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