The story is familiar to regular readers of Zeit Gist. Debito Arudou, a naturalized Japanese citizen, originally from America, was living in Sapporo, Hokkaido, and had heard of the Yunohana public bath's policy of denying entry to foreigners. In 1999, media in tow, he decided to put that onsen's policy to the test. Sure enough, entry was denied, with the accompanying explanation that foreigners often "cause trouble" and, as such, the regulars "dislike sharing the facilities with them."
The origin of this controversy is the behavior of Russian sailors. The Yunohana "onsen" is located in Otaru, the main port between Japan and the Russian Far East. Otaru attracts over a thousand Russian vessels and more than 25,000 sailors a year on stays of varying lengths. In the mid-1990s, Russian sailors were frequently showing up drunk at the city's various onsen and jumping into the tubs with soap on their bodies, thus rendering the facilities unusable.
Prior to taking on the Yunohana onsen, Earth Cure, the management company against whom Arudou's court action was taken, was running one of the city's other onsen facilities. It had been pushed to the brink of ruin after its regular clientele had been driven away by the behavior of Russian sailors. When that problem reappeared at Yunohana, Earth Cure opted for an uncompromising stance: Anyone who did not immediately appear to be Japanese was turned away at the door.