Cultural (mis)Appropriations

On my latest visit to Shanghai, I made a brief foray into the Parkson Department Store. It's essentially the Chinese take on a western department store, meaning there are boutiques and labels that are familiar to the Western shopper but, upon further examination, turn out to be totally foreign brands. I got a shot of one that's a clear rip-off of L'Occitaine en Provence (a favorite of my friend R).

Even legitimate brands are making inroads and not being ripped off, though the translations (and menus in Chinese) continue to seem like novelties to me.

Shanghai Service Economy

One of the things that has been slowly improving in Shanghai is the quality of service in restaurants. One of the first times I visited Mom here, we went to Jean-Georges’ restaurant on the Bund for their prix fixe lunch. The meal, 3 courses, was only $15 USD. The drinks all started at $20. The services was darn near insolent – you had to pretend you were drowning to get anyone’s attention; waitstaff would essentially stand by and exist in their own personal universes. In contrast, the local restaurant sent envoys from Hong Kong to train their waitstaff for a month before opening, and we had the amusing experience of never being able to finish drinking a tea cup because they were refilled so quickly. They’re also learning about napkins. (Normally, restaurants in Shanghai don't provide napkins.) And Mom pointed out that while they’re waiting to provide service, they don’t actually pick their noses. Yay, progress.

Messages Without Words (Asian)

I've started a collection of warning signs without words. I remember in high school when a classmate wrote a paper about Yucca Mountain and the need to find a way to label radioactive waste in such a way that a sentient being encountering it tens of thousands of years from now will know it's poisonous and dangerous. Think of the challenge inherent in that exercise! 10,000 years ago, humans were just figuring out how to grow crops and domesticate animals. (Well, okay maybe we'd been at it for a few thousand years. But still.) In ten thousand years, will sentient beings on earth even consider radiation to be poisonous? Will they look human, so images depicting sick people will mean something to them? Given the possibility of large-scale nuclear holocaust or power plant accident, this doesn't seem too implausible to me.

Well, on to slightly lighter sign uses in the near term.

This one is very nicely done. It's in Japanese, but if you've ever had a fountain drink you're pretty clear on what to do. Empty the contents, stack the cups, get rid of the accessories. How hard would this be to do in the US, I ask you? Note that the sequence seems to go from right to left (nonstandard for an American like me). Click on the image for a larger version. Taken at the Tokyo Dome.

A slightly less transparent sign, also from the Tokyo Dome. This is featured above the exit doors. Prepare for great disruption! You will be blown about and lose your hat! Old ladies should not sit down! Injured people should not point their hypodermic needles at their toes! Babies should not feel their pregnant mothers' bellies! No deliveries! No heels! My goodness, what the heck was that all about???

From a freeway onramp outside of Shanghai, China. No tractors, motorcycles, buses (with some specific information, illegible at this range), bicycles, horse-drawn carts, or pedestrians. Okay. That leaves what exactly? To me this sign is indicative of the variety in transportation still in use in China. I've got a picture of a truck full of pigs on the highway somewhere around here...

Turnabout is fair play; I've got some English signs to share next time as well, from our Oregon trip.

How do we change our habits?

I came across a sobering article on the exotic food market. It highlights one of the problems I see in the human race vs. our viability on this planet: we want things. More things. Shinier things. Rare things. Things that distinguish ourselves from our fellow apes, that allow us to display our superiority.

I'm assuming this is some kind of survival instinct, for us to fight for the best and the most to ensure the continuation of our genome. But to my eye, this is also the drive that causes us to have more children, to take up more space, to clear-cut more rainforest...eventually leading to habitat destruction, a shortage of resources, war, and a return to the Hobbesian state of nature.

Is it possible for us to overcome these urges? Can we, as a race, realize that more/"better"/rarer also means death? Or is it okay, so long as it means death to the other people? When will we figure out that the water shortage in India equates to degraded quality of life in the US? Would it be possible for us to evolve to believe that it's okay to have enough, to have the same as our neighbors, and to live well rather than to always want to live "better"?

Or will the new iPod, Harry Potter book, BMW always hold a stronger pull? I really worry.

Bathrooms (Asian)

I'd heard stories about Japanese toilets. They said that some Japanese people carried keycards with them that, when read by the toilet scanner (the toilet scanner?!), would remember their preferred settings and adjust the seat to their liking. I thought it was a myth. Were the Japanese really so gadget-happy that they put gizmos into their toilets?

