It’s been a while since I last wrote. I made it through a whole six weeks without bothering you all with another 5 pages. And I can’t really claim that I ‘made it’ through a whole month. I’ve been involved in a few personality conflicts which combined with the heat stopped me sleeping too well. That lack of sleep and spending too much time in front of the air conditioner gave me a cold or the flu or something which slowed my brain right down for over a week. Not a good month for writing jovial letters in other words.
News is not all so depressing. I have complained a lot about being bored at work, but now I’m quite busy. I have a couple of very big Y2K projects that will keep me going at least until the end of the year, and more work waiting in the sidelines. It’s not so much that I have to work until 10pm every night, but it’s definitely enough to keep me interested. I’ve also tracked down a couple of rock climbing places and am hoping to take a look this weekend. I started Spanish lessons with Mark (my first manager) from Giselle (his Peruvian wife) last week, so I should improve there pretty quickly too. All in all, things are going very well.
Anyway, on to this month’s promised topic. I will stick to the one subject to try and keep it under 5 pages. I will also try and keep it relatively clean, but for those with weak stomachs, you may want to push the delete button now because this month it’s bathrooms.
Japanese bathrooms are always different from western bathrooms. I’ve seen quite a few varieties, but only hotels have anything remotely similar. The first difference is that they are usually split into 3 parts. The first is called a powder room and holds the vanity unit. This is like a basin / mirror / cupboard all in one. It has a special door for toothbrushes and shelves for other commonly used items. The basin is usually more like a laundry tub and often the tap is on a hose. The name of this type of unit gives the purpose away – shampoo dresser. It’s for when you want to wash your hair in the morning without getting into the shower. Interestingly, this room is one of the most common places for a washing machine (the other being in the entry hall).
The bathroom leads off this, and a Japanese bathroom holds just a bath. It’s always more a bath you stand up in, being about 1 metre cubed. Most modern bathrooms will have a shower hose and a place to clip it into the wall outside the bath. Whether or not there is a shower hose, there will be a tap and this is where you wash yourself. You can only get into the bath once you’re clean. It sounds strange at first, but when you’re in a family situation, everyone uses the same hot water in the bath. They would traditionally fill up a bucket with water from the tap (or the bath) and wash themselves in that. These days of course, many people use the shower hose.
My bath is one of the more modern ones that has an electronic control for the temperature of both shower and bath water. I can automatically start running the bath and choose the temperature from a control panel in my kitchen. Unfortunately (this is my first experience with the dangers of smart homes), the control panel is susceptible to blackouts. After a recent storm, I came home feeling a little cooler than usual and still being sick, was in the mood for a warm shower. I stripped off and got in, knowing the water would be at 30 degrees, and got a huge shock at the freezing water. I waited for it to heat up for about 5 minutes before I noticed the control panel said 0 degrees. The blackout had reset all my settings and switched off the water heater. Aaaaaarrggh!
Having the two rooms separate is ideal for families as people can still get into the bathroom to clean their teeth, wash their hair etc. while someone is in the bath. This is further improved by the not so new idea of putting the toilet in a third room. Well, the idea of putting it in a separate room isn’t new, a third room probably is. I’ve got the standard model. For the most part it looks just like a toilet you’d find in Australia and most other places I’ve been, but they have made one brilliant change that amounts to genius in my environmentally friendly world. Rather than wasting all the water on flushing and then washing your hands in a separate basin using more fresh water – no don’t cringe yet, think about it – they use the toilet water to wash their hands. No. BEFORE it’s flushed. In our toilets, the water is pumped into the tank and sits there waiting to be flushed next time. Here, they put a basin in the top of the tank and the fresh water comes out of a tap over the basin, where you wash your hands, and then drains into the tank, ready to be flushed next time. Why didn’t we think of that?
