Talk:Toilets in Japan

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Featured article star Toilets in Japan is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.
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  1. 2004 – April 2006

Contents

[edit] Featured Article Review

I'm working to convert all the references at the bottom to inline citations so the article will meet the ever-changing FA requirements. Here's the list of references I've removed while I find the appropriate spot(s) in the article to attach them.

[edit] References to be converted to inline citations

  1. Mark Magnier (1999): Japan Is Flush With Obsession, L.A. Times
  2. Dimmer, Christine; Martin, Brian; et al. (1996): "Squatting for the Prevention of Hemorrhoids?", Department of Science and Technology Studies, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia, published in the Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients, Issue No. 159, October 1996, pp. 66-70
  3. Washlet - The Evolution of Clean, TOTO USA color brochure
  4. Performing Art: The residential Collection, TOTO color brochure
  5. Toto Annual Report 2002, TOTO
  6. James Brooke (2002): Japanese Masters Get Closer to the Toilet Nirvana, The New York Times, October 8, 2002
  7. Ryann Connell (2002): Girls gush over pleasures of new age bathroom relief Mainichi Shinbun, WaiWai section, July 29 2002
  8. Walsh, Michael (1989) King for a day in a small room with a view. (Japanese high-tech toilets), Time, February 13, 1989
  9. Daniel McGinn (2005) The King of Thrones, Wired Magazine, Issue 13.03

[edit] External links to be converted if possible

[edit] Link which seems to be dead, so removed from article

I have no idea what this link is supposed to be to (other than a study of some sort). If anyone can find the study, please post a link here.

···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:07, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Price range?

How much do these things usually cost? In the States the cheapest I'm finding are between $350 and $800. In Japan so many public toilets get outfitted with these things that I would have a hard time believing these are Japanese prices. 68.18.96.178 07:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

In Japan, Cheapest ones start at around US200, but they are really .... um ... crap. Reasonable ones are available from US500. These are both add-ons for regular western toilets (replacing the lid and seat of an existing loo). A top of the line device including the ceramic bowl can be US5000 and more. In general, my feeling is that Japanese are for many products willing to and are paying 150% of the prices in the US. (Louis Vutton anyone?)-- Chris 73 | Talk 10:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Readability of Article

I have recommended the Wikipedia website to my students, who are aged 16-19, for research purposes, however they have struggled to understand some of the articles. This is mainly due to the complexity of the language used. The readability score of the article is 10.73, which is the years of education needed to be able to understand this article on first reading. The article could be improved by reducing the length of the sentences, reducing the length of the paragraphs and replacing difficult words with more commonly used ones which would make the article more accessible to a wider and perhaps younger audience. Would any of the editors be prepared to review the article to make it easier to read and thus more accessible to more users? Sarahhcfe 14:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

There's a special version of wikipedia written for those whose grasp of english is shaky. The articles are much easier to read, relying on simple vocabulary and grammatical constructs. Go to "simple.wikipedia.org". yandman 17:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced statements

I could not find sources for the following statements from the article, hence i removed them:

  • Occurrences of rape are higher than average near to or within toilet facilities in public parks, especially after dusk.

-- Chris 73 | Talk 20:13, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I removed this from the end of the Public toilets section - it needs a source:

In recent years, many public restrooms at the bottom of the spectrum have been found to be hiding pinhole cameras, for voyeuristic pornography.[citation needed]

Sandy (Talk) 16:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bidet toilet

"The current state of the art for Western-style toilets is the bidet toilet, which, as of 2004, are installed in more than half of Japanese households.[3][4][5] " This is unclear, is it a combination bidet toilet? Esentially a toilet with a built-in bidet, or is it just a bidet, which is essentially what is described in the lead paragraph: "Depending on the exact model, these bidets are designed to open the lid when they sense a user nearby, wash the anus or vulva of the user (including a number of pulsating and massaging functions), dry afterwards with warm air, flush automatically and close the lid after use." There is no sense that anything has occured before the washing that would necessitate a toilet. So, is it a toilet also, or is it just a bidet? KP Botany 23:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Waiwai news cited