Yes. Quite.

Based on my personal experience, these toilets are (at minimum) in hotels, office buildings, and airports. This was good news for me, because those locations assume not everyone speaks Japanese, and the toilet instructions were translated. Not that this really helped.

This is the toilet in my hotel room. Note the flushing mechanism on the wall to the left. In the US, the flushing mechanism is almost always attached to the toilet. So at first I wasn't sure if I should push one of the buttons to flush! (All these complicated controls, and then...a lever? How prosaic!)


A closeup of the instructions on the toilet cover. It's actually pretty good English, but you kind of have to understand what the toilet does before it makes much sense. (the switch? prevent initial cleansing by cold water?) My favorite was the picture indicating you should not step on the toilet, because the thing is weight-sensitive and weight-activated. One of my colleagues admitted that he had leaned his upper body on the toilet so he could figure out what it did without actually having his own ass on the line (literally). Not sure if it worked.

At Narita, the instructions were on the wall in 4 different languages: Japanese, English, Chinese (traditional), and Korean. Again, decent but opaque English: "Washing the rear"? Is that what I think they mean?

One feature is the "flushing sound", made to muffle any embarrasing noises. Apparently Japanese women were wasting a lot of water flushing toilets while using them in order to mask their noises. Toto came up with a virtual solution. I have personally entered a public bathroom, only to be greated by the start of a "flushing sound". Sorry, sister. The "extra deodorizing" feature also helps cover any bad smells. I hereby request international authorities import this feature to continental Europe immediately.

The feature that surprised me the most with its, well, luxury, was actually the heated seat. This isn't some creepy squishy pleather or fuzzy seatcover, it's the standard plastic toilet seat, only not cold. Apparently it's supremely nice in the winter. In rainy April, it was definitely nice. Again, the setting is adjustable (and presumably programmable in your settings card).

If you're interested in learning more or just want a laugh, check out the Toto informational site. I particularly liked the informational video narrated by someone with a distinctly southern twang. Way to make the technology nonthreatening! Word to your marketing department, Toto. Someone should tell them that the standard is to say "please wait" or "loading" when your Flash movie is starting up, and not "preparing the host". Catholic officials might have some questions for you soon.

All this technology comes at a price: when I was in Japan, Toto issued a recall for certain models of toilets. Apparently they were catching fire. Insert Southpark segment here, with sound effects.


When I left Tokyo I flew to Shanghai. Somehow everything seemed noisier, messier, and much more chaotic. And the bathrooms? Yeah. Depressing. (see right)

On a happier note, Building 43 at the Googleplex has Toto toilets. [insert funny remark about Google butt-washing here.]

Tokyo Dome = Egg?

Last month I went to
the Tokyo Dome.

I got an ice cream in the shape
of the Tokyo Dome.

It's called the "Big Egg".

Huh?

Bathrooms (TP and Tech)

People in different countries talk differently. They wear different styles of clothing. They have different cultural traditions. And, they have vastly differing styles of toilet paper.

American varieties tend to be square and quilted, unless you're in a public toilet where they go all tissue-paper-thin on a huge roll. German TP is rectangular and recycled. Some locations dispense individual sheets. Others have more stretch and give to them, or feel more fibrous. In Shanghai, you're lucky if the bathroom you're in features toilet paper at all. Or a toilet.

Once you've figured out the paper situation, the next stumper is: how to flush? In Japan you'll be boggled by the variety of controls. Which one flushes? (more on this soon) In Shanghai I once encountered a tiled trough that ran under multiple stalls with a regular flush of water from a big PVC pipe. Ewwww. In America, the flushing mechanism is either a metal lever or a a small knob-like aparatus that is either twisted (most common) or pushed. Recent innovations in water-saving low-flush toilets mean that some send a gentle SWOOSH of water circling through, while others use some kind of air-compression to fire a WHOOSH of water down the tubes.

In Europe, flushing mechanisms can be puzzling to an American. For one, they're most often attached to the wall behind the toilet, not the toilet itself. So: look to flush - wait, not there...look around...notice the flat panel on the wall behind the toilet. Maybe that? But, what do I...oh, push it. There's a large section that can be pushed, or a smaller one. What's the difference? Ah - water quantity. Those eco-Europeans!

