Last year my husband and I took a short trip around the main island of Japan with a friend who was living there at the time. Of course, any foreign traveler soon discovers that as cultures vary, so do amenities -- by which I mean toilets. Japan, while far from being a total backwater (so to speak) for pooping, is certainly very different when it comes to your actual poo appliances. The ideas of Thomas Crapper-san have been taken in various directions in the land of Nihon, so I'm here to provide any would-be poopers-abroad with the things they need to know. Happy pooping!
6. Japanese-style toilets are squatters. Almost every major place you go in Japan will have both Western-style and Japanese-style toilets; and unless you're looking for a leg workout you might want to head for a Western-style toilet when you're due for a poo. On the other hand, I often end up squatting anyway when using a public restroom, so perhaps the Japanese are onto something here.
Aim carefully!
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The squatting toilets have little oval-shaped tanks sunk right into the ground, with a flushing handle on one end. They're not all that large, though, so I wouldn't recommend them if you're having, uh, digestive difficulties. Says the Eyewitness Travel Guide to Japan (DK Publications), the Japanese-style toilets are "simple troughs to squat over, facing the end with the hood, making sure nothing falls out of trouser pockets." This is very good advice. I also recommend this step-by-step guide (note amusing spelling errors).
5. Fancy toilet seats aren't as common as you think. At least they weren't as common as I thought. Those crazy toilet seats with the seat warmers and bidet attachments and butt driers seem limited to upscale locales, strange out-of-the-way places, and fancy Japanese restaurants in America. The only one we encountered was halfway up Mt. Misen on Miyajima Island, a sort of resort near Hiroshima. If you take the cable car halfway to the top, there is a large restroom inside the depot with heated toilet seats. Considering it was a little cooler up there on the mountain, I was grateful not to be literally freezing my ass off. I have to admit, though, it's a little disturbing -- kind of like if someone was in there beforehand warming up the seat for you. I don't like feeling someone else's butt warmth.
4. There are two types of flushes on some toilets.
It was thiiiiiiis big!
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I also saw this in France. You can choose to trigger either a small flush or a large flush -- as I like to think of it, a pee flush or a poo flush. Very sensible, in my opinion. The flush handle works in two directions instead of just one, labeled handily with the characters for "little" (looks like a little man with arms pointing down) and "big" (a little guy with arms stretched out to either side, as if to say, "I made a poo that was THIS BIG!").
3. White noise in bathrooms -- what a concept! As I was sitting in a stall at the Hiroshima Peace Museum, too depressed and traumatized to even think about pooping, I noticed a strange little box on the wall of the stall, like a small intercom. I pressed the button, and lo and behold, a noise of rushing water emanated from the little speaker and lasted several seconds. So civilized, these Japanese. According to the DK guide, there are even some panels which play a merry little tune "to discreetly mask natural noises." Every American bathroom should have one of these, especially at work.
2. Always carry tissue. This is a really good idea in general, no matter where you go; but it's an even better idea in a foreign country where you have no idea whether or not toilet paper will be provided. 99% of my stay in Japan, this was not a problem; but one time we needed to use the toilet in a train station. Blithely passing by a small vending machine loaded with tissue packets at the entrance to the women's room, I entered a stall, began to pee (luckily, no poo was forthcoming), and belatedly realized why that machine was there. D'oh!
Ultraman says, "Always eat your fiber!"
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I felt even more foolish later when we discovered that a major form of advertising in Japan takes the form of pocket-size tissue packets. These are preprinted with ads on the plastic wrapper, and given out freely at many major train stations, evidently so that you think of these companies every time you blow your nose or poo. I'm not sure that's a good thing.
1. "Sumimasen, toire-wa doko dess ka?" The #1 thing you need to know to use the toilet in Japan: "Excuse me, where is the toilet?"
For more information and pictures, go to:
-- Sarah
