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Many aspects of Japanese culture baffle Westerners. Yaeba, or the practice of implanting vampire-like canines, is a popular beauty technique among young women. There are hotels where you can sleep in capsules and restaurants that serve gourmet canned food. Scores of young men choose to cloister themselves in their rooms and become asocial rather than dealing with Japan’s enormous social pressures, a phenomenon known as hikikomori.
One of the most baffling and anxiety-producing effects of traveling to Japan is operating toilets. The majority of Japanese households and urban public restrooms have multi-function “shower toilets” or Washlets with electronic controls. Washlets typically feature bidet and “hip wash” features (basically a water jet sprayed at different angles), heated seats, warm air dryers, and smart sensors that reduce water flow when the toilet’s flushed with the seat up (indicating a strong probability of a urine-only flush). Due to the “comprehensive” nature of these toilets some bathrooms forgo toilet paper.
Westerners typically don’t take issue with a Washlet’s over-the-top features but often struggle with the controls. While each button shows an icon describing its function, it’s not exactly clear what each does, at least to a visitor. In line with Japan’s other efforts to streamline the country’s iconography ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the Japan Sanitary Equipment Industry Association announced this week that they’ll be standardizing the icons on their toilet products. Considering the image below, the controls will be (left to right, top to bottom): large flush, small flush, raise lid, raise seat, stop, rear spray “hip wash,” bidet, and warm air dry.
According to the official press release, a 2014 study of 600 foreigners in Japan showed that 25% did not understand toilet controls, while almost 9% pressed the “emergency button” either accidentally or for help. The press release also mentions that the JSEIA and other organizations are looking to standardize the pictograms with the ISO in the future.
Japanese culture places a high value on cleanliness, to the point that certain Japanese words mean both “pretty” and “clean.” This focus as well as their establishing a hard line between clean and unclean areas results in other products and practices confusing to Westerners, such as providing plastic “bathroom slippers” in public restrooms to prevent germs on shoe soles.
I’ll admit that I felt that I was reading news articles from The Onion while researching this blog, but it’s impressive that Japan is thoughtfully considering its throngs of Olympic visitors well before the games actually kick off. And after reading anecdotes about automatic Japanese bidets spraying unsuspecting Westerners, the efforts seem worth the trouble.
Controls image credit: brownpau / CC BY 2.0
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