Free The Big Necessity by Rose George

on a plush seat in their fecally stained pants.”
    Also, the Japanese didn’t know they wanted better toilets. The writer Jun’ichiro Tanizaki reminisced about visiting a privy perched over a river, so that “the solids discharged from my rectum went tumbling through several tens of feet of void, grazing the wings of butterflies and the heads of passers-by.” But the reality of the Japanese privy had little to do with butterflies. Instead, the average Japanese toilet—especially the public variety—was known as the four K’s. It was
kiken
(dangerous),
kitanai
(dirty),
kurai
(dark), and
kasai
(stinky). Consequently, it was neither talked about nor acknowledged. This desire for concealing anything to do with defecatory practice surfaces in the common proverb
Kusaimono ni futa wo suru
(Keep a lid on stinky things); in the existence of Etiquette, a pill that claims to reduce odorous compounds present in excreta and is marketed to “people minding excrement smell”; and in the even greater success of a TOTO product called
Otohimei
, or Flush Princess, a box that plays fake flushing sounds to disguise the noise of bodily functions, and is now found in most women’s public restrooms.
    Japan has always had a strong tradition of scatological humor, but it operated beneath polite society levels. These days, times have changedenough for a golden feces-shaped object called
Kin no Unko
(Golden Poo), thought to bring good luck, to have sold 2.5 million units. But in the late 1970s, when TOTO turned to relaunching the Washlet, the toilet—bidet or otherwise—had no place in conversation. It was something detached, unmentionable, out of sight and smell. It could not be advertised. All these factors ensured that the Washlet languished in obscurity for years.
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    At TOTO, Asuka is joined by Ryosuke Hayashi. His full title is Chief Senior Engineer and Manager of the Restroom Product Development Department, but he prefers to be called Rick, and he is Rick-looking, with slicked hair and almost good English. Rick is an important man. Of the 1,500 patents that TOTO has filed in Japan (and 600 internationally), the Restroom Department is responsible for half. Rick finds my interest in the Washlet quaint. It’s been around since 1980, after all, when TOTO revamped the Wash Air Seat and launched the Washlet G series (the G stands for “gorgeous”). I say that for any non-Japanese person used to a cold, ceramic toilet that does nothing but flush, the Washlet is extraordinary. He’s unconvinced. I’m asking him about the cathode ray when he wants to discuss microrobotics.
    He’d rather talk about the Neorest, TOTO’s top-of-the-line toilet and, in his engineering eyes, an infinitely superior combination of plumbing and computing. Certainly, the Neorest looks gorgeous. It should, when it retails in Japan for $1,700, and in the United States for $5,000. Rick thinks that’s value for money, considering that “it has a brain.” The Neorest takes two days to learn its owner’s habits, and adjusts its heating and water use accordingly. It knows when to switch the heat off and which temperature is preferable. It has sensors to assess when the lid needs to be put down, or when the customer has finished and the nozzle can be retracted. It can probably sense that I’m writing about it.
    The Neorest’s bells and whistles, even if they are nanotechnological bells and warp-speed whistles, are vital, because competition in Japan’s toilet industry is unrelenting. In 2005, TOTO teamed with theconstruction company Daiwa House to build the Intelligent Toilet, which can measure blood sugar in urine, and by means of pressure pads, weight. It has developed the top-secret CeFiONtect, short for Ceramic Fine Ionizing Technology, which uses a super hydrophilic photocatalyst to repel dirt. This complicated procedure is helpfully translated for me as “like a