Japanese Toilets

This sign points the way to the public toilets in Ueno Park in Tokyo.

Ueno Park, or Ueno Kōen, is the former site of the Kan'ei-ji, the temple of the Tokugawa shōguns who guarded the north-east approach to Edo Castle. The park was established in 1924 by a land grant to the city of Tokyo from Emperor Taishō, the father of the Shōwa Emperor or Emperor Hirohito, who ruled Japan through World War II and until 1989.

Here is the entrance to the public lavatory in Ueno Park.

There are stainless steel sinks, stainless steel mirrors (showing the Toilet Guru photographing the facilities!), and the standard silhouette outlines for the men and women. Plus, of course, the requisite paragraph of Japanese text.

If you are especially interested in toilet signs, then you should also see:

• The toiletological signage page.
• The sign from the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees in Guangzhou, P.R.C., at the very top of the main page and and also on the Buddhist toilet page.
• The Totalitarian Toiletarianism page, especially if you like your signs with stilted wording and misspellings.

Here you can clearly see the toilet itself. It is the usual Japanese style: a narrow squat toilet with a hemispherical shield at the drain end.

You also see the white plastic rubbish bin in the corner. As discussed on the "Bowl or Bin?" page, Japan is well to the east of the Paper Curtain, the line dividing the world in terms of what one does with used toilet paper. Does it go into the bowl or into the bin?

Plus, in the opposite corner, my daypack...

At left is an electrically-powered toilet seat in a luxury hotel room in Tokyo, Japan.

I was in Japan on business, and the company had put me up at the Hotel Intercontinental in the Shinjūkū district. It wasn't the hotel in "Lost in Translation" but it might as well have been, right down to the bathroom. Stone tile floors, a nice bathroom vanity with a marble top, and dual toilet-paper dispensers!

The toilet had a couple of dials and some push buttons, and the inside of the seat had a multi-paragraph manual explaining its operation.

Unfortunately, the operating instructions were only in Japanese. The only English warned that you shouldn't break the toilet or urinate all over the seat. But that's always good advice!

At right and below are some better images of a similar high-tech Japanese toilet.

This one is in the Tokyu Haneda Hotel, including an image of the instruction manual. This one has at least a little English.

Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box."

In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.

The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by Julie Horan, contends that civilization began with the toilet.

Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Laura Noren and Harvey Molotch, has essays by anthropologists, sociologists, and architects on the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers.

Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World describes the toilets of the Roman Empire from Iberia to Syria, and from North Africa to Hadrian's Wall in Britannia.

Toilets, Bathtubs, Sinks, and Sewers: A History of the Bathroom, explains the history of personal cleanliness and hygiene to children in grades 5-8.

If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):

• Travel suggestions
• To Bob's main site