On my recent trip to Asia, my daughter and I flew to China after spending 10 days in Japan. Shortly after arrival, we were in culture shock because there were so many things that were different between the two countries. One of the biggest differences that I didn’t pay attention to before the trip was the toilet situation. Yes, I’m going there, this post is about toilets.
Japanese Toilets
If you’ve never experienced a Japanese toilet, you’re in for a treat. Even the most basic Japanese toilets have built-in bidets. At home, we installed bidets on our toilets because of the Covid toilet paper shortage, and we’ve grown quite accustomed to having them. In Japan, even the airplane bathrooms on Japan Airlines had bidets.
But Japanese toilets don’t stop at basic bidets. Many toilets in Japan have lids that lift automatically when you enter the bathroom and heated seats. Most toilets have some music or white noise you can turn on while you do your business. You can adjust the bidet water pressure, water temperature, and water squirt angles. There’s even options for drying your fanny and spraying deodorant.
Some toilets have all these options on the side of the toilet, while others have a menu bar nearby. Our toilet at Hyatt Regency Tokyo Bay had a silver menu bar on the counter (circled in red).
In short, using a Japanese toilet is like a mini-spa experience when you do your business.
Chinese Toilets
The vast majority of toilets we encountered in China were squat toilets:
These probably aren’t a huge inconvenience for most male tourists. But for female tourists, they certainly take some practice. There’s nothing to hold onto. Your legs have to be strong enough to squat for some length of time, and you have to make sure your clothing is sufficiently out of the path so you don’t pee on it. It’s harder than it looks, for those of us who aren’t used to doing that.
Our hotel toilets in China had standard western toilets (no bidets or anything fancy). But everywhere else, including the airports, had mostly squat toilets. We also didn’t encounter toilet paper or hand soap in the bathrooms (bring your own!)
Thankfully, in most places, I could find a handicap stall that had a western toilet, and we used that when it was available. However, we’re traveling to Thailand next year, which also has squat toilets. We may need to practice squats before that trip.
Have the bathroom facilities on your international travels surprised you or challenged you?
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
At Shanghai Disney we noticed that 4 or 5 stalls in each bathroom had a picture on the stall indicating that the stall was Western style. Bonus was that there was a huge line for the bathroom but nobody wanted to use the Western toilets so we could walk right in and grab one without waiting in line.
The hole in the ground can be found in lots of SE Asian countries. YMMV wrote a post about how to get a western style toilet: use a handicapped stall.
In Japan I think it’s hit or miss. Some older facilities, especially public toilets in parks and attractions may still have squat toilets, newer facilities may have a single stall with a squat toilet in addition to the bidet equipped western ones. Usually they have a placard with a pictogram or washiki written on it so you can confirm which it is before stepping inside the stall.