A Note On Japanese Bathroom Behavior (Part 1 of 3: Schedules)

I am trying to remain sensitive to profiling the Japanese people and culture, so it should be noted that I can only speak for observations in my office alone, or similarly, restaurants/events that I have been to. With that said, I felt that while living and working here in Japan, there have just been too many intriguing observations coming from the world where all of us spend between 2.5%-5% of our lifetimes on average (my guesstimate). I am talking, of course, about the bathroom. There are three specific topics I hope to address at some point on this blog related to bathroom behavior, so we'll call this 'Part 1: Schedules'.

Schedule time is very reliable in Japan. Time is everything. Meetings start on time. Subways and trains arrive on time. Even a bus, amidst all the traffic keeps a tight schedule. And by on time, I quite literally mean to the minute. To be sure, I don't think the term 'fashionably late' is used often. Being on time is pretty nice, but took some getting used to. America is a little more relaxed I think. For example, back in college, there was a standard 10 minute rule for every class. Sure the syllabus says 10:00-11:00, but you could always be certain the professor would not start until 10:10. Even meetings in America tend to have a relaxed start as people tend to trickle in. And let's face it, public transportation in America is too much of a joke to even think about setting your watch to the reported arrival time.

So, here in Japan, schedules and plans are pretty reliable. However, little did I expect this scheduling to delve into the world of, ahem, 'Potty time' (Excuse the childish reference, it just seems so fitting). When thinking of the best way to explain this, I want to take you back to elementary school to the world of pre-arranged 'potty times'. You remember, don't you? Ok, maybe not. Hey, I went to private school growing up! Anyways, everyone would line up, boys in one line, girls in the other, at a specified time in the morning and afternoon, and promptly do their business when their turn was up. Gradually over the years - junior high, high school, college, and finally the business world - most of us sort of moved away from that and developed our own, you know...potty schedules. Here in Japan, however, I am becoming convinced this shift over time did not occur.

To best explain this phenomenon, I thought a graph would be appropriate:

This is a microcosm of my building. Here, I show the 3rd floor of a 6 floor building. There is a similar bathroom on every floor, with similar traffic. You can plainly see there are times when there is just too much traffic in the bathrooms. But what shocks me the most is the people that stand in line and wait. Standing in line at, say Comerica Park, doesn't seem out of the ordinary, but it just seems weird to see that at work, especially for stalls!

I generally prefer the comfy confines of my own home, but dealing with the unpredictable nature of being a coffee drinker, or those 'What the heck was in that miso soup?' emergencies every now and then makes a bathroom schedule a little more difficult for me. Fortunately, the surprising nature of the bathroom congestion and lines have allowed me to know when the 'peak' hours to avoid are.