Touring the toilets of Tokyo
When it comes to the need to go, Japan is a very different world.
I have often complained about the lack of public toilets in North America, and the problem of “loo leash”, and wrote years ago:
“The situation is only going to get worse as the population ages (baby boomer men have to pee a lot), but there are also people with irritable bowel syndrome, pregnant women and others who simply need a bathroom more often or at less convenient moments. Authorities say providing public washrooms can't be done because it would cost "hundreds of millions" but never have a problem spending billions on the building of highways for the convenience of drivers who can drive from home to the mall where there are lots of washrooms. The comfort of people who walk, people who are old, people who are poor or sick — that doesn't matter.”
I am one of those boomer men who are always looking for a bathroom, and recently found them everywhere- in Japan, which I visited recently with a Docomomo US architectural tour. Walking from the National Museum to the other end of Oeno Park, I passed three of them in 20 minutes. There are public washrooms in most subway stations (and there are a LOT of subway stations) and near every shrine and temple (and there are 80,000 of those) and every floor of every department store. Every one I used was spotless, and almost every toilet had a warm, toasty Washlet seat with a bidet water jet.
Toronto writer Shawn Micallef called it a “public pee paradise.”
“They are everywhere. Out in the city you can expect to see one, walk in, use it, leave. No fuss. They are in parks. In many transit stations. On street corners. Under freeways. By rivers and canals. They appear like mailboxes do here, often and ubiquitous.”
One of them had a very clever set of men and women symbols, I am sorry I only took a picture of the men’s.
It is surprising that there are so many public toilets, given the history of toilets in Japan. Flush toilets came to Japan much later than in Europe and North America because poop was too valuable as fertilizer to flush away. It was still collected into the 1930s and shipped to the countryside by rail. Even at the turn of the 20th century, sanitary officials were saying:
“Night soil is a necessary fertilizer for farmers, and as such, night soil from the city of Tokyo can be sent to nearby prefectures for a potentially high price. Therefore, we see no need to follow the example of Western cities and discharge it into the sewer pipes.”
Japanese people were used to squatting, so when flush toilets were first installed, most were squat types, such as this one in Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1924 Yodoko Guest House.
Squats can still be found even in recent installations such as this one in Arata Isozaki’s Museum of Modern Art in Takasaki from 1974.
According to Marta Elzbieta Szczygiel, the big push for flush toilets came during the American occupation after the Second World War.
“As the victor, Allied Powers began to change Japan under slogans of liberalization and democratization, but they also set new standards of everyday life. Americans saw Japanese toiletry habits as unsanitary and looked down on them – Japan was urged to modernize its toilets on the model of the American occupiers.”
That must have surprised the Japanese, who are far more fastidious about cleanliness than anyone else, and would never put a toilet in the same room as where you wash.
Squat toilets are healthier; that’s how our bodies were designed to work. In many ways, the trend to western toilets was a step backward- sitting instead of squatting is the reason we need toilet paper or a washlet in the first place; see Alexander Kira. However, there was a big push to change the squats to western-style toilets before the 1964 Olympics, and another push to install Washlet-style toilets before the 2020 Olympics, when 40 million visitors were expected. Mao Ueda of Toyokeizai Online wrote:
“People from all over the world will be coming to Tokyo for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and it would be a great opportunity for them to experience the state-of-the-art toilet. The visitors would feel the warm sense of hospitality from the moment they step inside the cubicle, until they leave it.”
It’s more than just a warm feeling, as I noted in an earlier post:
In my two weeks in Japan, I only saw one washroom that did not have a Toto or Panasonic Washlet toilet with a warm seat. They were even on the trains.
Even in Takamasa Yoshizaka’s 1965 Inter-University Seminar House, which still has its original bathrooms and squat toilet, the western toilet has been upgraded with a washlet seat.
I have had a Toto washlet toilet seat for 14 years, and can’t imagine living without one. But it may be time for an upgrade; the new ones, like this Toto unit in our Hiroshima hotel, have a lid that opens automatically and flushes itself when you are done. The only button you touch is the rinse button on the wall above the toilet paper.
I was also surprised by the urinals. This design was almost universal; it is very narrow, and the bottom sticks way out. Men are often slobs and often dribble, and floors are often spotted with pee. This design makes it almost impossible to make a mess.
Almost. I saw quite a few of these signs. But it is still a far superior design than any I have seen in North America. I am short, and often look for the kids’ urinal that is mounted lower; I never had that problem in Japan with this design.
I may have thought that there were toilets everywhere in Tokyo, but they built even more Tokyo Toilets for the Olympics, designed by top architects from Japan and around the world. I didn’t see any of these as I was staying in another part of Tokyo, but they look amazing.
Shigiru Ban’s design has liquid-crystal glass, which turns opaque at the flip of a switch.
“There are two things we worry about when entering a public toilet, especially those located at a park. The first is cleanliness, and the second is whether anyone is inside. Using the latest technology, the exterior glass turns opaque when locked. This allows users to check the cleanliness and whether anyone is using the toilet from the outside. At night, the facility lights up the park like a beautiful lantern.”
Unfortunately, liquid crystals only work within a relatively narrow temperature range; if it gets too cold, then they are no longer liquid. They leave it in opaque mode all winter now.
In the end, it didn’t matter where you go; whether it’s an office building in Roppongi, a bar in Shinjuku, or even on the Shinkansen (bullet train), there are public washrooms everywhere, almost always spotless and almost always with nice warm washlet toilet seats.
In 2019, a British study concluded:
“Public toilets should be considered as essential as streetlights, roads and waste collection, and equally well enforced by legislation and regulations. The lack of provision is affecting equality, mobility, physical fitness and other aspects of health.”
This is a problem we face in North America as well. We should learn from Japan, where they have public toilets for everyone, almost everywhere.
Not so public toilets
The nicest hotel bathroom was in the Kyoto Doubletree, which had the sink and dressing area in the hall, (the Datsuiba). This was described by Bruce Smith and Yoshiko Yamomoto in the Japanese Bath as:
“..a comfortable space for taking off one’s clothes and for drying off and putting on fresh clothes after the bath. it is a transition space between the watery world of the bath and the dry world of the house.”
The toilet has its own room (with a tiny sink)
The shower and tub in its own space, complete with stool and plastic bucket for traditional Japanese bathing. This is the arrangement I used in my own home, but it is much nicer in Kyoto, and unlike my version, I liked the sink:
I have already noted that we should learn from Japan about public toilets; there is much to learn about their private ones too.
One of the most sickening things about our consumerist lifestyle is shitting into drinking water and wiping our asses with tree flesh.
Thanks for this, Lloyd. Before reading this, I didn't know squat about Japanese toilets.