The Soak

This episode, we ditch the man-made world and run for the hills for a dose of nature’s own medicine: forest bathing. We learn about the mental and physical benefits of engaging with the outdoors through the Japanese practice of shinrin yoku. We get pointers on how to talk to trees and find your forest bathing happy place from Julia Plevin and Sam Lazarus, founders of the Forest Bathing Club. And we take a look at how science and technology are trying to bring the benefits of the great outdoors to those with limited mobility or access to the outside world.

This episode, we explore seaweed bathing, Ireland’s only indigenous bathing tradition, and how this edible sea vegetable has played a role far beyond the bathtub. We trace seaweed’s slippery history from an essential crop on the emerald isle, to it falling out of favor with the arrival of the potato, to its vogue as a vitamin rich tonic in Edwardian seaweed baths. We also speak with edible seaweed evangelist Dr. Prannie Rhatigan about her mission to bring the versatile sea vegetable back to Irish plates. Finally, we wrap up with a look at the bizarre Victorian seaweed scrapbooking craze.

Walk through the galleries of any great art museum and you’ll likely happen upon paintings of people (usually women) bathing. This trope has been ingrained in our visual vocabulary that it hardly merits a second glance. But why have artists been drawn to this subject, and what do these images tell us about the history of bathing? This episode, we reflect on how and why Western artists have depicted the bathing rituals of women throughout the centuries. We also chat with the artist Koak about her contemporary take on this storied genre. Plus, where’s the beef in all these paintings? We ponder the relative lack of dudes in bathing genre art.

What do maroon pajamas, shaved ice, and mugwort have in common? They can all be found in a Korean spa! This episode, we make a bathing pilgrimage to Korea– well Los Angeles’ Koreatown, to take a grand tour of Korean spas. Also known as jjimjilbangs, Korean spas are a mainstay in the Korean-American diaspora as a place for friends and family to gather, socialize, wash-up and escape the stresses of city-dwelling. We also talk to travel writer and chef Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee about bathhouse culture growing up in South Korea, and dare to dream about world peace facilitated through an underground spa bunker along the North and South Korean border.

Welcome to The Soak, stories about how we get clean!  Each episode, we’ll be covering a different topic related to the world of baths, from cultural bathing traditions, to bathing as recreation, to bizarre bathing fads. Our goals is to bring you, dear bathers, the most obscure and opulent bath-time insights from across time and space. This episode, we explore the history of public pools as spaces of socialization and social change in the U.S. We also visit the The Plunge in Richmond, CA and talk about the grimier side of public swimming.