WORSHIPPING THE PORCELAIN GOD

Last week I walked into the granny circle to find that their chosen topic for the evening was toilets.   In the hour and a half that followed, we discussed our best and worst public toilet experiences, debated over how often foreign tour companies should allow for toilet breaks in their itineraries (the group had strong opinions on this point), pondered why sanitation varies across countries, and compared different styles of toilets internationally.  Somewhat predictably, the Japanese-designed Western toilet won out in the international competition, having gained high marks in the categories of sanitation, promotion of personal hygiene (the bidet is crucial, the grannies argue), and overall comfort.   Most of these accolades are warranted; the standardization of heated toilet seats alone ranks as one of the greatest inventions of all time.  However, the bidet still skeezes me out.  

The top panel

6 buttons, one toilet

The Japanese-designed Western toilet is like a rocket ship with varying functions and amenities. During a recent visit from my parents, my mother became enamored of the toilets in their various hotel rooms.  As they moved from city to city and hotel to hotel, she provided for me a rundown of each facility: "So this one has a lot of buttons and that toilet seat warmer,  but I really prefer the one at the Granvia."  By "the one at the Granvia," she meant to throne she dragged me in to see one day when I went to collect them for a day of sightseeing.  "Look!" she exclaimed, "You stand there by the sink, and then walk over to the toilet and then a motion sensor raises the toilet lid!"  She demonstrated this for me before continuing, "And then you sit on the seat and do your business, and when you stand up, the toilet flushes, and after a few minutes, the toilet lid goes down again!"  Lest you think that I am poking fun at my mother for this performance, I will admit that I was also impressed, to a point where I made a video.

The one catch of the premier Japanese toilets is that they rarely come with English labels on the buttons.  As such, I have experienced various traumas whilst in the loo.  First, I emerged wet from my shoulders to my knees at a restaurant after I mistakenly hit the bidet button instead of the flush toggle, and was sprayed for several seconds as I scrambled to find the "stop" button with increased futility.  Then there was the incident at the Kobe port, where I accidentally hit the emergency button in the handicapped toilet (again in lieu of the flush- these toilets are tricky!), and a Japanese woman standing outside with two children tried to break in to help me.  Once she realized I was all right, she easily turned off the alarm; however, the siren could be heard throughout the terminal, and a security guard raced through the building to give me assistance.  Embarrassed doesn't do justice to the moment.


One question the grannies had was whether or not Americans have a toilet god.  A toilet god? I repeated.  Oh yes, they said.  In a long tradition spanning back generations, grandmothers had admonished their granddaughters to keep the toilet clean, telling them that if they did, they would grow up to be beautiful and find good husbands.  One young woman recently became a national sensation when she composed a song on the subject, "Toire no kamisama," or "The God of the Toilet"  Here's the song, in all its 10 minute glory:

One final note: Toilets, it turns out, can even be a tourist attraction, such as this public toilet in Ichihara City.  

DID I DO THAT?

In my pre-Japan research, a friend put me in touch with a former JET who lived in Kyoto.  We met up for lunch one day, and I encouraged her to share with me some of her most memorable moments.  For her, one such memory was the compulsory annual chest x-ray.  She was sent to a doctor's office by herself, and was told that all she would have to do was go in, have the x-ray taken, and leave.  No muss, no fuss, no removal of clothing.  So in she goes, and the first thing the doctor says is for her to take off her shirt, which she does.  Then he tells her she needs to take off something else, so she stripped off her bra, and walks back into the room, to the clearly shocked face of the elderly physician.  He takes the x-ray, and she goes back to school and says to a teacher, "I thought you said I didn't have to remove my shirt, but the doctor made me!"  The teacher, thinking this was funny business on the part of the doctor, called his office for an explanation.  "I told her to take off her necklace!" he said, "And she walked in half naked!"


Thanks to this friend, I was determined to be more savvy during my own x-ray.  Instead, I ended up writing her the following email:


I walked into school this morning and was informed that I needed to go have a chest x-ray taken.  They're doing the x-rays in the back of a camper van out by the school gym.  Very classy.  I had been told by a teacher that I didn't need to take anything off except my sweater and any jewelry, so in I went.  Once I was sitting in the "privacy area"- an upholstered bench seat behind some short curtains, the technicians told me that I needed to unzip my dress and take off my bra.  So I did.  And of course when the lady technician comes back, I'm sitting there bra-less, with the top of my dress folded down over my waist.  This seems to freak her out, so she grabs my sweater and drapes it hastily over me before ushering me into the x-ray room to where the male technician is standing.  Then I inadvertently flash him as he's situating me near the machine.

Basically, it was a good morning.