Potty Trained: What is that Noise?

Today I thought that maybe I should talk about the toilet experience here in Japan from a woman's perspective. No, don't run away yet. I'm not going to be gross. I'm just going to talk about the awkward noises that we make when we urinate. Yes, urinate. You read it right. Here in Japan, many women are embarrassed by the noise they make when they urinate. When females go to a public bathroom, it is normal to hear women flushing the toilet as they are urinating, so that people can't hear the noise. Because this practice consumes so much water, many toilets are equipped with a button that you can press that will make the flushing noise without actually flushing. Sometimes, it even makes other noises, such as birds chirping.

I know that this sounds strange to a foreigner's perspective. Believe me, when I first arrived in Japan, I had no idea why any woman would be embarrassed by the sound of their own urine. I mean if they were doing anything else that must be done in a bathroom, then maybe I could understand. However, why urinating?

Because I didn't want to stand out, I started flushing at school while I was urinating (oh what a waste of water) and pressing the noise button when I was in a public restroom. When you are a foreigner, you already stand out so much that you do anything to stand out less.

Anyway, after being here for 10 months, I have realized that I have fallen into the same embarrassment trap. It's still about fitting in, but to a big degree, I'm also getting really self-conscious about the noise too. I don't know when this happened. I just know that recently I went to a public restroom with a friend. It was only me and this other foreigner. I made myself not flush because what was the point. It was not like there was a Japanese woman to hear me. However, the whole time I was urinating, I was so self conscious about the sound, how loud it was and how strange it was that my friend could hear me. I have fallen into the same mind set that I would have joked about a year ago.

I truly believe that we can't understand something in another culture until we put ourselves into that culture. Sometimes, even when we do that, it's still difficult because we have not lived in it our entire lives and we have our own culture in the back of our minds. However, at least it makes it a bit easier to understand the people of that culture and why they do the things that they do.