Hello and TGIF from Japan!
With all that’s different between Japan and the West, you can bet that there are some toilet-related differences, too. When Japanese women use a public toilet, they’re very nervous about others hearing the sound of their tinkling, so some Japanese public bathrooms have machines to make white noise that drowns out the sound. My four-year-old daughter went into one of these restrooms and was too afraid of the sound to do what she had gone in there to do. Similarly, Japanese women don’t want others smelling the toilet after they’ve used it, so they often carry portable cans of air freshener to spray the area and make it fresh and clear. Conveniently, we happen to have gotten some of these in stock for you today…
The words for things are also different. In Japan, the place where you do your thing is called a “toire” (to-i-ray), and Japanese aren’t comfortable with the English euphemism of “bathroom” since the toilet has nothing to do with the bath. In most Japanese houses, the toilet is a small room (about one tatami mat in size), and the bath is next door, completely separate. I’ve lived in Japan so long that I often embarrass myself while in the U.S. by using the wrong word in English. For example, asking a clerk in a store where the “toilet” was, rather than the restroom — and getting a funny look from her. My wife is always happy to tease and mock me for slipping up.
Japan’s various traditions of bathing are quite famous all over the world. Most Japanese take baths in the evening, although younger people replace this tradition with a shower in the morning. In Japanese homes, the actual bath-room is a bath and a separate tiled area outside the bath, with a drain for water to escape. You always wash your body thoroughly before getting into the bath, and never use soap or shampoo inside the bath itself, as the water will be reused by other family members, and saved for several days. All baths here have heaters to allow you to re-heat the old water, and ours has a one-touch computer that will fill the bath to the pre-set temperature and level. If you’re a parent, you always take your kids in the bath with you and wash them. This warm concept of mother or father taking a bath with their children is known as “skinship” to the Japanese. Japanese are great fans of public baths (sento) and hot springs (onsens), too (e.g. Tokimeki Check in!). Since the water is “everyone’s water,” everyone must wash thoroughly before getting into the baths, although I’ve seen quite a few old men who skipped this step. As a foreigner living in Japan, I’m an “ambassador of goodwill” and what not, so I make sure I follow the rules. The Japanese are famous for bathing with men and women together (kon’yoku), but this is actually very rare.
For the before-weekend update, we’ve got a very update for you. The newly posted items include:
- First, we have some new magazines, including the new issues of Best Video and Video Boy, the excellent all-purpose Japanese adult video magazines, filled with the hottest all-pro stars
- For fans of our popular bargain adult magazines, we have a bunch of newly added magazines, starting from just $5 — see magazine page 3 for the reduced items
- Also for bargain fans, it seems we received some damaged copies of Beppin School, with the back covers cut off, probably due to some damage the books received during printing. The magazines themselves are in perfect condition, so if you don’t mind a mostly-missing back cover, feel free to pick up a copy of Beppin School for a dirt-cheap price
- For hentai manga lovers, we’ve got some excellent new manga volumes posted, as well as a major restock of popular volumes that had sold out
- Also of note to hentai and doujinshi fans, we’ve restocked the popular hentai doujinshi anthology from Fusion Product, Lunatic Party. This is a thick manga-style collection of excellent Sailor Moon erotic parody doujinshi that’s just great!
- If you like doujinshi, we’ve got an excellent “doujin-soft” hentai work, a CD-ROM collection of erotic images from Sakura Wars — and these are uncensored
- If you love the popular Maiko Yuki, one of the most popular AV idols at J-List over the years, she’s got a great new anime cosplay DVD out — the Bondage Costume Play
- Fans of Soft on Demand and “tekoki” (hand job) themes will love the new “coupling” DVD featuring two productions for the price of one
- If you like small-bodied Japanese idols with deep, brown eyes and pure, white skin, check out the ‘debut video’ of the lovely new Rinka Yaguchi
- For fans of our unique and wacky Japanese T-shirts, we’re happy to announce our final two new shirts for you — with the all-new “Watashi wa H” (I am a Hentai, e.g. I am a pervert) T-shirt, updated with a literary twist with a little help from 19th century Japanese author Soseki Natsume
- Also for wacky T-shirt fans, we’re happy to announce the official CM-Watch T-shirt, for those who want to support CM-Watch’s efforts to bring you funny Japanese TV commercials. The shirt sports the color logo of CM-Watch on the front, with a super spoof of Pocari Sweat on the back
- By request, we’ve got more wacky “traditional Japanese stuff,” including various bowls for drinking miso soup. Made of simulated plastic but with the look and feel of expensive Japanese lacquerware, we think they’re great
- We have a major restocking of our Japanese snacks and food page, with fresh stock of the super-tart Shige-Kix candy, Pocari Sweat powered drink mix, delicious Roasted Coffee candy, Peko-chan milk caramel (yum), Kaori’s favorite Strawberry Milk candy, and more
- Finally, various odds and ends on our general Wacky Things from Japan page include a “Picky’s Bear” cup to go with the bento boxes that have sold so well, more cute cutters to turn sausages into cute animal shapes, a nifty batch set so you can take a Japanese-style bath at home, the only Hello Kitty soy sauce dish you’re likely to find, and the above-mentioned “My Handy Private Toilet Spray” for women (or men) who don’t want to leave a toilet smelling bad.
