Squat toilet
A contemporary Japanese squat toilet including toilet slippers. The handwritten sign to the left of the vertical pipe says, "Please squat a bit closer."
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A contemporary Japanese squat toilet including toilet slippers. The handwritten sign to the left of the vertical pipe says, "Please squat a bit closer."

The traditional Japanese-style (和式, washiki) toilet is a squat toilet, also known as the Asian toilet, as squat toilets of somewhat similar design are common all over Asia. A squat toilet differs from a western toilet in both construction and method of employment. A squat toilet essentially looks like a miniature urinal rotated 90 degrees and set into the floor. Most squat toilets in Japan are made of porcelain, though in some cases (like on trains), stainless steel is also used. Instead of sitting, the user squats over the toilet, facing the hemispherical hood, i.e., the wall in the back of the toilet in the picture seen on the right. A shallow trough collects the waste, instead of a large water-filled bowl as in a western toilet. All other fixtures, such as the water tank, piping, and flushing mechanism, may be identical to those of a western toilet. Flushing causes water to push the waste matter from the trough into a collecting reservoir which is then emptied and carried off into the sewer system. The flush is often operated in the same manner as a western toilet, though some have handles to pull or foot pedals instead. Many Japanese toilets have two kinds of flush: "small" (小) and "large" (大). The difference is in the amount of water used. The former is for urine (in Japanese, literally "small excretion") and the latter for feces (literally, "large excretion"). The lever is often pushed to the "small" setting to provide a continuous covering noise for privacy, as discussed below.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/t...

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sinon, j'ai bien aimé la remarque de Didier Super lors de son voyage en Inde alors qu'il se torche avec des billets de banque (faute de PQ) : "l'argent vaut tellement rien ici que si ça se trouve, j'en aurais eu pour plus cher à acheter du PQ".
ptdr (même si c'est pas bien de se moquer des pôôôvres)
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http://mesperles.over-blog.com > mai 2006 !
http://spaces.msn.com/members/laviedoli/ > Fête du ciné 2006 (6 chroniques)

rohh trop facile !
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http://www.last.fm/user/keipoth/
diDus InEpTuS

une conversation d'une profondeur.... abyssale pour ne pas dire autre chose... :)
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http://www.w-fenec.org/~aureliO/ Lord of War