Shit

Let’s talk toilets. I don’t suppose you’ve ever had a real frozen butt unless you’ve spent time on the toilet of an old Japanese house in mid winter. That wasn’t as much of a problem with the traditional Japanese toilet since you squatted over it with your ass never touching the fixture, but the first moment of contact can be a bit painful on something like our present toilet seat in Akiya (above). Those very nice windows I love have no fastener, so there are huge gaps where the sliding pieces meet. And, if you look closely, you can see the opening at floor level behind the toilet, which also is made up of a sliding glass window, but it is basically a funnel for wind to blow up the back of anyone sitting on the throne.

If you haven’t read Junichiro Tanizaki’s amazing work on the Japanese aesthetic, In Praise of Shadows, I beg you to abandon reading this simpleton’s blog in order to go out to find a copy, which you must read immediately. You will thank me for it. Not only does it describe with great passion and complexity things like tatami, Japanese food, pottery, and most of all, the importance of the opposite of light, but it has a wonderful section on the Japanese toilet—including a mention of that low window behind the bowl—that is a mind-boggling work of critical acumen and great humor.

From next winter, however, our derrieres will stay toasty, and the winds will never flutter our shirt tails as we concentrate on the task at hand. We’ll not only have double-paned windows and insulated walls, but we’ve ordered the tankless toilet model made by Inax . . . wait for the drum roll . . . the Satis Eco-6. Eco-6 refers to the goal their engineers have reached after years of research in cutting water usage. Successive models have cut the average 13 liters of water used for each flush a few years ago down to 6 (5 if you use the “small” urine only flush). That’s enough to fill a bathtub with your savings every two days, or a financial saving of 12,000 yen a year. Equally satisfying is that now we have a Satis Eco-6 toilet to go with our Intrepid II wood stove. I'm looking forward to strutting around the house saying things like, "Hmmm, a bit cool isn't it? Time to break out the Intrepid, don't you think?" or "You look a bit full. Would you like to have a go with our Eco-6?"

But I’ll never ever again be able to say, after someone who has read In Praise of Shadows inevitably brings up the section on Japanese toilets, that I have that little window at the floor level in my own toilet room, and watch their eyes bulge in wonder and disbelief. Shit.