A Boiling Beppunian Adventure Complete With Hellfire, Eggs & Mafia

Boiling Beppu on the island of Kyushu is renowned for its copious onsens. They are the town’s claim to fame, and someone surely thought he was being clever by declaring the English city of Bath to be its sister city. In Beppu, it is impossible for one to turn a corner without nearly tumbling into a steaming spa or foaming hot spring. The concept of an onsen, or communal bathing, is something that still remains repugnant to me. The tight-assed, descended-from-Puritans, god bless them and their shiny buckles, New Yorker in me believes that some things should simply be done alone in a non-public manner. I have lived in Japan for a good six months and while I will adapt to some of the local customs such as eating raw horse meat, bowing, donning designated bathroom shoes, karaoke, concealing my true opinions about anything and everything for the sake of harmony, and shuffling my feet, I will not, however, succumb to two things: One is the dreaded and meaningless peace sign that manages to cleverly sneak into every photo taken in this country. The other is communal bathing. But when in Rome, Cleary, you say. In this case, my answer is absolute: Screw Rome.

To understand the onsen phenomenon one must only look at sneakers in Japan. Uniform and all equally tattered, the white sneakers with red stripes donned by all possible students reminds one of the centipede mentality. All the legs must move together in order for the centipede to get anywhere. Key is the group. Life is the group. Sneakers.

Therefore the conclusion that must be drawn is that Japanese people are afraid to bathe alone – what happens if they happen to go under whilst sitting there all by their lonesome, inhaling steam and enjoying essential salts and oils? It is the only rational explanation for the baffling success of these vats of scalding water, which allow people to sit together sharing bodily filth for hours at a time. It’s a community watch program – only naked, with water and a community of big, pink raisins at the end.

Beppu literally has thousands of onsens and much of the land is made up of geothermal hot spots. One can walk around and see random bits of steam shooting up from the ground. My first Beppunian hot spring sighting happens to come from a grungy pothole nearby one of the very many hotels and ryokans that consistently (but politely) turn away a crowd of six rowdy foreigners who have neglected to book anywhere to stay. The fact that Beppu has SO many onsens and I manage to evade all of them makes my feat incredible and praise-worthy. Thousands upon thousands and I deftly elude them all.

Whilst soaking in cooperative sludge is considered a joyful pastime in Beppu, they also happily have some “viewing only” onsens for those prim and priggish tourists who might happen to pass through. Viewing only onsens. I sure take a lot of photos. No. Disappoint abounds. There are no bathers lounging around. No old men soaking their weary limbs with their wet, microscopic, rented towels slung casually and pointlessly over their heads. These particular onsens were built to showcase the natural geysers that happen to lie under this part of Kyushu. Dense mists of steam cover huge pools of aqua water sparkling beautifully and defrockment, for the most part, is rare.

As I come from New York City one would assume I’d be immune to raw stenches of sewage and the fetor of garbage. A little whiff or two of some unknown substance couldn’t possibly affect me. However, Beppu has a characteristic scent of its own, which is still lingering in my clothes and clinging to my hair. Beppu is an egg city. A popular practice seems to be to cook eggs inside an onsen. Now, I remain unclear as to whether people take in raw eggs to cook while they are bathing, or if the eggs are cooked separately from the people. In either case – boiled eggs play a prominent role in Beppunian menus. I ate several of them during my trip and can only hope and pray that they were not cooked under an old, wrinkly, prune of a man. Several times I pictured my luncheon egg boiling away as Mr. Takamoto comfortably perched atop it like a brooding hen chatting about his daikon crop gaily with the men around him.

But it is not only eggs that effuse scents throughout Beppu. The force of sulfur is strong in this city, which is logical given its volcanic history. The odor of hellfire and lightening is overpowering in many areas leading one to wonder what fresh air ever really smelt like to begin with.

The excursion happens to fall on the weekend that celebrates “Foundation Day” in Japan. We arrive at Oita Port, about a twenty-five-minute drive from Beppu, and miraculously manage to fit six people into a tiny Japanese taxi. Our garrulous taxi driver is overjoyed with his clown car full of exotic passengers. We take in the sights – the water, the trees, the vending machines and then wait, what’s that?

A massive black bus with bars over tinted windows goes zooming by. Several loud speakers and bullhorns are mounted on the roof, which garble forth words and phrases that exceed my pitiful vocabulary. By combining the vocabulary of the six of us in the car we manage to ask the driver what’s going on. He replies, “something something something yakuza something something.” Our ears prick up at only one key word. Yakuza. Upon discovering that the foreigners are intrigued the driver quickly becomes a ham, dropping the Y word to get a rise whenever possible and informing us that he is (or used to be) a yakuza doctor. As we drive through Beppu to get to the hotel district several of these intimidating beasts of vehicles blare propaganda as they go zipping past us. Some belt out imperialistic, mechanical sounding music from one loudspeaker and bombastic sounding Japanese from another. The swarm of buses is accompanied by a noticeable police presence heavily armed with full body shields.

We see these monster buses all over Beppu for the next few days. The occupants are remarkably friendly as they smile for the camera and wave ebulliently at the puzzled foreigners snapping photos from the side of the road. They seem an anachronism in 2007. The frenetic abandon with which they roam the streets, the blatant propaganda, which is apparent despite my inability to understand the language, and those outdated beards and hairstyles - we seem to have encountered one of Japan’s godfathers, running amok and making a good deal of noise with his posse.

More photos on flickr.

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Published:
2.20.07 / 6pm
Category:
what i call life, travel, culture