Japan Reflections: I Need To Write About Toilets In Japan, 7 November 2018

I need to write about toilets in Japan.

My good friend Ian Theodoreson visited Japan earlier this year and referred to the toilets in his fascinating and amusing blog piece about his visit:

Blue apples and heated toilet seats

While in no way wanting to detract from Ian Theodoresen’s concise and important point about heated toilet seats, I feel bound to describe Japanese toilet technology in more detail.

Because every toilet seat Janie and I encountered was more than just heated; every toilet seat was, to a greater or lesser extent, smart.

The simplest, smart toilets had an array of coloured and lettered buttons, which we knew to be flushing and bidet functions of various sorts, enabling the user to  clean up after themselves in various ways.

In the absence of labelling which we could understand…and having both lived many decades each without such functions…we felt loathe to experiment with such buttons for a good while.

But once we got to Kyoto…

Japan Day Eight: Kyoto Tea Ceremony But Otherwise Unguided Day, 27 October 2018

we were blessed, at the Hyatt, with an especially smart loo, upon which the buttons were more elegantly labelled, with descriptive symbols leaving both of us in little or no doubt as to the function of each button.

Also, we had a bit more time in Kyoto than we’d had in other places, so we had the luxury of some additional experimentation time. Thus we both tried the various bidet buttons.

We both agreed that the sensations provided by the bidet functions were quite pleasurable, once we got over the over-riding senses of amusement and novelty.

We also both agreed that, in the functional matter of cleaning up after oneself, we suspected that such “automated bideting” was only of limited use – perhaps even lulling the user into a false sense of hygiene security.

In short – we were remaining old school in the matter of such personal hygiene for the time being.

Unexpectedly, it was when we got to the shukubo (pilgrim’s lodgings) at Ekoin in Koyasan…

Japan Day Ten: Journey To Koyasan And Cemetery Walk, 29 October 2018

…that our toilet got really smart. I think the idea of “luxury pilgrims lodgings” with en-suite facilities is quite new at Ekoin, so we had the very latest stuff. More utilitarian in look than the posh Hyatt loo, but seriously smart.

The control panel enabled you to do all manner of things – we barely touched the surface of those possibilities – but the smartness of this loo included a sensor that recognised that one of us was in the vicinity and lifted the loo seat up for us.

Once we were done, the sensors seemed to recognise what we had done, so it would short flush or long flush accordingly (manual over-ride was an option of course) once we had moved away from the loo – then it would sloosh around the bowl for a while, then it eventually would close the lid again.

In short, this loo seemed to know what we wanted to do…as well, if not better than we did ourselves.

Now, as many readers will know, I’m all in favour of augmented intelligence and artificial intelligence in theory…

…but in practice, we found this level of smartness emanating from the loo just a little creepy…

…until we got used to it.

As it happens, the posh places we stayed in after the monastery; the Ritz-Carlton in Osaka…

Japan Day Twelve: One Heck Of A Halloween Day In Osaka, 31 October 2018

…and especially the Amanemu in Shima…

Japan Days Thirteen To Seventeen: Five Blissful Days At The Amanemu, 1 to 5 November 2018

…also had these ultra-modern, ultra-smart loos and we are now both totally into it. We conversed with our loos, instructed them orally just in case they aren’t quite as smart as they like to think they are…

…and of course we thanked our loos for their comprehensive efforts. After all, courtesy costs nothing.

And comprehensive those efforts really can be; as Janie put it on one occasion:

I’ve just had a complete wash and blow dry on my bum.

I fear that we might have adjusted so comprehensively to our new loo environment, we’ll no doubt find it difficult to adjust back; remembering to do our own flushing and to lift/close the toilet seat for ourselves might prove tricky for us.

Predictably hilarious results might ensue unless Janie and I pay close attention to “sharpening our own smarts” again in the matter of toilet use on our return to the UK, where the loos are still so very 20th century.