Life In Japan: Washlets

The first time I ever saw a washlet, to be entirely honest about it, I was genuinely afraid to sit down.  To my unschooled Western eyes, it looked like an ejection seat in a fighter jet.  Seeing it plugged into the wall most definitely made me pause.  I'm not exactly excited about having 100 volts of electricity anywhere near the 2nd most important cluster of organs on my body -- the ones responsible for both a great deal of pleasure, as well as relief from the build up of sludge and stinky fluids.



The washlet is the technological evolution of the "bum gun", a simple, standard approach to hygiene for the private parts, still commonly seen in Southeast Asia -- Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar.

When I first saw a bum gun, I thought "how primitive!"  The real truth?  My disdain itself was an embarrassingly primitive, insular, knee-jerk reaction.  What do I mean by that?

Is this the best we can do? Seriously?

I imagine an advanced race of extraterrestrials returning from our beloved planet Earth, reporting to the Council of Wise Elders on their own beloved space rock: "Well, they're an interesting but strange bunch there on Earth.  In some ways, they're quite advanced.  But in others quite puzzling to say the least.  They actually cut down trees to wipe their asses."

Yes, we cut down trees, process them, turn them into pulp, then toilet paper.  You know what happens next.

The bum gun does the job much more admirably and is much more eco-friendly, at least in terms of maintaining forest cover on our ravaged planet.

Just spray and wash.  Pat with a towel.  Get on with your life.  Frankly a thorough wash is much more sanitary than . . . you know how it goes.



Back to the washlet, a Japanese innovation I put on a par with the invention of the steam engine or artificial intelligence.

Washlets come in varying degrees of sophistication, accessorized to accommodate a wide range of tastes.  But they all perform the same purpose.  They wash you.  Men in back. Women back and front.
You can adjust the temperature of the stream, the intensity of the stream.  It can be just a direct stream or in "massage mode" a wiggling stream.



Some washlets greet you!  Some play music.  Some put the toilet seat up and down for you.
This borders on somewhat excessive for my particularly pedestrian world view and spartan expectations.  But there's one feature pretty standard on washlets that is truly admirable.  THE TOILET SEATS ARE HEATED!  And you can adjust the temperature on them too.

Why haven't these caught on in Western countries?  Has someone tried to market them to the wiping/smearing/stinky-butted round-eyed barbarians of Europe, the U.S., Australia, Canada, and the rest of the non-Japanese world . . . and gone bankrupt?  I don't get it.

Yes, I admire much about Japan.  And every country has its pluses and minuses.  You can examine and study, compare and argue, go back and forth, weighing the pros and cons. 

Then some one thing comes along which is so phenomenal, so HUGE and AMAZING, so entirely off the charts, so beyond anything else on the table, it's no longer a contest.

The simple unavoidable truth is . . .

Washlets put this country in a class by itself! 



[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]



Life In Japan: Washlets

It’s not easy being infallible . . .

 

In case you didn't hear President Obama's historic speech at the Hiroshima Peace Park this past May 27th, let me sum it up for you.  Paraphrasing . . .

"It's very sad.  War is nasty.  Shit happens."

There is broad consensus among reputable historians -- who don't filter everything through the brainwashing lens of American exceptionalism -- that dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was entirely unnecessary.

There is concrete evidence -- I've seen the U.S. government documents on display at the Hiroshima Peace Museum myself -- that dropping the bombs was an experiment.  These two Japanese cities, both of relatively marginal importance in terms of the war effort, were the petri dishes, the Japanese were the bacteria.  The nuclear scientists who had developed a deployable nuclear weapon wanted to see how people and dwellings would hold up in the 10,830º fireball.  You think I'm exaggerating about any of this?  The bombs didn't target factories or military installations.  The epicenter of the Hiroshima explosion was directly over a medical clinic, for chrissakes!

With those two heinous war crimes, of course, America was just getting warmed up.

Next came Korea, or more specifically North Korea.  In what was considered a savage and one-sided genocidal attack, over 20% of the population -- by some estimates close to 1.4 million people -- mostly civilians were killed by the U.S. campaign.  North Korea was reduced to rubble.  At the end of the carpet bombing, planes were returning with all of their bombs, with the pilots complaining there was nothing left to bomb.  Why did North Korea deserve such genocide?  They were demanding that as promised at the end of World War II, when they were finally liberated from the oppressive rule of the Japanese, that the country be unified and free democratic elections be held.  You think I'm making this up?  If you can go beyond the facile fairy tales of our high school history texts and do some reading, you'll find this right in the historical record.


