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TMI From The Life Of...
Good lord. In-your-face though the Japanese may be about some aspects of life we keep under wraps in the west, they are incredibly potty shy. Designer toilets contain seat sensors that play waterfall/thunderstorm nature sounds when one sits on them, and I once encountered a toilet in Shinjuku which played the 1812 Overture (pretty much startling the, uh, crap out of me in the process). Newer home models incorporate mp3 players. I swear upon God's name that I am not making any of this up.
And all of it to cover up the sounds of, well, bathrooms.
In places where such amenities are not available, as in most schools and the city hall where I work, if a Japanese happens into the bathroom at the same time as myself, nine times out of ten she will continuously flush the toilet while we are both in the room, and refuse to exit the stall until I have have finished my business, washed my hands, and left.
This is not a unique phenomenon. I have noticed it in the majority of the 40-odd schools I've worked at, and most of my gaijin friends have remarked in aggravation and wonderment upon it as well. And it's ingrained to the point where I actually kept one unfortunate woman in her stall for 20 minutes last year. (I was having my small nervous breakdown about not being allowed the holiday off, and was in no state to be seen in public.) I finally exited the bathroom, at which point she left as well, and I then returned to continue to be miserable in my stall in peace.
Aside from the insane amounts of water the flushing wastes, I don't really care about it one way or the other. Except that The Robe's city hall is about 80 years old, and there are four toilets, total, available to all femaile employees and visitors. The water pressure is not good. It is especially bad when all four toilets are occupied at once (as they often are), without pause (as they often are), while the adjacent mens' rooms are also seeing heavy use.
The water pressure problem is heavily exacerbated by the fact that the Japanese occupants are all continuously flushing the toilets in an attempt to disguise what they're doing. This means that it often becomes impossible to flush the toilet once one has finished, because there isn't enough water/water pressure to accomplish the task.
I just returned from a surreal fifteen minute trip to the bathroom, the majority of which I spent trying to get the toilet to dispose of my waste while the woman in the next stall over refused to stop flushing her toilet or leave her stall before I did. I finally left in disguist, solving the problem the way most of the Japanese women here do; namely by leaving the paper and waste half-flushed in the toilet bowl, where it either sits until there's a pause where someone can flush all of it, or collects until the end of the day. Which is what generally happens, rendering the first floor toilets unusuable by mid-afternoon.
All of this because Japanese women are afraid that another woman might hear them peeing in the bathroom.
冗談じゃねぇよ！
That will be all.
And all of it to cover up the sounds of, well, bathrooms.
In places where such amenities are not available, as in most schools and the city hall where I work, if a Japanese happens into the bathroom at the same time as myself, nine times out of ten she will continuously flush the toilet while we are both in the room, and refuse to exit the stall until I have have finished my business, washed my hands, and left.
This is not a unique phenomenon. I have noticed it in the majority of the 40-odd schools I've worked at, and most of my gaijin friends have remarked in aggravation and wonderment upon it as well. And it's ingrained to the point where I actually kept one unfortunate woman in her stall for 20 minutes last year. (I was having my small nervous breakdown about not being allowed the holiday off, and was in no state to be seen in public.) I finally exited the bathroom, at which point she left as well, and I then returned to continue to be miserable in my stall in peace.
Aside from the insane amounts of water the flushing wastes, I don't really care about it one way or the other. Except that The Robe's city hall is about 80 years old, and there are four toilets, total, available to all femaile employees and visitors. The water pressure is not good. It is especially bad when all four toilets are occupied at once (as they often are), without pause (as they often are), while the adjacent mens' rooms are also seeing heavy use.
The water pressure problem is heavily exacerbated by the fact that the Japanese occupants are all continuously flushing the toilets in an attempt to disguise what they're doing. This means that it often becomes impossible to flush the toilet once one has finished, because there isn't enough water/water pressure to accomplish the task.
I just returned from a surreal fifteen minute trip to the bathroom, the majority of which I spent trying to get the toilet to dispose of my waste while the woman in the next stall over refused to stop flushing her toilet or leave her stall before I did. I finally left in disguist, solving the problem the way most of the Japanese women here do; namely by leaving the paper and waste half-flushed in the toilet bowl, where it either sits until there's a pause where someone can flush all of it, or collects until the end of the day. Which is what generally happens, rendering the first floor toilets unusuable by mid-afternoon.
All of this because Japanese women are afraid that another woman might hear them peeing in the bathroom.
冗談じゃねぇよ！
That will be all.
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....Only the ones who live in the INAKA.
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I'm trying to figure out how they determine who's supposed to leave first. What happens if two enter the loo at the same time - wait for infinity?
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I'm not quite sure how the order works itself out, not having grown up learning how to do it. My only guess is that Japanese people might be more comfortable exiting the stalls when the other people are also flushing, which I don't do.
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(The mp3 players, oh god!)
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Sad thing is, I'm rather acclimated to the toilets now. One of my first moments of culture shock stateside was over the fact that the home toliets didn't have heated seats! Barbaric!