You've Been Lied To About Japan

A bold assertion from the fella who runs Abroad in Japan. A friend alerted to me to the episode with the above title, and I was able to get through about 5 minutes; not my cuppa. Let's consider AIJ's takedown of 森林浴、or 'forest bathing'. The moderator gleefully ridicules influencers and others who claim that the practice of shinrin-yoku dates to the misty past, pointing out that the term was coined in 1982 by the then Forest Ministry. True enough. But this is really a case of very old wine in new bottles. Obviously, Japanese didn't discover the therapeutic effects or pleasures of walking in the woods as a result of some campaign launched by government bureaucrats during the bubble era, nor did the language acquire its first term to refer to the experience in the 57th year of Showa. Indeed, there are numerous, much older terms that convey essentially the same idea, among them: 山歩き（やまあるき） / 山巡り（やまめぐり） 野遊び（のあそび） / 山遊び（やまあそび） 物詣（ものもうで） / 山岳信仰（さんがくしんこう） 山林に投ず (さんりんにとうず) 逍遥（しょうよう） Possibly the last is closest. In any case, the terms predate 森林浴 by quite a stretch and refer to pretty much the same experience. As AIJ could have told his viewers, if he could have been bothered. But that's not nearly as sexy as "Worst Lies of All".