Hi, I’m Nick Photinos, cellist of eighth blackbird. Fans may know me as the writer of the eighth blackbird newsletter, and also may have noticed my conspicuous absence from this blog. But no more! I hereby proclaim to be an active member of this endeavor, writing on topics mundane, profane, and pretty much any other -ane you can think of. Can’t let the Aussie bloke have all the fun.
And what topic is of such weighty importance, such utter cruciality that I felt the need to enter the fray, now, in my first blog post of my life, with words both eloquent and grandiose?
Japanese toilets.
My wife Yasuko is Japanese, and every 2 years we go to Japan over Christmas/New Year’s to hang with her family. And each time, I am rendered speechless by the increasing complexity and automation of Japanese toilets, especially as compared to their Western counterparts. Some of the features make a lot of sense. Seat warmer? Sure, especially in cold Japanese houses, most of which don’t have central heating. Bidet action? Okay…not my cup of tea, but I can understand people wanting to wash the undercarriage.
While I was prepared to see those features–pretty old toilet-tech at this point–I was unprepared for the NASA-like array of options available. Here’s the view from the top of the control panel for this state-of-the-art Toto brand Japanese toilet:
The three buttons on the left are automations for any type of seat up/down configuration you want (touching any part of the toilet except for the control panel is SO last decade), and the two right buttons are for the amount of flushing, with the kanji for “small” (chiisai) having four water droplet icons and the kanji for “big” (okii) having nine droplets. I had originally thought these two kanji were for “river” and “mountain,” which would have been funnier, but really only reflects my persistent lack of knowledge of written and spoken Japanese.
The front of the panel has more buttons than one could possibly need, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. Check out the panle shots, closed and open:
C’mon now–does anyone really need THIS much functionality on a commode? I called in my wife at this point to try to explain how I might control the rest of the house with this setup, or perhaps land a commercial jet. She had no idea what most of it meant, but she did point me to the differing bidet functions:
The first is your every day sort of wash, while the second seems much more likely to launch you off your throne. Maybe it’s for sumo wrestlers? The third is presumably for women–notice that little whip off the back of the head in the icon? Different gender=different angled bidet. They also have different drying capabilities, from nominal air flow to more kamikaze (“divine wind’) typhoon-style turbo quick-dry. They really do think of everything…
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