Traditional public bathhouses in
Japan are in deep water as soaring energy costs triggered by the Middle East oil supply disruptions threaten to extinguish the fires of a fading tradition, with some of them forced to shorten their hours or even shut their doors for good.
Already struggling with a shrinking customer base and ageing owners without successors, the oil price surge is dealing a fresh blow to sento, as the communal baths are known in Japanese, with regulated pricing making it difficult to pass on rising costs to customers.
On a cool day in early April, customers were hurrying towards the bath at Ikesu Onsen, a family-run sento founded in 1919 in Tsushima in central Japan’s Aichi prefecture.
The sento has long been a social hub of the neighbourhood. Recently, however, it has been forced to delay its opening time by an hour since late March due to an unstable supply of fuel oil, with monthly delivery halved from about a tonne, leading to a drop of around 10 customers per day.
“It’s a major blow,” said Atsuko Matsui, 57, who is involved in running the bathhouse. “If we are told [by the supplier] ‘this amount at this price’, we have no choice but to accept it.”
Fuel supply in Japan has been disrupted by the Middle East crisis sparked by the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, which has affected tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and driven up global oil prices.