Skin

I've been meant to write something for a long time, but I haven't been able to come up with a proper topic. This blog is about thoughts about phenomena, not necessarily the daily stuff in my life. Mostly because my life is currently sort of boring, and also because I have another blog illustrating my daily life.

Anyway, today I decided to write about...

Nudity.

Everyone has an opinion about that. Is it acceptable? Where can you be nude? Are you comfortable being naked? With family? With friends? With your significant other? With people of the opposite sex? Does nudity have sexual  or erotic connotations?

Both the cultures I like have a social aspect to nudity and bathing. In Finland it's sauna, in Japan it's onsen and ofuro. In both places you are supposed to be stark naked, no matter if the people in the advertisements wear a towel. NO TOWELS. You don't take shower in a towel, do you?

I've never made nudity into a big deal, and I have no problems going to a mixed sauna. There's nothing erotic about that to me. Sure, there must be some thoughts going on in people's heads when they see naked bodies. Maybe comparing bodies and body parts, but for me it's just bathing, relaxing, talking in an environment that just happens to be a sauna and people happen to be naked.
 

During summer at the summer houser after/during sauna there's often the other thing: Naked swimming. Nothing bad about that. Seeing everyone in bright light being all sweaty with different amounts of hair in different amounts of places. Going for a swim in the birthday suit.  Natural. Free. Relaxing. Look how much fun they're having!

In Japan I haven't been to a mixed onsen, but the women in the bathhouses seem to find the idea of being naked very natural and just focus on the thing itself: bathing. There's also a curious word in Japanese: hadaka no tsukiai, translating roughly into "naked communion". There's also an English-based Japanese word sukinshippu "skinship" describing the physical closeness people share while bathing together and being able to be natural with each other.

Public bathing in Japan goes back into the history: in the old days houses didn't have their own bath tub, so people went to the local sentō, a bath house. They talked with their neighbours while scrubbing themselves and soaking their bodies in the hot water. The hot water comes from hot springs, which are common in Japan, as it has lots of volcanic activity. The water from the hot springs has different minerals that are good for the body. 

Every now and then I read from the internet (everything must be true in the internet) how people are insecure about their bodies, and how they want to make love with lights out so that their partner wouldn't see them naked. There's a part of me going "excuse me, what?", but sure this could be in cultures where nudity isn't that common, and the only naked bodies people see are in pornography, and oh yeah, that's a good source for inspiration! and proper self-esteem! Real plastic bodies, and you can start crying you aren't like that and your partner cannot like you the way you are because the only bodies he/she's seen are photoshopped with added silicone and professional make-up and camera tricks.

Get REAL. If you can't like yourself the way you are, are you waiting for another body to appear out of nowhere, and you can change it like clothes? 

(Pictures in this entry not by me.)

Trainspotting

I've always been a train person. I'd pick train over bus any time that's possible.

(Picture above not by me, taken the year I was born.)

My dad's been working for the railway company since 1976, so when I was a kid I was entitled to discount or free trips and such. Family trips were done mostly by train. I lived close to a railroad, and heard the trains if I listened hard enough. There it goes again, the same night train from the south, bringing back tired travelers. Oh there's the long and slow freight train! Oh does it ever end?

Railways in this country are ok, but recently the trains have been late quite often, and the entire company has become a joke. I don't know if I should join the annoyed consumers or stand my ground and be for the company instead of against it. I like trains, and the system works if you aren't in a hurry.

In Japan trains are a whole other ballgame. There are the superfast trains such as Nozomi (which goes 300 km/h), but also the local trains. I have to admit that I prefer the local ones. The slow, noisy trains with no air condition which stop at the smallest stations. The ones that go around the mountains whereas the bullet trains go through them.

One of the most amazing experiences was taking the local trains through southern Kyūshū, slow trains going by rivers, small villages and endless, endless mountains that would make Bilbo say that he's seen enough already. Sometimes an elderly woman would get on the train, sometimes a group of schoolboys, sometimes there'd be just empty station. It took 7 hours to go the less than 200 km trip, but it was full of amazing sceneries, and I'd do it again if I had the time and money to spend time there.

I was reminded of the shaking trains and small stations when I went to visit a friend a while ago, and took a route I hadn't taken in almost 10 years. Finnish old trains have nostalgic value to me, and I for some reason prefer the old ones over the new and fast ones. The seats are uncomfortable, there is no air condition, the toilets are dirty. Still I like them. They are full of memories. They go on routes that faster trains won't go anymore, they stop on a stations faster trains don't stop anymore. They go through the wilderness with speed that allows you to look around and feel a lot more. On summer the windows are open, and the wind is actually a better option than the noisy/broken air condition in the newer trains.

There's something nostalgic about trains. There's something strong and secure. The history. Tunnels. Bridges made of stone and steel. The weight of the locomotive. Smoke, oil and iron. The smells at the station and the platform. The announcements.  The conductor's uniform. The waiting. People and their luggage. Restaurant cars. Tickets bought, stamped, lost or thrown away. Crossings and the sound of the warning bell that passes by like a memory gained and lost. Abandoned stations in empty villages. Father meeting their children on the platform. Old ladies hugging each other before the other gets on the train.

Roads can go anywhere, but a railway is a special thing.