Getting flush with high tech toilets
The loo. Washroom. Toilet. Lavatory. Men’s. Women’s. The facilities. WC (for water closet.) Powder room. Urinal. Privy. Latrine. Biffy. Outhouse. Johnny on the spot. The list goes on. Sir Thomas Crapper, who popularized the modern flush toilet, would be amused by the names used over the years to define his device. Born in Yorkshire in 1836, he was the founder of Thomas Crapper & Co in London, a plumbing firm. Crapper is usually credited with having invented the modern flush toilet but in truth it had already been invented in the 16th century by Sir John Harington. (John is also used to describe a toilet, but it doesn’t have the same crisp consonant sound as crap.) Crapper would no doubt be impressed by the modern modifications made to his device, especially if he booked a room in a new high end Asian hotel. Poor peasants may still be squatting in the fields all over Asia but the western tourist would be amazed at what has evolved with Sir Thomas’ trusty porcelain flusher in swank Asian hotels.
It was in Taipei, Taiwan that I first stumbled across a high tech lavatory. Taiwan Tourism was paying the freight so it was a high end luxury hotel, so much so that I couldn’t decipher how to get into my room and had to go fetch the concierge to open the damned door. The plastic card with which I was provided did not possess a swipe function; it had a radio chip implanted and you needed to wave it left to right (only) to catch the attention of the door. This was the first time I had been defeated by a door and I felt like an idiot, but nothing compared to what was waiting for me in the loo, a device that may have fallen out of a space ship where astronauts can’t simply step outside to do business.
Initially I was pleased to note that it was a sit, not squat, toilet. Most toilets in Asia are squatters, meaning you need the thigh muscles of a sumo wrestler to maintain proper position and leaning one hand on the floor for balance is not well advised unless you wish to have it amputated afterwards. The seat had been left up, a no-no for ladies in the western world, but in this case it allowed the guest to read the detailed instructions, conveniently written in Mandarin with the occasional word in English and dotted with IKEA-type symbols that illustrated the various bodily functions that could be expedited at the simple press of a button.
I had previously encountered what you might call a “hot seat” in a hotel in Hong Kong, where either the staff had turned it on early in anticipation of my historic arrival or someone had left it on “HOT” too long. I no sooner sat down that I jumped straight up again. Apparently there are various degrees of temperature that can be set into the seat and perhaps the previous user had been a real cool customer with a sense of humour. I had a quick look in the mirror to check for scorch marks.
Quite often in Asia you will find one or two words of English included in a paragraph or two of the local language, but in terms of utilizing the latest modern sanitary facilities it is useful for tourists to have all the instructions printed in English, preferably not on the bottom of the seat lid that you need to lift in order to actually use the equipment and not just take a photograph to dazzle friends back home. Since space is limited on a toilet bowl it requires some ingenuity on the part of the designer to limit wording. “Small flush” obviously means that less water be used. Simple to understand. “Water pressure” less so. If you pressed the button just to see how much pressure was already programmed, then you would defeat the purpose of “small flush.” Nobody sitting with their pants down wishes to be astonished at the power of the water pressures system in Tokyo. “Posterior wash” seems simple enough although I confess I have not used that setting to date for fear of the Law of Unintended Circumstances. Ditto for the feminine wash for obvious reasons. The “enema” button is to be avoided at all costs unless you have successfully learned the proper medical training. The buttons for “oscillating, pulsating and rhythm” (reggae?) seem altogether fascinating but perhaps best to check with the concierge first, and even request a professional demonstration. As for the “nozzle position,” don’t even ask unless you speak Japanese.
If you have ever attempted to construct any furniture purchased from IKEA using their diagrams you will be familiar with the feeling of unease you get when you have completed the apparatus, tightened the screws and found that you still have several screws left and no idea what they are for. Asian toilet designers generally do a good job of drawing little pictures in lieu of wording, but if you see a diagram that looks like a lightning bolt you may be well advised not to push that particular button. Also, if the button says “dryer,” do not confuse that instruction for the purpose you may wrongly assume it is for, so don’t put your shirt in the bowl despite what the humidity outside of the hotel has done to your clothes.
Unlike western toilets designed for the most elemental purposes, in a swank Asia hotel you will have the option of choosing a “power deodorizer,” not to be confused with a “powder deodorizer” which sounds like a useful invention whose time will surely come. Unless you are absolutely sure what power you want to experience it might be best to leave that button alone as well. Some top of the line hotel bathrooms boast a handheld device like a cellphone that you can hold in your hand and read while doing business so you don’t have to get up and lift the seat to read the next instruction. These high end devices even allow you to choose what kind of music you want to listen to so you don’t have to whistle Dixie if you are stuck. The first handheld device I saw actually had a phone built in to it, presumably to make a call to room service in case of emergency. (Elvis Presley died of a heart attack on the toilet due to his chronic constipation.) I didn’t use the device for that purpose but I was curious if you could make long distance calls on it. “Hello Mum, I’m on the commode in Taipei so I thought I would give you a shout.”
