For most people, taking a bath and showering is the most personal and private thing to do yourself. It’s a moment where you can be by and enjoy yourself, cleaning and taking care of your physical well-being and body, and your mental health as well. Due to the nature of the activity, some religions incorporate them into their rituals, such as the Hindus in India. However, Koreans have a different image compared to the rest of the world of taking a bath, and we can observe this by visiting a bathhouse anywhere in South Korea.
The first Korean bathhouses appeared in the history books in the late 19th century. Upon entering the bathhouses, the first thing you do is to undress everything. While this is not a rule that the establishment enforces heavily (you can wear underwear if you feel uncomfortable with being completely naked), it’s the custom. This part of the experience made many foreigners nervous and surprised, but we can trace this back to ancient Korea to understand why Koreans are used to this.
Back in 57 BC, during the monarchy of Silla, one of the Three Kingdoms in Korea, Bak Heyokgeosae, the founding monarch, is said to have come out of an egg discovered in a water well named Najeong. When he came out, the townspeople who saw the occasion bathed Bak in a river named Dongcheon. Instantly, the animals from the surrounding forests and fields flocked to dance in celebration. This mythic story is one of many other stories that reflect how Koreans perceive the holiness of water and the religious values that come with bathing.
In the Goryeo dynasty, bathing was a customary ritual to pray for the rain. Due to the sanitary concerns of the physical body and religious symbolization, ancient Koreans frequently used rivers, hot springs or oncheon (온천천), or streams near temples. They would bathe there and, as a Chinese envoy noted in 12th-century Goryeo, “There was no shame in bathing together naked with the other gender in pools of water.”