There are other styles of toilets that can be found in more expensive and older houses. The older houses may have a ‘benjou’ (lit. place for use) which is a traditional Asian squat toilet. Basically, it’s a hole in the ground that you squat over. Modern times have called for a hood at the front for us guys to aim at, and for flushing to keep the health conscious happy. It’s actually meant to be much better for you because you get exercise doing all the squats, and because your internals line up letting everything out rather than leaving some to rot inside and cause cancer. I’m quite comfortable with this style, but I did have to concede that girls may have problems when I saw a comedian doing an impression of a girl holding her skirt in her teeth. This was later verified as a real world example and the girls all wondered exactly how he knew.
The more expensive places may have a control panel on the toilet. Why just flush when you can bide? But then, what if it’s too cold in winter or too hot in summer? Get a complete control panel that allows you to wash and dry. You can set the pressure and temperature of the air, the water, and even the seat (ah, only temperature for the seat – it can’t make you feel lighter). I was quite baffled by a ‘massage’ option on the toilet I had in my temporary place. I don’t like any of these additional features, but after 3 weeks, I got up the courage to test the new one. The jet of water started moving back and forwards. I’ve asked many people if they know what it’s meant to acheive. I’m sure the girls know from the grins on their faces, but they refuse to tell me. The most extreme example of this technology is actually in Mark’s apartment. I understood someone wanting a radio control right away, but the remote control for the rest was beyond me at first. We thought the only real use for it was for when you had visitors from overseas, you could stand outside the door turning the water on and off. This is actually unnecessary as every new person will come away from their first encounter drenched from head to foot, even without the help of sadistic friends. Now, having seen a control panel for the bath in my kitchen, I know that this remote is so you can warm up the toilet seat from the lounge room 10 minutes before you need to sit on it.
Then of course you have the opposite end of the scale in the one room apartments. I’ve heard it said of bathrooms in these places that you can ‘shit, shave, and shower’ without getting up. In cases like this, the washing machine is often kept on the balcony, or done at the local laundry. Bathing is also sometimes done at the communal centre.
Sorry, there’s still more to be told. I haven’t started on the public toilets yet. The most bizarre story I’ve heard about public toilets actually comes from an Australian co-worker. Various public toilets around the country have a special button next to a row of lights. When pushed, this button activates the sound of a toilet flushing. The row of lights tells you how long you have to go before the sound runs out. The story behind this invention is that McDonald’s were losing a lot of money on huge water bills. When they looked into it, they found that their customers were embarrassed by the sounds they made during the fulfillment of vital bodily functions so they flushed the toilet to drown it out. Installing these devices has saved McDonald’s a lot of money. Interestingly, this is only ever found in women’s toilets. Men are quite happy to hack, cough and spit to cover their own embarrassment.
Of course, girls have less to worry about in the visual arena. They always have a cubical to hide in. I’ve found the men’s troughs to be quite open. The first toilet I went to was at the airport, many years ago. I got quite a shock to find that I had a good view of all the people walking past on the verandah through the window next to where I was standing. Next time I went to a public toilet, I checked for a better spot to use. No windows onto verandahs in this place. No, but the mirror bounced my reflection directly through the door to the world outside. Next time, at school, I checked for windows and mirrors, but to no avail, there was no better option than being directly in the line of the doorway. I assumed that this meant that Japanese turned a blind eye to the whole thing and that I needn’t be shy about being so visible, but I was wrong. At the close of a camp in the mountains, everyone was collecting everyone else’s signatures. I was tracked down to the local urinal, and one of the girls stood beside me until I finished, with her book and pen in hand. Friends at school showed me how to get around the problem. The troughs are always individual with deep walls and are cutaway at the top. By arching your back and bowing your body inwards, you are hidden, and very uncomfortable. This works well, but in some places the urinals are only 3 foot tall, so you have to arch your back at the same time as bending your knees, which is not at all possible let alone comfortable. Public toilets are now a last resort and require 5 minutes investigation and practice before being used.
I’d add something here about communal baths, but I haven’t been to one yet. I’ll let you know when I have.