travel Blog and Journals

Your eyes can tell you that you’ve left your homeland, but it can take longer for your mind to catch up. The quickest way to force the brain to awaken is by entering a bathroom in a foreign country. When you see that the hardware is different, you immediately tense up and begin to search for fundamental answers about life. For example, you may ask yourself things like; Why is this not familiar to me?, Doesn’t everyone around the world do it the way I do?, What the hell am I supposed to do with that thing?.

The basic problem is that we all get potty trained only once. Most of us do anyway. When it took place, there was no text book, and you didn’t take notes because most likely you were potty trained before you learned to read and write. Thus when you change countries as an adult, there is no remedial course for you to take. To make matters worse, it is not something that adults (post potty trained individuals) like to talk about. You don’t want to ask your friend because it might end your friendship if the conversation goes the wrong way. You certainly don’t want to ask a co-worker because that might start an unkind rumor. And you can’t ask your mother because she really won’t have a clue.

I had my first experience in the mid 80’s as a foreign exchange student. The Japanese had for some time been moving to a sit-down-toilet standard, but there were many instances where you had to use the more traditional “benjo” style commode. It required you to squat down near the floor and do your business. Since I was at the time rather un-athletic, overweight, and for the most part utterly inflexible, the benjo was more than a minor obstacle. It was pure torture, as I found trying to keep my balance like a baseball catcher on a one man team, simply impossible. I had nightmares about squeezing into a cramped one man 1 square meter restaurant bathroom to attempt a dump, only to loose my balance, fall backwards, smash against the door, pop the weak latch, and do a backward summersault in front a crowd of soon to be horrified dinner eating patrons. Nope, I did everything I could to avoid doing my business over one of those things, even if it meant pinching closed by cheeks with jumper cable clamps.

When I arrived in India, things weren’t as bad. However, I was a little mystified by a spay gun nozzle next to the bowl. I figured that is was not there to wash my hair, and brushing my teeth was certainly out. I was of course accustomed to Japanese washlets, but they do all the work. Just push a button and a small nozzle pops out below you. If the side mounted nozzle was for the same purpose, I was first, annoyed that I now had to do the work, and second, not quite sure about how to use the darn thing. There was no user manual (as there is with the Japanese washlets) and I had many valid questions that could not be answered. Which way do I lean? How do I angle the nozzle? What happens if I miss? All these questions and a few more, which need not be entertained in this public venue, were eventually worked out over time. I now consider myself a master at using the nozzle, and I must say that freeing myself from using toilet paper has been a rather liberating experience. Free your ass, and your mind will follow!

In addition to one’s new found freedom, there are many other practical benefits from using water to clean oneself;

• It is cheaper
• Better for the environment
• Saves trees
• Less chance of clogging toilet and or sewer system
• You feel cleaner
• You smell cleaner (but I have no empirical evidence to prove that)
  

So in conclusion, with all the benefits mentioned above, I don’t know why America hasn’t jumped onto a new potty training standard. Since both a developed country like Japan and a developing country like India can do it, the full spectrum of possible counter arguments can be precluded. The only thing I can think of is that Americans must be barbarians and simply want to stay that way. I suppose being a barbarian is all fine and good. But if you want to be that way, just do me one favor and keep a little distance, if you don’t mind.