Most toilets feature a reservoir of water, into which your business goes. The only exceptions I have seen to this were the toilets in Vienna, which invariably left your deposits in clear display on a ceramic "shelf" before they were flushed over the edge and down the drain by a rush of water. I remember hearing some comic point out that this allows the Teutons a thorough review of their movements, and reflected eloquently on their national character.

Bathrooms (construction)

Ahh, bathrooms. Sanctuary, haven, and totally nonstandardized amenity.

I remember staying in a European-style hotel in Colorado years ago, and being struck by the character of their public bathrooms: each stall was in fact a separate room, with finished drywall, a closing door, and a singular sense of isolation. I'm sure those stalls were larger than some Tokyo apartments. At the time I assumed it was an extravagance born of the grande luxe nature of that particular hotel.

For those of you who don't know, the American variety of standard public bathroom usually involves a series of metal interlocking modular stall walls, just tall enough and low enough to obstruct the view of others in the johns (but not so low that you can't check out your neighbors' shoes, a common female preoccupation). You would most commonly encounter these in airports. They certainly aren't very private, and in fact an occasional conversation can be overheard at work as two colleagues carry on a discussion they might've been having when they came in, or perhaps started up as they saw each other entering.

Fast forward a few years, and I'm working in Europe. Our office bathroom consists of two "rooms" in the style of the hotel I mentioned above. They are uniform in size, and finished to standard building specifications. There's even a light above each stall -- when you close and lock the door (using a full-on door & lock assembly, not just a sliding latch), it's pitch black unless that light is working.

To me this style of bathroom takes up a lot of space and feels very isolated. Then again, when I was back in the US I realized that our style of bathroom stalls are very exposed, and you can quite clearly hear what someone else is "up to" in the next stall. I haven't seen any handicapped-accessible stalls here in Europe, so that appears to be another major difference in standard construction. (I'm used to seeing the oversized, blue-labeled stall at the end of a line in the US.)

Next time: toilet technology, paper products

Globalism, Shoes, and Cultural Identifiers

Whatever happened to the near-foolproof Euro Shoe Indicator? In the 80s and 90s, it was almost always possible to identify a non-American by the cut of their shoe, invariably some hand-tooled, suede, off-color, artisanal work of art vs. our homogenous Nikes and Hush Puppies. But nowadays with global trade, global travel, and global style trends, it's impossible to tell the Americans from the Europeans. Even Asians are in on the game, though stature and accessories tend to give them away more easily. (Insert memory of Missoni-bedecked, ridiculously incorrectly-sized Asians in Sydney here. Yuck.)

I enjoy hearing conversations in foreign languages and guessing the content. (family feud? business debate? sweet nothings?) And let's face it, whenever possible I enjoy eavesdropping. When I travel, my outer appearance (Asian) often leads others to assume I am actually Asian. (For those of you who don't know, I am a classic "banana" or as my bro and I like to say, "functionally white".) In Italy this results in terror -- "Does she speak English? Mine isn't very good..." ...until I open my mouth and out comes conversational Italian. Relief.

In European capitols there's usually a pause as various service providers wait to gauge what language comes out - French? English? Chinese? So far the only person I've caught red-handed was a perfectly turned-out, tourist Italian passing through my Mom's former Tuscan village-of-residence. This bella donna make a remark that included a reference to "Giapponesi", clearly meaning my mother and I who were seated on a bench in piazza at the time. I responded in Italian that we were actually Chinese-American, not Japanese...and a fellow traveler in her group, amused by her exposure, pointed out that we were Chinese-Americans who spoke Italian. Even as I enjoy exposing others' prejudices, I realize I have many of my own.

My adventure today included a delay at LHR due to equipment issues (this does not generally bother me; I would rather fly in a healthy plane than never make it to my destination, thank you). Over the course of de-planing, re-planing, and eventually making my way to Brussels, I began to be in various buses, passport lines, and trains with the same folks. I was very pleased to find that the slightly doughy, casually-dressed man with a British Isles accent (sorry friends - Scottish?) has started his day in Singapore and was headed to the south of France, while the gray-haired gentleman with (to me) accentless English had started his day in Toronto and was headed for Ghent. Them, plus the young hip couple who hailed from the Netherlands (I think; their speech was Germanic but definitely not German, and not verbally squishy enough to be Flemish). These days I find my visual cues sadly lacking in accuracy, but open your mouth and I'll be much closer to identifying your origins. Pleased to meet you!