They used to be a staple in public restrooms in Japan. These days, Western-style toilets are rapidly replacing Japanese-style (和式; washiki) squat toilets. Indeed, a new report says that squat toilets are so foreign to some kids that a healthy chunk say they can’t use them at all.
”Hesitation” to squat down
As I’ve discussed in my ode to the Japanese toilet seat, squat toilets were the norm in households in the 1960s. It wasn’t until Toto imported the idea of the bidet, perfecting it in the 1980s, that Western-style toilets took off.
Today, the Western toilet is winning out. However, the squat toilet hasn’t gone away. A report by the Japanese government’s MEXT ministry in 2023 found that 31.7% of all toilets in Japanese elementary, middle, and high schools are still washiki toilets.
However, more students than ever don’t feel comfortable using them.
According to Abema Times, a survey by the Japan Toilet Labo., a non-profit research group, asked 1,000 elementary school students how they felt about the old-style toilets. 22.4% said they had no trouble using them. 50.9%, however, said they had some resistance to using a squat toilet. A full 26.7% flat-out said they couldn’t use them at all.
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A physical issue?
Why don’t kids want to use the squat toilets? One doctor, Tamura Ryūsuke, who researches the musculoskeletal structure of elementary school students, argued that many kids these days don’t have the leg and calf muscle flexibility required to use them. Some students even fall down when trying to make use of the toilets.
Katō Atsushi, leader of Japan Toilet Labo., also said it’s an issue of unfamiliarity. Most of these students haven’t seen or used a Japanese-style toilet before. He urges parents and educators to teach students how to use them so that more can take advantage of the devices. He also urged schools to speed up the conversion of squat toilets to Western-style toilets so that students unfamiliar with them don’t feel like they have to hold it in.
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