In regards to cleanliness, I am of the understanding that if you dropped a piece of gum on a sidewalk in Zurich, Switzerland that you would be arrested on the spot and sentenced to a thorough horsewhipping. Switzerland is the cleanest country in the world. They have people who stand at the bottom of escalators with fluff dusters to remove the lint. They have special machines that polish the sidewalk, continuously. But one thing they don’t have is toilets, or at least I couldn’t find any on my first trip there. In most cities in the western world if you are caught short you can nip into a McDonalds, as long as you remember that drug addicts like to overdose in their washrooms so you need to beg staff for the key first. Using a restaurant toilet in Zurich if you are not a customer is a major crime akin to rape or murder. To use the facilities in Zurich you need to go to a professional establishment called a Mr. Clean. Using a Mr. Clean in Zurich is like making a doctor’s appointment in Chicago; its serious business and needs to be researched in advance and paid for on arrival.
To find a Mr. Clean franchise, make inquiries among trustworthy friends or simply look for a storefront that looks like a dry cleaning outlet. I found one located in the central train station. The front of the establishment was comprised of plate glass windows so you could see in. I didn’t check personally but I would be most surprised if you found a single fingerprint on any of the windows. Inside was a small lobby with a change money machine on the wall where you could exchange bills for coins. There were different entrances for men and women and different prices for entrances, one for Onesies and more for Number Two. I was far too intimidated to go for a Two, saving that experience for the privacy of my own hotel room, so I inserted the appropriate number of coins in a turnstile and entered into the room designated for Onesies for men. There was a metal trough along the wall for the purpose of peeing. Polishing the tiled floors with a mop and great zeal was a woman clad in entirely in white like a nurse or a mad scientist in a nuclear laboratory. This was the lavatory captain.
After thoroughly disinfecting my hands and departing the Onesies room I noted with some interest a small battalion of white clad Mr. Clean ladies gathered in the hallway, all armed with mops and standing guard vigilantly outside the cubicles where customers went for a Number Two, if they had the courage to actually do a Two with a crowd gathered outside the door. Whenever a door to a cubicle opened and a customer scuttled out, a woman in white would dash in and give the cubicle a good scrubbing and a harsh lecture. I am sure a medical team could perform open heart surgery on the floor in there without having to wash their hands.
Since I always say that many of my stories would not be believed without a photo to prove it, I exited Mr. Clean and hid in the hall to take a picture. Generally speaking it is considered poor manners to take photographs of people using a washroom, toilet, loo, crapper or whatever you wish to call it. In Switzerland I assume that you would be executed immediately on the spot if apprehended for doing so. The friends with whom I had been staying in Zurich told me they were afraid to flush their own toilet in their own apartment after ten PM because they might receive a complaint from the people upstairs or even a strict note from the Committee. It’s a wonder anyone in the entire country has the guts to have a bowel movement.
Cleanliness, of course, varies from culture to culture. Switzerland, for instance, is divided into German, French, Italian and Romansch-speaking regions. Because the French smoke cigarettes and throw butts on the ground, along with other offences against nature, the German-speaking Swiss look down upon their Swiss French-speaking brethren. Across the border in France itself, sanitary conditions deteriorate further. In Paris, where the French are fond of dogs, former mayor Jacques Chirac ordered the purchase of hundreds of small street cleaning trucks to scoop up dog poo. The Parisians derisively named the machines as “chiracs.” So one wonders if the recent installation of stand-up pissoirs in the streets of the French capital is an attempt at improving cleanliness or simply a practical reaction to constant public urination. Personally I don’t consider it polite to pull out your willy for a whizz in the midst of shoppers or in the view of the traveling public, but to each their own. Sadly, there appear to be are no wash basins at the Paris pissoirs.
Anyone can simply Google the phrase “world’s worst toilet” and get a glimpse of what passes for the opposite of a spotless Tokyo toilet, but having done this exercise myself I would advise you never to do such a thing. (You have been warned; let’s see how many readers ignore that advice.) It goes without saying that for every glistening stainless steel bowl sitting in a sea of polished marble in Singapore, there is a filthy hut elsewhere full of excrement where even the fearless fear to tread. I could offer personal observations, with photo proof, but that would be rather disgusting.
As far as the oddest adaptation of the WC to meet the needs of an ever-growing population, there has been the invention of the double and triple toilet facility, two or three bowls adjacent to each other in the same room for those who are lonely or don’t mind sharing. On that note, should you find yourself in the neighbourhood, you may wish to check out the double biffy at Goetz’s Guest House in Rose Harbour, in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia. With a year round population of four people, Rose Harbour is a small dot on the map and rather hard to get to, but it boasts a toilet with a title of “the world’s most remote biffy.”
About a century ago Rose Harbour was a whaling station, which is to say a place on shore where whales were brought after capture to be cut up for meat and butchered for their blubber. To get there these days, it is necessary to fly at extortionate prices to the island group called Haida Gwaii in northern BC, then somehow find your way 500 kilometres south to Gwaii Hanaas, a national park in the far southern end of the middle of nowhere on the edge of the world. Goetz went there many years ago to escape the world although he did build a guest house where the occasional visitor showing up every decade or so may stay. Of course, every guest house needs a toilet.
Should nature call at Goetz’s, you simply wander out the guest house to the garden where a modest wooden wall (and roof!) has been constructed from which you can escape the elements and enjoy a view of the ocean. In case of a sudden influx of visitors, Goetz has built a double holer in his biffy to accommodate the rush. Think of that old song “a bicycle built for two” and you’ll get the point. From here in the deepest bosom of Mother Nature, if you squint your eyes you may just be able to see the shining towers of Tokyo in the far distance and their high tech toilets. Remember, though, cleanliness is next to Godliness so for God’s sake don’t forget to bring your own toilet paper. Enough said.
