AFP

Just before it opens each afternoon, elderly residents gather outside one of Tokyo’s last remaining old-style bath houses carrying flannels, soap and shampoo for their regular soak.

With its communal naked tubs, bright mural of Mount Fuji and sliding wooden entrance under a pointed roof, Inariyu is a classic example of a Japanese public bath, or sento.

Once ubiquitous in crowded urban areas, sentos are now closing quickly as more people take baths at home and owners struggle with faltering machinery, high gas prices and a lack of successors, tempting them to sell their valuable land.

Nationwide, the number of bath houses has plunged to around 1,800 from a peak of nearly 18,000 in the late 1960s.

But some such as Inariyu have been given a new lease on life through renovations, while others are reinventing themselves as trendy hangouts or using data analysis to boost business.

One person pushing to save neighbourhood baths is Yasuko Okuno, who discovered them as a way to unwind after working late.

“Day after day, my mind was tired. Even when I went home, I couldn’t forget about work,” said the 36-year-old writer for the Tokyo Sento Association.

“Then I went to a sento for the first time in a while, and it felt like a weight had lifted. There was a large bath, and the regulars greeted me kindly,” she told AFP.

Over time, “it began to feel like a home from home.”

Japan has never imposed a strict Covid-19 lockdown, and places such as gyms and sentos remained open even when many offices switched to home working and restaurants shortened opening hours.

Masks are commonly worn on trains and in other public places, but there is no requirement to wear them in sentos, although social distancing and quiet bathing are encouraged.

For many elderly people, it is a “daily routine” that they did not want to stop during the pandemic, and some feel safer taking a bath with others around in case they fall, Yasuko said.

– ‘Sense of urgency’ –

Bathhouse closures can erode community ties, said Sam Holden, whose organisation Sento & Neighborhood used a grant of around $200,000 from the World Monuments Fund to renovate Inariyu.

The group strived to keep the cosy, welcoming atmosphere of the bathhouse — built in 1930 in a low-rise area of northern Tokyo where narrow walkways snake between homes.

Inariyu has customers of all ages, including “a lot of elderly people, many of whom might live alone and be prone to isolation”, said Holden, a 32-year-old American who has lived in the capital for nearly a decade.

“My colleagues and I had a sense of urgency in wanting to preserve some of these historic structures before they were redeveloped into apartment complexes and other things.”

Bathers pay 500 yen ($3.70) to enter the men’s or women’s bath, a fee set by the Tokyo government.

Leaving their shoes in a small locker, they strip off in the changing room and take a shower before climbing into the tubs for a relaxing soak.

Unlike Japan’s hot springs, known as onsen, the water in sentos is usually heated with gas.

Shunji Tsuchimoto, who runs Inariyu with his wife, told AFP that the bathhouse is paying 50 percent more for energy than it did last year.

But he hopes that holding events in the renovated buildings will raise revenue by drawing younger customers. 

“I want them to know this sento culture,” he said.

– ‘Trendy and modern’ –

One sento that has managed to draw a youthful clientele is Koganeyu in eastern Tokyo, which reopened in 2020 after a full makeover.

On a recent Saturday, the bath house was packed with young customers drinking craft beer and listening to vinyl records.

Tech worker Kohei Ueda, 25, travelled an hour to use Koganeyu’s sauna with a friend.

“I do have the image of sentos being where grandpas and grandmas gather,” he said.

“But a sento like this that’s more trendy and modern is not like that… I feel more comfortable coming here.”

Kom-pal, another sento, may not have hipster appeal, but 36-year-old owner Fumitaka Kadoya has managed to increase footfall using data-crunching skills he acquired in his previous job as a technician for optical equipment maker Olympus.

Kadoya’s family has run the sento since the 1950s and when he took over three years ago, he set up a database to track information about customers and the timing of their visits.

The data has allowed him to make targeted business decisions, such as hiring female staff to encourage more women to visit and opening on Sunday mornings to ease crowds.

“Sentos have always been a part of Japanese culture,” Kadoya told AFP, and nowadays, leaving everything in a locker while you soak can be a kind of “digital detox”.

“That’s exactly what I think young people need these days.”

Striking geometric shapes that recall 20th century abstract art are not what you would expect to see adorning a handmade Iranian rug.

But changing tastes and increased competition from Asia have forced some in the trade to redesign and resize a tradition dating back more than 2,000 years.

“A revolution is underway,” said Ahad Azimzadeh, 65, who calls himself “the biggest exporter of Persian carpets in the world”.

Rugs traditionally woven in the Islamic republic are known for dense, curving floral designs in rich colours.

Their beauty and quality have long been recognised worldwide, yet sales have collapsed over the past 30 years.

“In 1994 the value of Iranian carpets sold abroad reached $1.7 billion and represented 40 percent of our non-petroleum exports,” Ahmad Karimi, chief of the Handmade Carpet Manufacturers’ and Exporters’ Union, told AFP.

