Oh Korea -- the lovely mountains, the delicious food, the convenient public transportation... yes, the public transportation is quite convenient. However, when you think that nearly 50,000,000 people are living on this peninsula (actually that is only on HALF of this peninsula) you realize that they really have no other choice. Considering the amount of people as well as considering that 25% of the whole world's population is living between the countries of China, Korea, and Japan, needless to say -- there's a lot of pollution and sometimes you can be reminded of the pollution through things like, well, acne.
I'm certainly not the only foreigner that has had this complaint, so it is clearly a matter of our change in environment. I had tried several different products and some slight diet changes to see if this would make a change, but I had seemed to have no luck. I was recommended by some peers to start going to the sauna twice a week. Apparently several foreigners had a positive result and told me they had never had such good skin in their life. So, I decided to start this weekly routine.
Now, to first explain sauna's in Korea -- it is not like any sauna you would go to in a western civilization. Keep in mind that Koreans have this big "community" focus so they like to do, well, everything together as "one"... in this case that means (yep, you guessed it): to bath together.
Now, don't get the impression that they're necessarily "washing" one another (now that would probably cross a line) but this does mean that you basically walk around unclothed and use the heated room, showers, baths, hot tubs, etc. If we had these in America, I'm sure most people would be uncomfortable sitting bare in a hot tub with their neighbor, but this is really normal here.
I can't say that I was necessarily uncomfortable in any of my visits (okay MAYBE the first time a little) but the part that always intrigues me about going is all the things I see these Koreans doing. Today I was sitting in the heated room in an attempt to sweat enough to hopefully clear my skin, when a Korean comes in the room and sits on the floor. She proceeds to sit in "lotus pose" and do a few "yoga-style" stretches. As I watch her, I feel a bit like I should perhaps show some of my little yoga moves as well but, then again, who I am to kid? Being an Asian, she likely knows a heck of a lot more about yoga and oriental medicine than I've ever been exposed to in my life. This continues as I then migrate to the green tea bath to cool off and I have another Korean flapping her legs around a bit in what appears to help with circulation (perhaps?).
I will admit, this is the frustrating part about living in a foreign country and not knowing the language because I can't ask questions like "What is that?", "What is that for?", "Why is that used?", etc. and even if I did know how to ask those few questions, I would have to know enough Korean to understand the answer.
The other things I've seen that has intrigued me a bit during my sauna experiences have been the face masks. There is a worker always in the dressing room who makes facial masks completely from natural materials using eggs, cucumbers, honey, green tea, and other things that I'm not even aware of. The last thing that I noticed was how some Korean women will put little "cups" on their back or stomach while in the sauna and bathing area, leave them on for a while, and then take them off. I'm not sure if this is supposed to help with releasing toxins or what but maybe I will find out someday.
