Article written for Far Eastern Economic Review but not published. But in Japan, torukoburo Turkish bath is a controversial synonym for a "bathhouse cum massage parlor" that offers a "carnalcopia" of sexual services which may be cryptically listed on the schedule of charges at the entrance.
About 1, "turkish baths" employing some 18, "attendants" are in operation throughout the country, mainly in the entertainment districts of large cities like Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka. They are commonly known as just toruko, but are called tokushu yokujo special bathhouse in legal parlance.
Recent offshoots include mantoru mansion Turkish bath in condominium apartments, and hotetoru hotel Turkish bath that send "masseuses" to hotels. One merely has to say "toruko" and most taxi drivers will steer you to the nearest tub of iniquity. This poses an embarrassing problem for anyone who asks to be taken to the "Turkish Embassy" -- but ends up in a narrow alley filled with gaudy neon signs flashing the three syllables which also represent the Japanese word for Turkey.
Turkish citizens in Japan are further annoyed by the raised eyebrows and jokes they meet when saying where they were born or come from. Japan's Turkish residents have long complained about the free use of their nom de nation with connotations of what some Japanese papers have called "illicit sex" -- as though the legality of the services mattered. But in September last year, a "young Turk" seismologist named Nusret Sanjakli, who the year before had advocated in a prize-winning speech in Japanese that Japan's "Turkish baths" were an insult to his country, petitioned the Minister of Health and Welfare to put a stop to the "derogatory and extremely injurious" use of the word toruko with connotations of bathhouse prostitution.
Turkish Embassy officials in Tokyo, beginning with Ambassador Nurver Nures, also took up the banner of reform. Information Attache Ilhan Oguz sent letters in both Japanese and English to the national dailies, thanking them for their editorial support of the name-change movement.