Regarding the part wherein toilets are cited as a pleasure device for women. The source cited was the Waiwai news, which is basically an English translation of tabloid news. No more authoritative a source than the Weekly World News, if you get my drift. Any objections before I delete that material and the associated citation? KristoferM 18:40, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Shukan Gendai, the source of the Mainichi article cited, is not quite at the level of Weekly World News. While it certainly is a tabloid in spirit, it is published by a major publishing company (Kodansha) and it doesn't seem to publish articles created out of the whole cloth as WWN does. The "Yobun Tomina" and "Kim Myung Gun" quoted in that story might very well exist and might have said what they are quoted are saying. (Without knowing the kanji for their names, it's hard to find out more about them in Japanese.)
A search at Google in Japanese for ウォシュレット オナニー ("Washlet" "masturbation") gets over 30,000 hits. Many come from blogs and BBS discussions in which people presenting themselves as women describe using the devices for masturbatory purposes (sometimes successfully, sometimes not). There's no reason to regard all of the reports as true, of course, but the Wikipedia article's statement "It is also reported, that women may be sexually stimulated through the water jet." seems to me to be appropriately hedged. I vote to leave it in. (I took out the comma after "reported," though.) Tomgally 03:28, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point, Tom. I withdraw my proposal. And THAT's why we have talk pages.  ;) KristoferM 06:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] sound is not Japan-specific

The sounds are actually found in other East Asian countries as well. While I don't know numbers or percentages, I was told about those toilets on at least one other country's airport (Singapore??) and, if I remember correctly, also from at least one further country. As I would assume that this is also an issue of economics (and more Japanese should be able to afford such toilets than, say, Vietnamese), I politely doubt the "Japan-specificity" here. ^^ --Ibn Battuta 17:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stocking Nonsense?

An edit was made by someone with no username on October 17th, 2006 at 2:48am adding the following text.

One special recommendation for female travellers is to avoid pantyhose since they make using a squat toilet almost impossible, thigh-high stockings are advised as a more practical option.

Also, a similar edit by the same IP was made in the stockings article ten minutes later, removed by someone else one minute later, and remains that way.

Later on, a citation was added by a user for several spots, including the pantyhose text. The citation's article is actually dated October 18, 2006. Is it not somehow wrong for the citation to exist only after what it is citing? This would pose the possibility of JA Huber needing to get out an article on something she didn't truly have sufficient first-hand experience in, hopping over to wikipedia to gather the information that is needed, and using the pantyhose bit that was already there.

My larger concern is with validity of the actual text. Assuming the the citation is valid, it doesn't actually recommend wearing stockings, only expressing difficulty with "nylons". Before I continue, I should state that I'm personally not a woman who has worn pantyhose on a squat toilet in Japan. However, I would expect there to be lots of women in japan wearing pantyhose and needing to use a squat toilet. The text says it's a "recommendation for female travellers", as if women in Japan are therefore not wearing pantyhose?

Personally, I can't imagine how pantyhose would be anymore difficult than panties, slacks, or a lot of other things. The bit of searching I did on google about this turned up little, but most of them link or cite this wikipedia article, and there's even some that doubt the validity of it like I do.

I say remove the entire text. At the very least, remove the thigh-high recommendation, and the specificity to travelers. Juventas 07:12, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Facing WHICH Way?!

I've encountered asian toilets on the territory of the former Soviet Union, which seemed especially prevalent in public facilities and businesses (though not in residences) in the Ukraine; however, everyone always used the facing the door, not the back wall. Is this an error in the text or is that just an alternative way of using them? 128.195.186.20 12:45, 1 September 2007 (UTC)Adieu

As this article discusses toilets in Japan only, it accurately describes them as they appear in Japan. All of the "squat" style toilets I've seen and used (as well as pictures I've seen) have the user facing away from the door. I can't speak for anywhere outside of Japan. The Western style seated toilets are always facing the door, however. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of toire

It's a common misconception that toire comes from French. Heck, even my first Japanese teacher, a native speaker, told me that. But check any dictionary and you'll see it's from English. And if you think about it, it only makes sense. The French word for toilet is toilette, which is pronounced twa-lett. toire is a pretty standard shortening that happens in many loan words. Just like anime, the fact that it ends in a common French "é" ending doesn't indicate that it's actually a French loan word. I felt confident wiping out the original source since it was just somebody's webpage, not a real published source. Kcumming (talk) 05:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Not to be overly pedantic, but anime actually is a French loan word. 88.77.19.175 (talk) 15:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)