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Japan Takes A Bath
An odd scene out of Japan's past is rising right by the trendy neighborhood, facing Tokyo Bay. It is a vast spa 1 complex, and inside are meticulous reproductions of the streets, eateries and shops of the Edo period ( 1603—1864 ) 2 , the final years before the pressures of the outside world began forcing change on Japan. Called the Great Edo Hot Spring Story, it is the longtime dream of its chairman, Isao Nakamura, who bemoans3 the postwar Americanization of Japanese culture and its impact on Tokyo."We used to tell foreign visitors that they had to go to Kyoto to taste and enjoy the good old Japan, "says Nakamura. "Now they can come here. "
The promise of a hot dip in Japan 's golden age is an idea whose time has come. There 's even a term, iyashi-sangyo, or"healing business", that refers to services designed to ease the anxiety of Japan 's seemingly endless recession. They include aromatherapy, massage and work trips in farm country, but none rivals the popularity of hot springs, long venerated for their reputed healing powers. A volcanic archipelago4 , Japan has 30 , 000 natural hot springs and 3 , 000 hot-spring resorts, most located in small country inns.
What Nakamura is building has no precedent for scale or extravagance: a vast bathhouse and theme park with a rural feeling in downtown Tokyo. Yet already, there are two other hot-spring spa complexes in the works, one almost three times more costly than Nakamura 46 million project. Tadanori Matsuda, a professor who studies hot-spring culture at an university, says that the sudden appearance of these huge facilities in the urban nerve center of Japan suggests that angst5 over the economy" has hit the critical point", and spa builders are capitalizing on it.
The new Tokyo spas could not be more different from the city's traditional bathhouses. At a bathhouse, visitors pay about 4 to scrub in regular water, and have to be out by closing time at around mid-night. All the new Tokyo spas will tap real hot mineral springs at depths of up to 1, 700 meters. They offer more -luxurious services, longer hours of day rates starting at 20. If there is a risk in this building boom, it is that Japan already looks saturated with soaking opportunities: the existing spas attract 300 million day-visits each year.
Yet the worse the economy gets, the more popular a nice soak becomes. Already dozens of books and TV programs offer to steer travelers through the hot-spring circuit. In a 2001 survey by the nation's largest travel agency, hot springs ranked as the favorite destination of Japanese tourists, and the second favorite ( behind theme parks) among those in their 20s and 30 s. In the agency, a staff of 32 years old says her peers seeing their fathers losing jobs fear for their own careers and marriage prospects, and can find" no certainty in the future ". With all that hanging over one's head, 20 is a cheap price for relaxation.It's worth remembering, though , that Edo society grew stagnant and ended in turmoil.
Enjoy the waters, while you can.
练习题：
Ⅰ. True or False:
1. Great Edo Hot Spring is the reproduction of Edo period.
2. Isao Nakamura constructed the Great Edo Hot Spring because he bemoaned the America's influence on Tokyo.
3. Hot spring is the best way to ease anxiety.
4. Great Edo Hot Spring will be the largest hot-spring complex.
Ⅱ. Questions:
Are new spas totally the same with the traditional ones? In what way are they different from the traditional ones?
