Bathroom Culture

Monday April 7, 2025

Random observations on Japanese Culture

Before we say goodbye to Nagoya, I have a few random things I want to say about cuteness, safety, rules, bathrooms, and Japanese attention to detail.

1. At the Toyota Museum I had a chance to operate a machine that made souvenir charms. By “operate” I mean press the start button. Everything else happened automatically. After about 60 seconds a cute little charm had been made and it popped out in two pieces. I snapped the pieces together, adding a tiny lanyard, and  - presto! A charm is born.

Kawaii is the Japanese term for “cuteness.” Kawaii has become a significant aspect of Japanese culture. I think this cute little   charm is a good example, especially when hung on a backpack or phone case.

2. Japan is extremely safety-conscious. For example, they put yellow flags in a holder on a light pole so that children can cross the street safely on their way to and from school. The kids take one and use it to cross and then put it in the container on the other side. And, apparently, nobody steals the flags, because there they are. Isn’t that wonderful?

A crosswalk in Nagoya

3. Bathrooms in Japan tend to be very, very nice. They are clean and nothing is broken. Many bathrooms have nice Toto toilet seats that are heated and perform various washing functions. Even in the subway or train stations the bathrooms are nice.

But what seems curious to me is the number of instructions that are sometimes placed in these nice bathrooms. In the restroom at the Toyota museum I took pictures of the inside of my stall. (Who goes around taking pictures of the inside of a public restroom stall? Now you know.) 

Six signs on this wall, not including the instructions on the toilet control panel and the soap dispenser

I couldn’t get all the signs in one shot, so here is another shot of the same wall showing the sixth sign

One sign here. There is a baby seat attached to the corner. You can just see the top of it. It looks like that might be another sign on top of the baby seat itself.

Two more signs

When did going to the bathroom become so complicated? It is kind of overwhelming to find yourself in such a small space with so many signs clamoring at you. What if one of them is important?

4. Maintenance hole covers are either cute or pretty here. We always try to notice them when we are in a new town. Here’s one from Nagoya. That’s Nagoya Castle in the background. I’m not sure what’s on the right side - maybe flowers?

Here’s another one we saw several times in Nagoya. It’s a water strider, and it’s known for living only in very clean, unpolluted water.

Answers to reader questions

Was I aware that Toyota manufactured textiles?

Clarification is called for. Toyota manufactured textile machines, such as thread-spinning machines and automatic looms. They sold the machines to textile mills, where fabrics were made by other companies. 

Toyota may have made some woven products such as upholstery and seatbelts, for the vehicles they made. I’m not really sure about this.

I was not aware that the Toyota Group got its start making textile machines. I think this is a great story.

Why was the name changed from Toyoda to Toyota?

In 1937 Toyota Motor Co., Ltd was incorporated as an independent company They wanted a logo for the vehicles they would be selling. Kiichiro Toyoda  thought “Toyota” was crisper than “Toyoda”. In addition, it could be written with eight strokes, and eight is an auspicious number in Japanese culture. “Toyoda” requires ten strokes. 

Here is what the original Toyota logo looked like after the name change. You can see how the names “Toyoda” and “Toyota” are written in Japanese.

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Going to Fukuoka

Foo-koo-oh-ka.  

It’s on Kyushu, one of the four main Japanese islands.We wanted to spend some time on Kyushu on this trip. We have only been there once, when a cruise we took stopped for a single day in Kagoshima. 

Our only stops on Kyushu this time will be Fukuoka and Nagasaki. It turned out that the logistics for getting to some of the interesting, remote places on Kyushu were too complicated. Maybe some other time.

So, Fukuoka. It used to be known as Hakata. The main train station is still called Hakata, but the two cities - Hakata and Fukuoka - have merged to become Fukuoka City, or Fukuoka for short. It is the 6th largest city in Japan, having a population of 1.6 million.

We took the shinkansen, or “bullet train” to Fukuoka. There were a lot of tunnels through mountains on the way there.  In fact, I think we went through an underwater tunnel to get to Kyushu. I think I would have noticed if we went over a bridge. Hakata Station is enormous, and very busy. 

We broke one of our major rules for Japan - always stay near the train station - and made reservations at a hotel which was 30 minutes by bus from Hakata Station. We did this because we always try to stay at Hiltons and there was a new Hilton in Fukuoka the looked very nice, called the Hilton Sea Hawk.

Upon arriving at the station, we wanted to put our bags in a locker and go look around in that part of the city before we headed out to our hotel. But we had to give up because we couldn’t find an empty locker big enough for one or two carry-on size bags. We looked at five different banks of lockers, but all of the larger lockers were in use. 

Upon nearing the hotel we were stunned by the gorgeous location of the hotel. It was a modern high-rise building shaped like a boat. A large sports dome and a mall stood on one side of the hotel. On the next side was a park. The third side was next to a river with a greenbelt and walking paths along the banks. On the fourth side, was the ocean. A second surprise came when we learned we had been upgraded from a Standard King to an Executive King Suite. That is a substantial upgrade!

The best thing about our room was that we were on the 32nd floor and we had a gorgeous view.

Two couches, coffee table, and TV

In the background, a desk, and to the left of the desk, a vestibule

A dressing room

Bathroom with shower and jacuzzi

I think that the reason for the upgrade may have had something to do with the bathroom. You can’t tell from the photo, but it was very dated, with gaudy gold and silver fixtures, and the marble was in very bad condition. The tub looked like it would be hard to get in and out of safely, and it looked weird, like something else had been there at one time, and like the bathroom wasn’t designed for what was in it.

Why do we (humans) put marble in bathrooms? Why do we take something that took millions of years to make, quarry it, and put it in a bathroom so that it can be mistreated and within 30 years it will be discolored and ugly?

But the view was amazing. Fukuoka has such a beautiful setting. 

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Today’s fabric is “Sashiko Seagulls in Indigo” by forest&sea for Spoonflower. I love the way they used blank space.

“Sashiko” is a traditional Japanese embroidery technique, often featuring geometrical patterns of white thread on indigo-dyed fabric.