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Japan never ceases to amaze
me. The constant mixing of the old with the new continually
offers interesting material for me to write about.
The latest of these is the
toilet. I know what you are thinking, "What can
be so interesting about a toilet?" I thought
the same thing before coming to Japan. But after spending
any small amount of time here, you are sure to appreciate
this thought.
My first experience with
a Japanese toilet was at Narita airport as I first arrived
into the country. Here I was, stumbling through the
airport after a grueling 11 hour flight, wanting nothing
more than to get cleaned up, eat something, and drop into
a coma for about a week.
Imagine my shock when I went
into the bathroom and found that someone has stolen the
toilet! All that was left was a rectangular hole in
the floor, kind of like a urinal installed not on
the wall, but on the floor. Backing out of the stall,
I went to the next one. Same thing! I continued
down the row of stalls, finding the same thing in all of
the stalls, until the last one in the row. There it
was, an honest to goodness toilet.
By this time my thoughts
were beginning to clear and I realized that nobody had stolen
the toilets, those were the toilets! About
this time I started to get that, "Hey Jeff, your not
in Kansas anymore" feeling. I was really here,
I was in Japan.
In most newer houses the
toilets are of the western style. But in restaurants, bars,
and a lot of other places the old style toilets are still
there. A lot of times a place will have both.
In my time here I have run
into a myriad of different toilets, everything from the
basic hole in the ground squatters, western style sitters,
and the most Japanese of inventions, the remote control
toilet.
You may be asking yourself
"Remote control toilet? What is that?"
Let me explain.
The Japanese love of gadgetry and technology, first imbibed
in the national psyche after the war, has risen to news
heights in recent years. It is no small wonder that
a country that produced such advances in consumer technology
as the Walkman and video game machines (Nintendo, Sega,
Sony Playstation) would eventually turn its inventiveness
to more mundane items such as the toilet.
The most recent output of
Japans love affair with technology is the remote control
toilet. While you can still find the old fashioned
squatter in most public restrooms, more and more you are
beginning to see high tech toilets everywhere you go.
I say most houses have western style toilets but that is
not entirely accurate. Seeing that Japan has been riding
the technology wave for the past few decades, this inherent
drive to push home electronics to it’s limit has produced
some pretty exotic toilets. I was thrown for a loop the
first time I say a toilet with remote controls. And
not just a small little box with a "flush" button
either. This is a paperpack book sized monster with no less
than 18 buttons. I believe that if you pressed enough
buttons in the correct sequence you could actually launch
the space shuttle with this thing. (If not that, I’m
sure you could at least control your home theater system
while you do your business)
In a ranking of the most
useful toilet accessories so far produced in Japan, the
heated seat would undoubtedly come out on top.
One function the germaphobic Japanese relish is the "Saran-wrap"
seat. Press a button and the seat miraculously covers itself
in a thin layer of transparent plastic so your cheeks don't
have to touch a surface where others' have been, eliminating
the need to use those sweaty paper seat covers.
The water spray cleaning
system is also pretty popular her, although I doubt its
actual effectiveness. And the blow dryer is even worse.
As anyone who has ever tried to have his or her backside
blown until it is actually dry will know, it takes several
minutes of hot-air action to allow you to be able to pull
up one's garments safely.
Perhaps most bizarre to
the foreigner is a device exclusive to ladies' bathrooms
that makes a sound of running water to mask the sound of
your passing water. Varieties on this theme include musical
devices playing tunes like a synthesized rendition of "Greensleeves"
for the same purpose.
That's not to mention odor-eating gases released automatically
on flushing, or clocks to tell you how long you've spent
on the throne, and automatic seat-lifting devices which
raise the seat and lid if you press "man," and
just the lid when you press "woman," eliminating
the need to touch the seat at all.
While all these bells and
whistles do serve the purpose of making your bathroom experience
a clean and pleasant one, I think that a secondary, more
sinister, motivation is behind the remote control toilet.
It is my opinion that the
high tech toilet was designed with only one purpose in mind.
To confuse and embarrass westerners, Americans to be specific.
What can be more disconcerting
than not knowing how to flush a toilet? You have 18
buttons to choose from. But be warned! Choose wisely
or else you may be taking an early shower, or come
out smelling a little too fresh and clean after being doused
with deodorizers.
When you compare the high-tech
toilets with the medieval squatters found in train stations
around the country, toilets become yet another intriguing
contradiction of life in Japan, places which tell a whole
story about the culture and psyche of the Land of the Rising
Sun.
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