Talk:Sauna

Finland-centric?

I appreciate sauna is a Finnish word, but the article seems to suggest that the concept is almost elusively Finnish.

I have used quite a few Jjimjilbang in South Korea that would qualify, but as the article currently stands it looks like everywhere else, from Russia to Turkey merely have 'variations' on Saunas rather than a Sauna culture of their own.

Could we make a bit more international, whilst at the same time avoiding our primal urges to make a list out of every subject? ^-^ --Andrewssi2 (talk) 12:48, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree that this article is Finnland-centric and am at the same time surprised that such a thing can even exist on a global scale... Unless of course you are talking about Formula 1 ;-) Hobbitschuster (talk) 12:55, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Feel free to add stuff about other types of saunas. There aren't very many types of saunas in the world, so I think there isn't a risk of ending up with long list. Jjimjilbangs, for example, are "a little" more refined and spa-like than a regular Finnish lakeside sauna at someone's summer cottage... ϒpsilon (talk) 14:57, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I find the structure of the article ok, describing the "original" finnish sauna in the first section followed by sauna-like "institutions" elsewhere. I guess the disproportion could be ballanced by adding a sentence or two in the introduction paragraph and then adding content behind the Finnish sauna. It could also be entire sections like "Jjimjilbang in South Korea", why not. Danapit (talk) 16:12, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

The article started as cut-n-paste of an oversize fact box in Finland. I tried to make it somewhat more global, but I know little about the other sauna cultures. The "variations" wording was not too good. I think we have to separate genuine sauna traditions from different parts of the world (it seems the sauna was invented by every culture, but retained just in a few) and young sauna cultures, where the Finnish sauna has been the model.

I have been told the Finnish sauna was once just a variant of a sauna culture spread over most of Europe (and perhaps farther), but it deteriorated in the courts and was banned by the church. In the Finnish backwoods the church was probably week enough to prefer looking the other way, so it survived here. It might have survived also in other remote parts of Sweden. The Russian (Karelian?) sauna was probably more or less the same, but tightened borders since 1918 and more communications inside the countries made minor differences more pronounced.

I suppose the sauna in most western circles has had the Finnish one as the model, while at least the Turkish (Roman?), native American and Korean have independent roots. These latter should be described in their own main sections – if important, otherwise in a common Other traditions – and the introduction should have any reference to the Finnish one explicit.

--LPfi (talk) 07:19, 14 April 2015 (UTC)