyone should try at least once, whilst in Korea.