This is where I could see the impact of individualism at work; each one of us was terrified of being stared at, and we didn’t even realize that nobody cared about anyone’s body but their own! Once you get used to public bathing, you realize that we’re all people that come in different shapes and sizes. In the bath, you can’t see someone’s job title or their personal beliefs, just that we’re all human. Public bathing helped me to experience what it feels like to be part of a larger community and allowed me to better understand the core beliefs behind collectivism in Japan.
