Bathhouses head toward extinction - JP

[dArKeR]

REUTERS , TOKYO

Ask Takashi Maehama why business is slow and he'll give you a simple answer: bathtubs.

Nearly everyone in Japan has one, he says.

Like many owners of a sento, or traditional public bathhouse, Maehama, 70, is watching his once-thriving business wane.

Once both a basic necessity and a place to forge community bonds, the neighborhood sento is now regarded by many as a leftover from the country's poorer past.

"I used to have four or five employees when I was younger. But then customers gradually stopped coming," said Maehama, who runs his bathhouse with his wife and a lone part-time worker.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/archives/2004/06/25/2003176477

pic
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/photo/2004/06/25/2003138565

Too bad. Wonder if
1. The Fundimentalist Christian attitudes toward nudity and sexual relationships had any thing to do with this?
2. And/or just the alienation of all people in the world?

[7th_Sephiroth]

1. i think it is the fact everyone has a bathtub

a traditional japaneese bath is a bout a 6x4 tiled floor with a drain in the middle with a moveable showerhead attached to the wall and the tub itself is a large, hot tub style thing, you shower and then you soak