 

After taking a little breather, the U.S. moved on to Vietnam.  What was the problem there?  These misguided gooks might go communist and we couldn't let that happen!  Of course, Vietnam is now a communist country.  I've been there.  It's a pretty decent place.  No one tried to shoot me.  I practically never saw any police.  The food is spicy.  Amazingly, I was treated with courtesy and kindness.  Why was I amazed?  Because we slaughtered between 1.3 and 3.9 million Vietnamese in that war, again mostly civilians.  We sprayed them and their farmland with lethal chemicals that are still causing horrible birth defects.  In fact, America dropped twice as many bombs on this tiny country as was dropped by all sides in every theater of World War II! 

Try to wrap your head around that.

Of course, just because we were at war with Vietnam didn't mean we would confine our destruction and carnage to that country, in losing the war.  We also mercilessly bombed Cambodia and Laos.  In Cambodia -- a country we weren't at war with -- America dropped a half million tons of bombs killing 100,000 innocent people. 

But that was child's play compared to Laos, again a country which was neutral not in any way participating in the Vietnam conflict.  Laos has the chilling distinction of being per capita the most bombed country in the history of the world!  Yes, we really cut loose on this tiny, impoverished nation by dropping 2,000,000 TONS OF EXPLOSIVES on them!

And how bad does America feel about the death and destruction it inflicted on tiny Laos?  Never one to let an opportunity for cynical irony go ignored, Obama in his public relations swing through Southeast Asia stopped by to do some glad-handing.  While when it comes to countries we've abused Obama prefers to leave the past behind, to look ahead toward a bright, harmonious future -- in particular one controlled by the corporate totalitarian regime of TPP -- he did give a nod to a little problem that 2,000,000 tons of explosives had left scattered across the landscape of Laos: that of unexploded ordnance.  He was in such a generous mood that he committed $90 million to help clean up the mess before more children lost their arms and legs.  $90 million for 2 million tons of explosives only four-and-a-half decades late.  What a guy!

I could go on but we'd be looking at a book.  A very depressing one at that.

The point is the bombing and the wars just keep on going and in parallel we are treated to a never-ending barrage of self-righteous deceptions and exceptionalist demagoguery.

The only difference now is that the rhetoric is more vitriolic and audaciously deceitful.

Since hopefully many of you like myself may not be amused by Obama's infinite capacity for expectorating America-first drivel, let me spare you from listening to this narcissistic ideologue and sum up his recent speech before the United Nations.  I read between the lines a bit, and here's the gist of this remarkable gust of self-congratulatory hot air:

"We know if you repeat a lie often enough, it will stick.  We are also firmly committed to never admitting a mistake, and no matter how implausible, always finding someone else to blame for what goes wrong.  Finally, the United States of America never apologizes."

For the final UN speech of his celebrated 8 years as president, I think Obama has done an excellent job of clarifying exactly where the U.S. stands, and sealing his place in the history books after the U.S. inevitably implodes, as one of the most myopic of our chief executives.

Having said that, I'm still for offering a balanced view.  Though we often get caught up in quibbling about the details, let's look at the big picture and give credit where credit is due.

Do you think keeping track of the torrent of destructive but spellbinding lies dumped on the American public and the rest of the world is easy?

Can you fathom how thoroughly exhausting it must be to relentlessly embrace and nurture such intemperate arrogance, such malignant hubris, such shameless moral insensitivity, how draining it is to keep feeding the rhetorical river of buttery self-congratulations and slimy bombast?

What about having to unrelentingly deny facts, obfuscate and hide the truth?  What about the colossal task of constructing an alternative and patently false reality to keep American citizens from waking up to the horror their leaders are visiting on the rest of the world?  You're going to tell me this is not incredibly grueling work?

In a nutshell . . .

Do you think it's easy being infallible?

Maybe we should ask President Obama at his next news conference.


[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



It’s not easy being infallible . . .