05 August, 2011

A diagram you might never see in Australia

I found this illustration on the wall in a ladies' toilet when travelling in Japan earlier this year:
Yes, Japan has lots of pedestal toilets, but obviously not everyone knows how to use them properly.

4 comments:

  1. I need to find one of these on-line and printout and laminate a heap of them for school! There's something disconcerting about finding shoe prints on the seat when you go to the bathroom.

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  2. I've actually seen these in University toilets in Australia. Obviously it was more hilarious before I'd visited Asia and understood the problem they were trying to avoid.

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  3. My sister is an optometrist and had a young Asian assistant. She was puzzled to find shoe prints on the toilet seat at work. As we get a larger Asian population in Australia we may need a supply of those signs.

    I remember a Rotary man talking about the problems of student exchanges. There are certain activities which are different in different cultures but are very tricky to talk about, especially with teenage students.

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  4. Yes, I've seen them in University toilets in Australia, too, only I'm pretty sure that the signs that I saw were much more detailed. I wish I could remember what all the instructions were, because I hadn't realised until then that the things our parents taught us about using public toilets were so specific to our culture.

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