By 2019-20 that figure had shrunk to $70 million, he said.

By another measure, in 2000 Iran represented 32 percent of global handmade carpet exports. This fell to 7.9 percent by 2019 as exports from China and India rose, Karimi said. 

– ‘New generations’ –

There was “an impact” from international sanctions that targeted Iran over its nuclear programme, human rights and other issues, but he said other factors are more to blame.

“Especially by the big diversity of carpets on the market and the change in the mentality and tastes of the new generations,” Karimi said.

Azimzadeh, the carpet exporter, said “the future is with modern handmade rugs”. 

He spoke at last week’s handmade carpet exhibition in Tehran. The annual event, suspended for two years because of the coronavirus pandemic, features about 400 exhibitors from across Iran.

“The patterns of Iranian carpets are ancient but today there is a strong demand for contemporary styles. They’re more suitable for a modern house,” said Azimzadeh, a big talker who started small — as a seven-year-old weaver. By 14, he had graduated to the commercial side of the trade.

Among the new styles on display at the exhibition which ended Sunday: a rug featuring small squares of hypnotic diagonal blue and white lines.

Another depicts diamond and other geometric patterns in gold silk on a black background. One wool rug looks as if an ink roller has left splashes of gold on it.

“The colours are clear and the sizes smaller,” which is what modern tastes demand, Azimzadeh said.

As an extreme but less typical example of this “revolution”, Azimzadeh stands in front of a woven rug three metres square (3.6 square yards) in size. It depicts global personalities including actor Charlie Chaplin, the physicist Albert Einstein and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

– From art to doormat –

The new style is also cheaper. 

Some sell for $3,000 or $4,000, whereas Azimzadeh has a 2,000 square metre traditional carpet from Tabriz priced at $120 million.

His inventory also holds a 170-year-old piece from Kashan available for about $160,000.

For now, modern designs are still a minority at his stand in the exhibition, but the traditional stock will be gradually withdrawn, he said.

“Next year, 70 percent of the rugs on display will be modern,” Azimzadeh predicts.

Karimi, of the exporters’ union, regrets that Iranian carpets are nowadays seen as “a consumer good to put in front of the door, whereas in the past it was an investment.

“It’s lost its status as an object of art.”

Another trader, Abbas Arsin, was perhaps ahead of his time when he created what he calls the “transitional carpet” 25 years ago.

He took traditional patterns and made the bright colours fade by rubbing them and leaving them in the sun.

“My father and my older brother didn’t understand why I wore myself out making the old rugs fade,” said Arsin, 40, the third generation of his family in the business.

But when he exhibited his first works and customers came, his family encouraged him to “only do that”, he recalls with a smile.

Arsin said India, Pakistan, Turkey and China overtook Iran in the global market because “we Iranians had fewer relations with the rest of the world. We didn’t see the changes that were happening.”

Even now, not everyone is convinced.

“A year ago we began to make carpets in modern designs but they represent only five percent of our production and I don’t think we will go beyond that,” said Mehdi Jamshidi, 42, director of sales for Iran Carpet company.

“Modern carpets will never replace the traditional ones, which are deep-rooted in our culture and regions.”

Hamid Sayahfar, 54, a dealer who spends his time between Tehran and Toronto, said the new geometric styles might be suitable for an office, but not at home.

It’s just a fashion, he said, “and like every fashion it will disappear.”

Asian markets sank Monday and the dollar rallied after Fed boss Jerome Powell warned of more interest rate hikes to fight inflation and poured cold water on the prospects of a cut in the new year.

The hefty selling tracked a painful day on Wall Street, where all three main indexes tanked between three and four percent as investors contemplated an extended period of monetary tightening.

In a much-anticipated speech to global finance chiefs Friday, Federal Reserve Chair Powell said his priority was bringing inflation down from four-decade highs, even at the expense of economic growth, adding that failure to act now would cause more pain later.

“Restoring price stability will take some time and requires using our tools forcefully to bring demand and supply into better balance,” he told the symposium at Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The comments dealt a blow to markets, which had in recent weeks enjoyed a bounce from June lows as weak economic data and a slowdown in price rises fanned hopes the Fed would temper its interest rate hike drive.

Analysts said the chances of a third successive 75 basis-point increase next month had risen, with US Treasury yields — a gauge of future interest rates — surging.

“The game of assessing the Fed outlook has shifted from guessing how high the peak rate might be to also understanding how long it might stay there for,” Yanxi Tan, of Malayan Banking, said.

In Asian trade, investors ran for the hills as they contemplated an era of high borrowing costs with Charles Schwab & Co’s Liz Ann Sonders saying that once the Fed gets to “whatever the final hike is, they’re going to stay there for a while”.

“The market had trouble digesting that,” she told Bloomberg Television.

Tokyo, Sydney, Seoul and Taipei all fell more than two percent. Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Jakarta and Wellington were also well down.

