Toilet Talk

Generally, toilets aren’t a very interesting topic. I wouldn’t even be talking about them if I didn’t find something about them interesting. And trust me, I really don’t usually find toilets interesting. In America, they’re just toilets. They’re all the same: you sit on them, they’re in the bathroom, everyone knows what they’re used for, etc. etc. In Japan it’s the same general concept, however, there are three different types of toilets.

There’s the one we all know and love, the “normal” American toilet:

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Its porcelain prowess matches no other in America. In Japan, it’s often found in most large public bathrooms where a lot of people go through. One or a few can generally also be found in schools, or other fairly public places. However, it’s not the most common type of toilet I found.

The second type of toilet I found was called a bidet.


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If you don’t already know, bidets are high-tech toilets that spray water on you when you’re finished using them. This helps eliminate paper waste of other types of toilets. You can change the water pressure in most bidets, and some you can even change the temperature of the seat and the water.


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Bidets are weird if you’re not used to them, but they’re not that bad, and they do tend to be cleaner and eliminate paper waste. One of my friends I went to Japan with made it a point to use a bidet every single time we passed one. We made fun of my friend about it for the whole trip, and she was a good sport about it. So you never know, you may love them too.

Last but not least, the most common toilet I found in Japan was the squat toilet.


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These toilets intimidated me because I had never seen one before, and I had no idea how to use them. It was funny to me because earlier in my stay in Japan I saw a sign like this:


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I couldn’t believe anyone didn’t know how to use a toilet, that seemed like common sense to me. I took pictures of the signs and laughed at them with my other American friends on the trip. When I saw a squat toilet, though, it all made sense.

Basically, you squat, and face the bigger part of the toilet. You have to throw away any paper waste when you’re done, or it’ll clog the toilet. I never used one of these toilets while I was in Japan because they intimidated me a lot. Oh well. If you go to Japan someday and use one, you’ll have to get back to me!

So, that was my enthralling two cents about Japanese toilets. Yeah, they’re not the most interesting things in the world, but the fact that they’re so different surprised me. Hope you didn’t think this post was crappy. 

B)