Japan's Culture of Techno-Toilets

For Westerners, it is the device that has launched a thousand euphemisms: the water closet, the loo, the john, the can. Its existence is about function – one that is best left as unacknowledged as possible.

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But in Japan -- where Western-style commodes replaced the traditional squat-style affair only three decades ago -- the porcelain throne has attained something of a royal status. A quotidian workhorse is now a high-tech, multifeatured must-have that elicits almost reverential observations.

For Japanese today, it's so important that one type of toilet seat is an advertised feature at hotels.

Toyoko Inn, one of Japan's largest hotel chains, now makes the "Washlet" brand standard.

"If we had not installed them, they would have gone to another hotel," says Mami Ohashi, a hotel official. "[For most customers], a Washlet in the room is as high a priority as Internet connections."

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The Washlet -- a seat that adds a bidet function and so much more to a regular toilet -- evokes warm feelings. That may be, in part, because some of the toilets literally heat up and light up when you walk in the room.

But consumers can also summon features that spritz your backside, dry, deodorize, flush automatically, and lower and raise the lid hands-free. Nor is there any need to do all this in silence: With the tap of a remote control, you can program a built-in audio system with the performance music of your choice.

To help reduce hotel water costs, Japan's No. 1 toiletmaker, Toto, this year introduced a water-saving feature, similar to flow-optimized shower heads, as well as a special self-cleaning nozzle, an important feature for public toilets.

It has taken Japanese a while to come around to the idea of the bathroom as a night at the Ritz. Until fairly recently, even the notion of sharing a toilet that someone else had touched was anathema here; people squatted over low toilets instead. Developers also had to get past what was seen here as the idiocy of subjecting your warm backside to a cold seat -- especially in winter, when a lack of central heating could make the encounter particularly distressing.