Challenges faced by children raised in America when visiting Japan

I live in America.

The other day, I decided to return to Japan for summer vacation this year. I bought the tickets right away. I'm already letting my imagination run wild about who I'll meet and what I'll do once I'm back in Japan.

We also returned to Japan as a family last summer vacation. It was our first trip back since the pandemic, and it had been a full four years.

During our long-awaited time in Japan, I took the children to many different places. For them, this was their first time in Japan since they were old enough to remember. I wanted them to experience Japan by fully engaging their five senses—seeing, hearing, eating, touching, and feeling.

Our stay in Japan was truly comfortable. The public transportation was convenient wherever we went, the food was delicious no matter where we ate, there were absolutely no issues with the language, and people were always polite and helpful. It is worth noting that the heat was a bit unbearable, but it's similar in America.

However, during this stay in Japan, there was one thing that was truly troublesome.

That was the toilet.

The warm-water bidet toilet seat that pursues comfort that Japan boasts to the world (I used to call them "Washlets," but I realized that is a TOTO brand name). The ones where the lid opens automatically with a whir, the toilet flushes itself with a swoosh, and the water flushes again automatically when you stand up, allowing you to leave the restroom without touching anything at all.

The problem with this is that my daughter was afraid of these toilets and couldn't use them. A toilet that moves on its own without you touching anything. What if water sprays out while I'm sitting? What if it swallows me whole? It seemed like a nightmare to a four-year-old.

I have never seen this type of toilet in America. They might exist if you look for them, but they aren't common. At the very least, my children have never used one.

In Japan, you find warm-water bidet seats everywhere—airports, train stations, restaurants, hotels, and so on. Even the toilet at my parents' house had turned into a Washlet before I knew it.

My daughter would start crying, saying she couldn't use this toilet even though she was squirming because she needed to pee. She even went as far as saying she wanted to go home. Go all the way back to America just for a toilet? That's a bit too far.

If there was a power button on the control panel or an outlet nearby, I would turn the power off or unplug it to 'de-soul' the toilet before letting her use it (and I would put it back to normal afterward).

However, in some places, the user cannot access the power source. At the hotel we stayed at in Tokyo, the design prevented us from touching the power for each room, which was very difficult. My daughter would cry every time she had to use the toilet in the middle of the night. She would say she needed to go, but didn't want to. When she was sleepy in the middle of the night, she was especially sensitive to the sounds, making her resistance even stronger.

Also, while sightseeing in Tokyo during the sweltering heat, we were walking around a famous temple. My daughter said she needed to go to the bathroom, so we went to the basement restroom behind the building. It looked like an old restroom, so I was sure there would be an old-fashioned toilet seat. When we went in with high hopes, to my surprise, they were all Washlets. Are you serious?

Furthermore, the basement restroom in the lush temple grounds had large insects here and there, and my daughter, who hates bugs, was already in a panic. But if she didn't go here and had an accident, it would be a disaster. Thinking ahead in an instant, I desperately tried to convince her that this was not a man-eating toilet, and kept a sharp eye out to make sure no bugs got near her, managing to get through it somehow.

When this was repeated in the middle of the heat, even I was exhausted.

I mean, why have automatic toilets become the standard everywhere? Has the right to use a toilet without a warm-water bidet seat disappeared in this country? Where did the Japanese-style toilets go?

During our stay in Japan, we also went to my grandparents' old house. My grandparents have already passed away, but the house remains and my parents maintain it. My grandparents' house is in the mountains where wild boars sometimes appear, and it's in a very inconvenient location. However, the nearby sea has crystal-clear water, the sky is vast, and it's a place where you get the feeling that humans are being allowed to live within nature.

Even in a house deep in the mountains like this, my parents recently renovated it and installed a Washlet. We kept it unplugged while we were staying there, though.

One day, we went to the seaside to go fishing. My father, wanting to show off a good spot, prepared rods and bait for the children and we cast our lines from the breakwater, but there were no bites at all. A little ways off, some local children—tanned dark brown, I assume—were jumping into the sea from the breakwater with big splashes.

Suddenly, my daughter said she needed to go to the bathroom. I looked around, thinking, "Oh, I wonder if there's a bathroom around here?" My father said there was a fisheries cooperative office just ahead, so I should go ask to borrow theirs. It's a peaceful place.

My daughter and I walked along to the fisheries cooperative office. The front door was wide open, and it was quiet inside. There was someone at the reception desk, so I explained the situation and asked if we could use the restroom.

It was an old-fashioned building. The restroom was covered in small square tiles, and in front of the duckboards, several pairs of slippers were neatly lined up facing this way. It reminded me of the restrooms in schools from back in the day.

I opened the door to the stall and was speechless for a moment.

A Japanese-style toilet!So that's where you were hiding!

While staring seriously at the Japanese-style toilet she was seeing for the first time in her life, my daughter immediately warmed up to the toilet bowl that made absolutely no sound and maintained a serene silence. It showed no signs of moving at all. This thing is a good one. From the high window, I could hear the sound of cicadas and the waves.

I taught my daughter how to use it, adjusted her standing position by telling her to move a bit more forward or a bit more back, and she finished successfully. This was the first time since coming to Japan that I experienced a restroom experience where the parent-child bond remained completely undisturbed. Long live the Japanese-style toilet.

After that, we returned to America, and while reading a Shimajiro book, my daughter found a page with a Japanese-style toilet drawn on it.

"The one I like!"

My daughter gazed at the page with the Japanese-style toilet with affection. Japanese children are usually the opposite, though. But I thought that if I looked into it more, there might be other children who prefer the Japanese style like my daughter does.

In any case, I am secretly hoping that the toilet issue won't resurface when we return to Japan this year.

Thank you for reading this far.
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