05 August, 2011

A diagram you might never see in Australia

I found this illustration on the wall in a ladies' toilet when travelling in Japan earlier this year:
Yes, Japan has lots of pedestal toilets, but obviously not everyone knows how to use them properly.

4 comments:

KarenKTeachCamb said...

I need to find one of these on-line and printout and laminate a heap of them for school! There's something disconcerting about finding shoe prints on the seat when you go to the bathroom.

Hippomanic Jen said...

I've actually seen these in University toilets in Australia. Obviously it was more hilarious before I'd visited Asia and understood the problem they were trying to avoid.

Ken Rolph said...

My sister is an optometrist and had a young Asian assistant. She was puzzled to find shoe prints on the toilet seat at work. As we get a larger Asian population in Australia we may need a supply of those signs.

I remember a Rotary man talking about the problems of student exchanges. There are certain activities which are different in different cultures but are very tricky to talk about, especially with teenage students.

Caroline said...

Yes, I've seen them in University toilets in Australia, too, only I'm pretty sure that the signs that I saw were much more detailed. I wish I could remember what all the instructions were, because I hadn't realised until then that the things our parents taught us about using public toilets were so specific to our culture.