Nasty Conjugation

Someone of my particularly base tendencies should not be expected not to make a post about toilets. What follows is a brief meditation on going to the bathroom in Japan. Also, for your consideration: my toilet.

I guess, after all, it’s important that I talk about the toilets here. They’re a favorite topic of much of the literature I read before coming to Japan, usually with at least one passage dedicated to the poor tourist who pushed the wrong button and were rudely introduced to the concept of a bidet. I can only assume that these nameless and tragic toilet victims have all been American, since, as I understand it, they have bidets in Europe.
So answer me this, American tourists! Why, seriously, were you pressing mysterious buttons on your foreign toilet? Who knows what they could do! That could have been the ejection button, for all you know (though it was, in a way, ha ha). Speaking for myself, I don’t tend to test the unknown when my bare ass is exposed to the possible consequences. Just a thought.

Regardless, toilets here are a new experience, and I can almost not blame people for feeling the need to push all the buttons and turn all the dials. Let me break it down for you: toilets here come in two categories, often labeled as, “Eastern,” and, “Western.” Western style, you would think, require no explanation. You would think wrong because Japan’s favorite hobby is taking what is familiar to the West and changing it into something completely terrifying.

Mayonnaise and corn pizza? Cheeseburgers with egg and teriyaki sauce? Denny’s without a Grand Slam Breakfast? Everything Western here has been bombarded by Japanese gamma rays and come out as something strange and unfamiliar – just so with toilets. These toilets are cyborg monsters, genetically-enhance, mechanically-modified to provide a range of alien conveniences. Most toilets have a control panel (or two) that sport a range of buttons and dials and a knob to adjust water pressure (AH THE BIDET). The seats themselves tend to be heated; it never even occurred to me that you could heat a toilet seat, but oh, is it a welcome addition when I rise for a late night munitions drop and am not greeted with that startling cold slap on the ass.

Ever conscious of environmental issues, Japan also provides two kinds of flushes on their toilets, politely marked in kanji as Big and Small. I’ll let you use the necessary fraction of imagination to figure out when to use them. Some toilets even have a button that will play an electronic flushing sound while you get down to business so as to avoid the embarrassment of someone hearing your potty noises.

So there are Western toilets, the robotic Swiss-army counterparts to our own modest receptacles, and then there are Eastern toilets. Eastern toilets are the Zen minimalist equivalent to the soulless, mechanized West. These toilets require a certain amount of character in the user, as well as a healthy sense of balance. Imagine a urinal lying flat on the ground. You straddle this porcelain trench, squat down, and let loose. I am told it is supposed to be magnificent for your colon, but it can be hell on your knees. I would recommend these toilets only for a fifth-level Toilet Adept or above. Not for the weak or drunk.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 at 10:47 pm and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.