Japan converts squat toilets to western-style because foreigners are shunning them as ‘unsanitary’

Japan has been working to convert its traditional squat toilets in public places to Western-style sitting ones amid the influx of foreign tourists who are not familiar with the Japanese style.

With many foreign visitors puzzled over how to use squat toilets and even shunning them as “unsanitary”, the Japanese government has been promoting modernisation of the toilets in the run-up to the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2020, when it aims to welcome 40 million inbound travellers during the year.

Japan’s major tourist spots have around 4,000 public toilets. A survey by the Japan Tourism Agency last year showed 58 per cent of them were Western-style and 42 per cent were squat type.

As the agency believes demand for Western-style toilets is high among foreign visitors, it began to offer subsidies to local governments renovating traditional Japanese toilets in public areas in 2017, shouldering one-third of the total costs, including expenses to put up multilingual signs and illustrations.

In Nagoya, central Japan, Mayor Takashi Kawamura unveiled a plan last June to replace all Japanese-style public toilets in parks, subway stations and other facilities run by the city with Western-style ones.

“I want the city of Nagoya to have the coolest toilets in the world,” he said at a local assembly.