A warm memory of a bitter winter

As an American woman, I was a curiosity on the streets of Chuncheon, South Korea, in 1968 and a further surprise at the public bathhouse. 

My Peace Corps journal for Feb. 5, 1968, is a warm memory of a frozen day. I lived with a Korean family who spoke no English, and our house was a modest one-level, L-shaped structure with an outhouse and no electricity. A pump in the courtyard provided water for cooking and washing. In winter, it was often necessary to chip ice from the metal bucket. Bathing lost urgency. I dreamed of hot showers, bubble baths, and soft towels, while my laundry froze into stiff, weird shapes on the clothesline.

Winters are harsh in South Korea, and even this Chicago-bred volunteer felt the cold. When snow fell in the town of Chuncheon, in Gangwon-do province, it mostly stayed where nature put it. Every day I walked a mile to the boys middle school where I taught English in a large drafty class with broken windows and a lone potbellied stove.

Snow swirled its way into my classroom, dusting the old wooden desks. Students shivered in tattered uniforms that had barely enough buttons to keep them closed. Their shoes were not allowed inside the school, and many of the boys could not afford socks.

The only place I felt warm was sleeping fully dressed under a heavy quilt on the floor of my little bedroom. A large charcoal brick dispersed heat from underneath the thick layers of paper flooring. I sat, slept, ate, and did schoolwork on the warm floor, finding the best spot as heat drained from the center. Rats scurried overhead, often gnawing their way through the paper ceiling to poke pointed noses at the new resident.

I do not recall when I heard about the public baths, but I decided to defy winter for an afternoon and venture into an unknown world. The small bathhouse was not far. The women’s facility was a dimly lit room with a huge concrete tub. The air was heavy with humidity.

Women sat or crouched on the slippery wet floor, soaping, rinsing with a bucket, then scraping themselves with small, twisted towels before stepping into the bath to soak. They often were in pairs, chatting and laughing quietly, washing each other’s backs. A woman flashed me a cautious look as she stood up and climbed into the steaming tub.

An American woman was a curiosity on the streets of Chuncheon in 1968 and a surprise in the local bathhouse. I sat in a corner and tried to figure out the routine without staring. Soap, rinse, soak; scrape, rinse. 

A pregnant woman squatted awkwardly, tipped forward, as if ready to play leapfrog. She washed gently. An older woman huddled over a bucket and soaped with slow, deliberate strokes.

This was not a spa, an indulgence; it was the serious business of getting clean. Just beginning the process was wonderful. I felt rescued from oppressive winter days that froze rice paddies and spirits. Eyes followed me toward the steamy center of the room. After carefully rinsing off the last soapy lather, I stepped into the shallow pool of surprisingly hot water.

As I wrote in my journal, “My mind and body were both half floating. The only thought in my head was the glorious sensation of being warm.” 

Two young women soaping each other stopped to giggle behind their hands when I smiled at them, stretched out and submerged up to my neck. My efforts to adjust to the lifestyle and customs here often seemed to startle and amuse others.

I could have stayed there till summer. Long winter weeks frozen in memory melted away in the steaming water. The thought of standing in front of 60 boys, all of us nearly numb with cold, clapping and doing jumping jacks as we recited English lessons – that was someone else’s life. I was far away.

The best part of the public bath turned out to be the private rooms. For a few extra won, I could have an individual bathing room and secretly wash small items of laundry in warm water. If there was a time limit, no one ever mentioned it to the respected foreign teacher who visited every week. I was always welcomed with enthusiasm and courteous bowing.

A good scrub and a soak in damp, sweltering heat was a brief respite from cold, a thaw of frozen energy. I emerged ready to face again the unrelenting winter with my eager students. Spring would come.