It's been a sad week with the massive earthquakes and a fast spreading Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease virus in China, Pappa having three episodes of arrhythmia resuting in a hospitalization, a bus explosion (by terrorists?) in Shanghai combined with restructuring plans at work.

So trying to keep things in perspective, the last week spent in Tokyo got me thinking about the differences between living in China and Japan and my philosophical quest ended up in the toilet. Well, not exactly IN the toilet but about toilets. (Those of you who are surprised, raise your hand? I didn't think so..)

Unlike David’s stomach which seems to be made of steel, I’m always on the lookout for toilets (hey, just in case!). So during my travels between <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Shanghai and Tokyo, I’ve found the differences between the toilets and bathroom cultures of these two countries pretty funny. Not that there is anything funny about trying to find a toilet in a hurry…but anyway, I digress…

The toilets in our China office are located right next to the lunch room with doors wide open. Yes, that’s right - the doors between the lunch room and the entrance to the bathroom are always open as is the door into the bathroom itself. That means that the toilet stalls are just a few feet away from the lunch room and with doors always open and bathroom windows cracked, the breeze can go either way. Curiously, the folks don’t seem to be bothered or even think that this is somehow odd. Moreover, they are not shy about doing their business and stomach troubles can be discussed as casually as one’s preference to pork or beef.

In Tokyo, the open door policy still holds true but the similarities end there. While you can walk into the bathroom through (always) open doors, the individual stall doors are always shut tight. Once you enter the stall, you are faced with a gizmo equipped with buttons and flashing lights on the side of the seat. The ring even comes with seat heat. The locals rave about the heat but I found it, hmm, less appealing. I kept thinking that the luke warm seat was a result of some poor soul having to spend way too much time in the Loo…Anyway.

While my Chinese counterparts are not shy about bathrooms, the Japanese seem to be the opposite. As soon as someone enters the bathroom stall, they (must?) hit the noise button that makes a flushing sound or starts a chorus of birds chirping. You can also press the spray/bidet button which causes a little plastic arm to appear from the back of the bowl and to begin shooting warm water upwards. If you are too curious to have pressed the button but are not sitting down (like me), the radius on that spray is quite impressive. To finish things off, you can have the blow-dryer leave things nice and dry until your next visit.

The fun part is to try to keep in mind where you are and how you are supposed to behave; checking the wind direction before sitting down for lunch or enjoying a different kind of warm breeze while listening to the birds chirping?  

A fairly benign one from Japan.