When people think of international travel, they think of the glory that is Rome, the beauty that is Paris, the exotic majesty of the Taj Mahal, the excitement of a Kenyan safari. They think in poetry. The details of getting there and being there are often prosaic – like taking off your shoes to go through airport security, changing money, or navigating unfamiliar streets.
The Taj Mahal is poetry. Pooping is prose.
When you travel, you probably take it for granted that a toilet is a toilet and that’s that. But no. That is not that. Sometimes “that” is not even a toilet.
During my first trip away from family, at Boy Scout camp, there were no toilets. There were latrines – dark, smelly, disgusting latrines. All of a sudden, the bathroom at home that I shared with six other people felt like the height of luxury. After sneaking off and scoping the grounds of Camp Yawgoog, I found an office. I realized that somewhere inside that office, there must be a toilet – and there was.
My scrawny 13 year old behind did not touch a latrine for the rest of that trip. Once I found something that resembled “normal”, I felt no need for my behind to embrace the abnormal.
Compared to a latrine, the toilets of Central and South America seemed almost welcoming – for as much as anyone could imagine a toilet to be welcoming. They were exactly like the toilets one would see anywhere in the United States or Canada. They were “normal” – which is more than can be said for the plumbing systems to which they were attached. Even in most of the big cities, the plumbing cannot handle paper of any kind, including toilet paper. In these places, you will find a wastebasket next to the toilet, for used toilet paper. Ick! Gross.
In the mid eighties, I took my first trip to Japan. A few months prior, I had been to Hong Kong and had noticed nothing unusual, by American standards, about the bathrooms that I found in hotels, restaurants, and in tourist areas. I expected Tokyo and its environs to be more of the same. Mostly it was – until it wasn’t.
I was in a public restroom somewhere – I forget where – and needed a bathroom. I needed a stall and as one would expect, there was a small row of stalls, each containing a perfectly normal toilet. However, I quickly left when I realized that there was just one thing missing: toilet paper. I went to the other stalls – and had no luck there either. I began to discover that while most restrooms had toilet paper, some did not. It has been many years since that first trip to Tokyo, but I remember being told that there had been a custom where people would bring their own paper to a public toilet.
I did a bit of research and am happy to report that this is no longer the norm. Virtually all public bathrooms in Japan will have toilet paper, like you would expect in any country with modern facilities.
However, even in a modern country, in older buildings, one can find old style features. In Japan, that could mean encountering the old-style Japanese toilet, sometimes referred to as toilette à la turque. With a French name like that, one might expect something elegant – perhaps even a bit exotic, since à la turque means Turkish-style and conjures up images of the East. The toilette à la turque has an interesting design feature that may appeal to the germaphobe. With this sort of toilet, one’s nether cheeks touch neither seat nor bowl. However, there is a definite downside to this arrangement:
User:Wrightbus, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
As you can see, with the toilette à la turque, there is no physical contact with the apparatus, but that is only because you are forced to squat like an animal to do your business. Others may feel differently, but this does not appeal to me. I’d much rather line the seat with a ton of toilet paper to ensure no actual contact is made with the horror that is a public toilet seat than do that. While squatting may be a great way to add an extra thigh exercise to your workout regimen, call me crazy, but I’d rather find someplace else to exercise than a public toilet.
Japan has more than atoned for this sin by its adoption and then subsequent improvement of another European style bathroom plumbing appliance. It applied its own tradition of engineering, innovation, and electronic excellence to take that humble appliance to new heights, previously unknown. I refer to the bidet, which has now been transformed into the modern washlet.
Photos by Christopher Lupone
Although I had long heard of the washlet, I experienced it for the first time only a few years ago. I checked into the Palace, a posh San Francisco hotel that did not disappoint, even in the smallest detail, even in the bathroom. After my long flight, when I opened the door to seek relief, I found that I had opened the door to a whole other level of comfort that had to this point in my life somehow eluded me.
Since most homes and businesses cannot easily add space to a bathroom to accommodate a bidet, Toto – the premier Japanese toilet manufacturer – decided to retrofit the toilet. The toilet seat is replaced by the washlet, which is attached to the water line and contains a retractable wand in the center. Upon the touch of a button, the wand extends and water shoots out. The pressure and the position of the water stream are adjustable by touching a button. The more deluxe units installed at the Palace also included a drying feature and even a remote control.
I understand how the drying feature can be useful – not that I actually used it much. (Hot dryers can cause chapping – and who wants chapped skin there?) However, I found the remote control rather strange. The washlet controls are attached to the unit itself. What benefit is there from an additional set of controls, let alone a remote? My brother, another fervent fan of the washlet, wondered about the novelty effect of having a loved one adjust the water pressure and wand position from across the room. However, we both agreed that there is a lot that could go horribly wrong in that scenario.
In any case, at the Palace I had been introduced to what was indeed truly a royal flush. I have since installed a basic Toto model in my home. A Japanese washlet is the nicest thing you can do for your backside, ever.
In the Netherlands, the toilet is far less regal, but, so the Dutch might tell you, far more practical. In the Netherlands, many of the toilets are built with toilet shelves. I do not refer to a shelf above the toilet or beside the toilet but rather inside the toilet, integral to the bowl itself.
Karl Baron, CC BY 4.0, <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>
When you sit on the toilet, the shelf is directly underneath your backside. Liquid quickly slides off the shelf and into the pit of the toilet. Solids are detained on the shelf until flushed. When I saw this for the first time, I thought it’s almost as if the Dutch want to examine what comes out of them.
Doing a bit of reading, I discovered that is exactly what the Dutch want to do – or, at least, that is indeed the shelf’s purpose. If a Dutch person is not well and seeks some supplementary data about their health, they have no further to look than their own toilet shelf. It’s all right there. If the doctor inquires about the state of their bowels, the Dutch, courtesy of their special toilets, are better equipped to reply than, for example, someone in New Jersey.
In Europe, even in public bathrooms, you will usually find a toilet brush in a stand next to the toilet. I never really thought much about that until I was in Munich. I spent a long weekend with a German friend of mine there. He invited me to lunch at his office. After I got to the office building and found my friend, I needed to find a bathroom. Outside the men’s room, there was a sign, in English, asking people to “respect the dignity of the toilet” (or something like that.) The sign really confused me. I had always thought of a toilet more in terms of utility than dignity.
After returning to my friend’s cubicle, I had to ask – what’s up with the sign?
He replied, more than a bit condescendingly, “That sign is for our American friends, so they know what the brush next to the toilet is for.”
This led to a lecture about bathroom cleanliness, in particular about Americans, toilet bowls, and the “skid marks” they leave behind. This brief lecture was followed by a discussion, which ended with my friend asking me what I do in the US when visiting someone’s house and there is no brush handy.
I remember replying, “I usually flush, take some toilet paper, wipe the marks, and flush again.”
We (mercifully) moved on to the next topic and went to lunch.
I spent part of the afternoon thinking about my friend’s arrogance during his toilet lecture. It had a lingering effect on my mood. I resented where the conversation had gone.
That night, my friend took me out to have a few beers. He bought the first round, and I bought the second. When the second round arrived, rather than say “Cheers!” or “Prost!”, I raised my glass, looked my host right in the eye and there, in the middle of a Munich beer hall, said, with gusto, “L’chaim!” It was the most subversive thing I could think of to say in the middle of a Munich beer hall.
I felt – dare I say it? – a flush of satisfaction. My mood improved.
And no, I do not remember what the toilets inside the beer hall looked like.
©2023, Christopher Lupone. All rights reserved.
Random Musings of A Quasi Educated Person 