Posted on 04/01/2015 1:01:32 PM PDT by lulu16
It may not have been the Japanese who came up with the saying “cleanliness is next to godliness,” but the Land of the Rising Sun certainly has its share of neat-freakiness. After all, the word for “pretty” in Japanese, kirei, also means clean. This cultural obsession with keeping things tidy has resulted in the development of some uniquely Japanese habits regarding one of the more delicate aspects of daily life: the bathroom. For anyone planning a trip to Tokyo who doesn’t want to be caught with their pants down when nature calls (or anyone just looking for a little bathroom reading), here are some essentials for potty talk. Ahead, five things you need to know when you gotta go…in Japan.
1. Japanese bathrooms come with their own footwear. Remember that one friend you had growing up — the one whose mom would always nag you to take your shoes off at the door when you went over to their house? Welcome to Japan. The nationwide no-shoes rule extends to offices, schools, fitting rooms, and even drinking establishments. This came about not because of some kind of widespread foot fetish, but because in Japan it’s traditional to sit on the tatami floor — and no one wants to lounge around on all that crap stuck to the bottom of your shoes (not that anyone litters or lets their dog poop on the sidewalk in Japan).
Private homes and public spaces alike usually have a row of comfy, inside-only slippers awaiting guests near the door. But, the shoe swap doesn’t stop there — when you visit the bathroom, you’ll find yet another pair of slippers to change into. And, lest you confuse them for the others, these will probably be decorated with a smiling cartoon character and the word toilet. Like the old "skirt tucked into the underwear" or "toilet paper on the shoe" gags, it’s a classic Japanese faux pas to accidentally walk out of the bathroom with the toilet slippers still on.
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http://www.refinery29.com/bathroom-culture-japan?utm_source=email&utm_medium=editorial&utm_content=everywhere&utm_campaign=150401-april-horoscope
Japanese love their soaplands where you can pay young girls to bathe you (cover for prostitution)
Wait a minnit... Wouldn't one not want to be caught with their pants UP when nature calls? At least, that's how it works for me... Maybe I'm doing it wrong all these years.
And if anyone thought to reply, "Depends", I beat you to it. ; )
I’m going to Japan in June.
Good to know.
Do they have those 3-D paintings in the bathrooms?
Do they show the Super Terrific Happy Hour in there?
**I worked with a Japanese man who always washed his hands before urinating.**
I work in health care. I do that at work.
My Dad, from Sweden, called it “gopa dos.” Dos is an old Swedish word for outhouse. I thought that it was English and had quite a time making myself understood in first grade.
Lol, I think this article is more promotional than true.
I landed at Yokota Airbase in August 1969. I clearly remember driving down the streets through Yokohama and seeing men letting it all hang out and peeing in esplanades in the middle of divided streets in broad daylight.
On the road between cities, public restrooms were dual sex. Men up against the wall, women walking behind them and selecting a stall. The facilities were usually basically clean but not spotless.
Sewage in the streets was generally open in small, concrete lined trough like conduits. I surmised back then they were open so as to expedite cleaning or fixing blockages.
Rivers were typically called “binjo (sewer) ditches” by GI’s and were just filthy and corrupted and smelly because of thousands of sewers dumping into them. (This could be all cleaned up by now)
Now, inside Japanese personal residences the writer is absolutely correct as they were always spotless and you never went in them without taking your shoes off and I never went in my rented house without taking my shoes off.
I went in a lot of “Public Buildings” but never noticed anyone taking their shoes off.
The Japanese people are just the worlds greatest most sincere and attentive Hosts inside their homes. Socializing in a Japanese home is a lifetime memory.
All in all, the two years I spent there were the two best of my life and I often pinched myself back then to force myself to acknowledge that.
I’m looking forward to returning for two weeks (46 years later) this year with my daughter. Don’t go without going to Three Sisters Inn in Osaka and the Kyoto Palace in Osaka. Even two weeks is not enough to see Japan. Other ancient sites are just breathtaking.
Two ends of the continuum appear in the trains. On the one hand, the local spurs have toilets through whose holes one may see the trackbed speeding by. I...um...kid you not. On the other, the luxury trains down the Izu peninsula have toilets so high-tech you need an engineering degree to poop with propriety. We're talking automatic sliding seat protectors, a programmable bidet, and buttons with cryptic kanji on them that you press at the risk of the well-being of yer harbles. And that's in the bar car.
When their beat cops enter an unsecured residence, do they take off their shoes too?
FWIW, in b-school, I took a course on design innovation, and Toto, iirc, was one of the cases. To inspire their toilet designers, they went ahead and imported toilets from around the world for them to study.
After the design and engineering departments got done, the marketing department set up a "International Toilet Exhibit" to generate publicity for the company.
I'd still be content with a plain old toilet system, white and 3.5 gallons...
Go to Mexico and check out no paper.. carry your own most places. Arizona becoming the same. In fact, Mexicans use dressing rooms in Arizona for toilets often. Civilized we are not. Nor are our neighbors to the south if bathroom nicities are the measure.
“And yet...the Japanese have taken scatological porn to the most disgusting limits imaginable.”
Well, my theory is that, since they censor the explicit parts, the pornographers over there have upped the ante on what isn’t censored to make up for that.
Middle eastern toilet = the desert behind your hut.
Oh tell me about it, I was in Okinawa for a couple of months and was staying at the Tokyo Grand Mer Hotel not to far from MCB Foster, and man not only was the room nice but if there is one thing I wish I had taken back with me was that toilet, it felt good, very Kawaii.
Justin Wilson the Cajun cook advocated the same thing when working with cayenne pepper. You usually only make the mistake once.
Learn some basic Japanese, and do not play the Gaijin card and you should be fine.
I have this on my master bathroom toilet.
http://www.biobidet.com/BB1000_SupremeBidet.htm
I could never go back.
My dogs go out side to “do their business” usually.
More importantly, where art the best restrooms?
Saved and will probably buy for Christmas, thanks a lot.
If you have a leg injury or a bum knee that kind of toilet would be a real problem.
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