Tales of the Japanese Toilets and the Tissue Packets that Love Them

When I first got to Japan, I would always get little packets of tissue paper as advertisements. You can find these everywhere - in front of the school cafeteria, on a busy street corner, downtown etc. I would get these in twos and threes and hold on to them - the packets were tiny, they were free and good if I needed a tissue.

I was always somewhat confunded by the "Why tissues?" question. Usually at school, they give out plastic folders as part of the advertisements - well that's easy to understand. Students need folders. I think I have only bought myself one here and that was a large one to hold most of my files. Otherwise, I use the free ones, to carry around the papers I just need for the moment.

In the summer, they advertise on fans - tradition I think carried over from the Edo period. Besides, everyone and their mother (myself included) uses a fan in the summer. It is STILL like 90 degrees out, and it won't get colder till about oh, mid-October. Last year, I was still just wearing a cardigan or a light jacket by the end of November. I want to wear my riding boots, dangit!

But why tissues? Hmm...well it is actually considered quite rude to blow your nose in public. So that's not it.

Yesterday in class, Prof. S. was using the wireless to show the students a faulty problem on an entry about Kyoto in Wikipedia. He opens up his bookmarks and one of them was labeled "Wiki-Japanese Toilet." EVERYONE started laughing and Prof. S. turns around, nonplussed and says, "The 'Japanese Toilet' article is the best article written in Wikipedia."

I have already mentioned my love for the Japanese toilet - the fancy one with all the buttons that is. The ones that cost over $1000 in the States precisely because of all the buttons and the bells and the whistles. Let me tell you, you use a Japanese Washlet, and you never want to use that old button-less toilet again (I very much missed them last August). I avoid the squat version at all costs. However, if the situation is dire then I will use it. So long as it is somewhat clean. I have seen worse versions in Greece, in the tiny mountain villages. But if I have a choice, then I choose the Washlet.

The reason why they give out tissues as advertisements is, according to Wikipedia, that most of the public toilets in the train stations and such do not have toilet paper. When I read this, I was like, "Eureka!"

When I went to Nara I had find a bathroom ASAP. I go to the one in the station which was the closest and there was no toilet paper.

%*$&^.

Luckily I had 200yen on me and bought my tissue packets.

I really need to hoard more free tissue packets - just in case.