Sunday, May 18, 2008

The Squatters


I am perplexed and extremely disturbed as I write this post. The Asian culture has stumped me yet again. What is it this time? Japanese-style toilets.


These are found in the airport as well as other high-traffic areas. How does one use one of these you might ask? Well, it's exactly as you would think. You pull your pants down and squat --going pee in the woods at a field party--style. How do they not piss themselves? That answer, my friend is beyond me. I never mastered the art of squatting. In fact, when I was forced to go in a field at a bon fire party, I had to have an entourage of ladies with me to form a wall to block my bare bottom half. I had to de-clothe everything from the waist down. So yeah, this definitely won't work for me.

Luckily, they usually have a western-style toilet in the stalls next to these odd inventions. Good for me. Bad for the Asians that can't use the western-style ones.
In fact, the Asians that can't understand the concept of western-style toilets will actually climb up on the toilet and stand on it to squat. Imagine doing this in the high heels that they wear around. It BAFFLES me.

There are even signs on many western toilets that say: DO NOT SQUAT ON TOILET.

I just don't get it.

2 comments:

Cori said...

Thank goodness we don't have those. It'd be just one more thing for me to worry about, kids drowning in the public restroom. But maybe if you mastered it, you wouldn't have to sit on those dirty public restroom toilets. Maybe they're light-years ahead of us....

Erin Easum said...

These nasty things are everywhere! I ran into them in southern Italy first, but they were everywhere when I was in China. We were in business professional clothing everyday in China which made it even more challenging. Seriously, how are you supposed to use these things? In China the women didn't even bother to pull the little curtains shut- wtf? Somebody needs to tell them that it is not a cute pose!