The dollar jumped against its major peers, closing in on the 140 yen mark not seen since 1998, while an energy crisis in Europe kept the euro depressed.

Still, oil prices extended gains as talk that surging interest rates could choke off the economic recovery was not enough to offset supply concerns.

The commodity has fallen in recent weeks on bets that demand will be hit by an expected drop in economic output, particularly from China as it continues to battle a Covid outbreak with lockdowns.

But fresh unrest in Libya, warnings that an Iran nuclear deal was not imminent and a possible OPEC output cut kept prices elevated.

 

– Key figures at around 0230 GMT –

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 2.8 percent at 27,851.68 (break)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.9 percent at 19,989.39

Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.6 percent at 3,217.78

Dollar/yen: UP at 138.53 yen from 137.38 yen Friday

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $0.9931 from $0.9964

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.1672 from $1.1743

Euro/pound: UP at 85.07 pence from 84.85 pence

West Texas Intermediate: UP 1.1 percent at $94.05 per barrel

Brent North Sea crude: UP 0.8percent at $101.79

New York – Dow: DOWN 3.0 percent at 32,283.4 points (close)

London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.7 percent at 7,427.31 (close) 

They are drawing a line at the 40-hour work week, limiting after-hours calls and emails and generally, if softly, saying “no” more often — some American workers are embracing the concept of “quiet quitting” as they push back against what some see as the stifling trap of constant connectivity. 

Maggie Perkins — who lives in Athens, Georgia — was racking up 60-hour weeks as a matter of course in her job as a teacher, but the 30-year-old realized after her first child was born that something was wrong. 

“There’s pictures of me grading papers on an airplane on the way to vacation. I did not have a work-life balance,” Perkins explains in a TikTok video about how she chose — though she did not have a name for it back then — to begin “quiet quitting.” 

Perkins told AFP she eventually left her job to pursue a PhD, but remains an advocate for her former colleagues — producing videos and podcasts with practical tips on making their workload fit inside their workday.

“Adopting this ‘quiet quitting’ mindset really just means that you are establishing a boundary that helps you to do your job when you are paid to do it — and then you can leave that, and go home and be a human with your family,” she says.

– Work-life balance or slacking? –

The buzzword seems to have first surfaced in a July TikTok post.

In the words of user @zaidleppelin, “You’re not outright quitting your job but you’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond. You’re still performing your duties but you’re no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life.”

That post went viral, drawing nearly a half-million likes. Responses bubbled over with a sense of shared resentment — and newspaper columnists spilled ink all summer trying to decipher the phenomenon.

For the debate soon erupted: Are “quiet quitters” merely trying to draw boundaries in pursuit of a reasonable work-life balance, more associated with a European lifestyle than with always-on US work culture? 

Are they slackers with a trendy new name? Or are they people at genuine risk of burnout — who would do best to quit outright?

Data suggests the need for greater balance is real.

On-the-job stress rose from 38 percent of those polled in 2019 to 43 percent the following year as Covid-19 upended the world of work, Gallup found, with women in the United States and Canada facing the most pressure.

Similar dynamics helped fuel the “Great Resignation” — the surge in employees leaving or switching jobs amid pandemic-related pressures.

Many “quiet quitters” say they are perfectly willing to work hard, but only for the hours the job is meant to entail. Their motto: “act your wage.”

Some observers are skeptical, of course, contending that offices have always had their share of clock-watchers and prickly workers claiming certain tasks are not their responsibility.

Going further, Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, panned the phenomenon as “a step toward quitting on life.”

But former US labor secretary Robert Reich summed up the — forceful — counterargument, saying “Workers aren’t ‘quiet quitting.’ They’re refusing to be exploited for their labor.”

– ‘Six months of dread’ –

A case in point: the experience of Bess, who asked not to be identified by her real name, illustrates how Covid allowed some jobs to spill far outside their normal boundaries.

She was hired shortly before the pandemic in a job originally meant to involve regular trips to Germany. 

But, she told AFP, Covid left her stuck in her New York apartment, having to take phone calls as early as 3:00 am due to the time difference.

Out of self-preservation, she began to dial back her efforts — which her American friends had trouble understanding.

“There is that stigma — you put your blood, sweat and tears into your job in the US, and if you don’t work, you don’t deserve to be here,” she said.

“After six months of dread,” Bess explains, she simply stopped answering emails for several weeks — and ultimately parted ways with her company.

Philip Oreopoulos, a labor economist at the University of Toronto, said one solution is better communications to clarify employer expectations before accepting a job.

“If you need to be on call at home, then they should clearly state that,” he said.

And if things do get out of hand — and quiet quitting won’t fix the problem — aggrieved workers do have one asset to fall back on: a historically low unemployment rate.

“Come to an employer and say, ‘I have an opportunity with another firm and I’m thinking of taking it,'” Oreopoulos said. “It’s a good time in general to be asking for a raise.”