I stumbled out of my dad’s truck after the miles of curvy roads that had roiled my stomach. Luckily, the fresh, misty air seemed to remedy my condition as we made our way to registration. The man at the front desk had sparkling diamond earrings the size and color of ripe blueberries. He signed us in, yelping sharply when I dropped my water bottle. We walked towards a trailer dining lounge with a curly scripted sign that read, “Clothing required in all food areas.” We then ordered vegan burrito bowls, and I flipped through the nearly full “inspiration scrapbook.” I stopped after a page with a square-headed angel man drawn with aggressive pelvic bones and a speech bubble reading “believe in divine intervention.”
Clothes: they showcase a part of us by giving insight into the aesthetics we follow, the life we lead, and the ways in which we curate our self-presentation. When I was assigned to “step out of my comfort zone and write about it” in my Creative Nonfiction class, I had planned to sit with my notebook in a laundromat, wash my whites, and observe who came through the door and the types of attire they carried with them. Upon wondering out loud if this experience would be unusual enough, my mom had decided for me.
“You want to step out? Clothes say a lot about a person, I agree, but you know what says more? Who we are without anything on at all.”
This and the fact that it was her birthday had led us to grab a towel, get in the car, and begin the journey to Harbin Hot Springs.
I have never in my life seen so many naked people. So many varying tattoos of snakes, words, eagles, and chakra flowers. So many different bodies of different ages and sizes and levels of… maturity. There was an athletic couple with matching brown braids, the man’s hair surpassing the woman’s significantly in length. Three preteens who would repeatedly hold their breath underwater and take turns shivering in the cold plunge. Women with relaxed faces I’ve sworn to have seen before, and large hairy men with drifting gazes. A group of foreign girls in their twenties who seemed to display their proportionality by traversing from one pool to the next and redoing their ponytails. There was even what appeared to be a foursome in their 90s. The woman with the lotus chakra tattoo had brought a book into the pool that had so many pages she could hardly keep it open. She was there with her boyfriend, and the whole time I felt like I was intruding on something.
Within the first five minutes of sitting in a heart-shaped hot tub, I heard a familiar voice. I turned to see an elementary school friend standing above me; we were the only people in the whole place with our swimsuits on. We spent the rest of the time reminiscing and trying to ignore the flecks of floating skin; cleaning day wasn’t until Tuesday.
The pools that read “maximum ten people” hold at least 30. The warnings that request “no sexual activity” are, at every moment, close to being ignored. “Everyone in this place has an ‘agenda.’” My friend had said. “But the truth is, they come here to be free.”
I realized then that that’s the appeal. It isn’t the magical healing waters, not really anyway. It’s the ability to expose every part of yourself with predetermined acceptance. Some come to find themselves, and some come to be found. This isn’t to say the nudity is overtly sexual; it’s rather a promise to one another: you take me for me, and I’ll do the same for you. “The agenda” for some Harbin-goers is clearly to find a partner, but there is significance in their choice to search at Harbin in the first place. Clothes may define us to others, but do they also then take away a chance to be undefined? Maybe to be naked on a mountain, floating in minerals, is to let go and reconverge as our true selves. Maybe there is freedom in not having to identify at all.
