japanese urinal etiquette

by j. baugher

Japan is a quirky country. It’s a place where you can buy ‘used’ schoolgirl panties from vending machines, a place where girls dress as maids and hand you tissue paper, a place where walking down the street carrying a beer is perfectly okay. After drinking this beer, you may find yourself having to micturate in a public restroom, and this is where this in-depth guide to Japanese urinal etiquette will surely come in handy.

There are four main factors to consider when urinating in Japan: location, placement, gestures, and manners. This article will explain each in detail.

Location
The place where you pee will often be determined by what you’re doing. Since Japan is a bastion of public transportation, and drunk driving is illegal, you will probably find yourself either walking, riding a train, or in a bar filled with saggy-faced Korean prostitutes.

When walking, the rule is to pee outside. Oftentimes, this can be a group activity. The collective nature of urination in Japan will be discussed in more detail later. While it might seem preferable to urinate in a slightly hidden location, the Japanese urinate with zeal anywhere and everywhere. The entryway of a business, a parking lot, on a plant—any of these are ideal locations for emptying one’s bladder.

But drinking sometimes occurs indoors or on trains, especially in the winter. When in this situation, it becomes imperative to use a public restroom. These can be found in any train station, any drinking establishment, and many convenience stores. Which leads us to factor number two:

Placement
The American instinct is to choose a urinal at the end of the row, to provide maximum space between oneself and others. Not so in Japan! Given a row of three empty urinals, the Japanese man will always choose the center one, so as to force any newcomers to join his pee party.

Should you find yourself at the far end of a row of, say, fifty unoccupied urinals, the Japanese man will always choose the urinal next to you. If you decide to relocate to a different urinal, he will follow like a lost puppy. The rule for placement is proximity: nobody wants to pee alone.

Pissing in a group is deeply ingrained in the Japanese consciousness. There’s even a word for it: tsure-shomben. Women also pee together, and the word is tsure-shoben, though their group peeing is based on logistical concerns: they can’t use urinals, so they have to use squatting toilets, so by going in groups of three, two women can hold the third one up so she doesn’t get soiled.

Gestures
The traditional way for the Japanese to eat noodles is to slurp them. While it might seem strange, the noise signals that the eater is enjoying his meal. A parallel situation occurs in the restroom. While Americans are used to pissing like statues, staring straight and displaying no emotion, this is not the Japanese way. Japanese men like to make gestures while peeing, to show that they are actively participating.

One gesture is wobbling. To wobble while pissing shows the depths of one’s drunkenness, allowing other drunken bystanders to relax.

Another major gesture is shaking. Shaking one’s member, waving it about like a flag, this is a display of the holder’s prowess. The Japanese like to imagine that their penises are samurai swords, and swinging them powerfully allows them to feel, well, powerful. Also, the effect this shaking motion has on the stream is important. A straight, uninterrupted stream is not beautiful. Imagine starring in a pornographic movie and urinating on a girl’s face without moving the stream around. It would be like she were sitting under a fountain. How boring!

This brings us to aim. Aim is the most important element of Japanese urination. To actually hit the inside of the urinal would demonstrate one’s naïveté. Anybody could accomplish such a thing. No, the true skill lies in making sure that every drop ends up either on the floor or on the shoe of the person next to you. This is the mark of a true Japanese.  This is how a ninja would piss, if you ever encountered one.

Manners
Like every facet of Japan's highly-ritualized society, micturation is riddled with customs, traditions, and nuance. While it is said that becoming a master of Tea Ceremony requires twenty-five years or more, becoming a master of the ‘pee ceremony’ can take a lifetime. However, by keeping a few rules in mind, you can show that you’re no amateur.

Looking and watching. In Japan, it is always appropriate, an unspoken requirement, that one look down at the penis of the person pissing in the next urinal (as we mentioned before, there WILL be someone at the next urinal. Should one find himself alone, he must wait for another person to show.) After looking, not glancing, down at the penis of his neighbor, the Japanese man will laugh, if appropriate, and make eye contact. If he can muster a loud burp, this is the point at which to do so.

When you meet a Japanese for the first time, you will exchange business cards. After taking the other person’s business card with both hands, you should study it for a few seconds and then ask ONE question. Usually something like, ‘Wow, you use really f*cked up kanji to write your name! Your parents must’ve hated you!’ I mention this practice because after you’ve made eye contact with your ‘piss partner,’ this is the point when you are supposed to comment.

While a comment on the weather is ‘safe,’ this will label you as an amateur. The experienced urinator will probably say something along the lines of, ‘That’s an interesting growth on your penis, you should have that checked out by a doctor,’ or ‘My wife is leaving me because I work twelve hours a day and don’t satisfy her sexually.’

Regardless of what is said during the ‘flow time,’ when a Japanese man finishes, it is IMPERATIVE that he shake his penis for AT LEAST three minutes. It might look strange to an observer, but this actually serves three purposes: to simulate masturbation and give the illusion one isn’t impotent, to allow a moment to breathe in the fresh bouquet of all the urine that has accumulated on the floor, and to have time to finish one’s cigarette.

It should be obvious, but a Japanese man will ALWAYS be smoking a cigarette while peeing. This is to show that he’s not a coward who needs to use both hands to handle himself in front of a urinal.

After facing each other, bowing, then zipping up, you must rinse your hands thoroughly. Train station restrooms do NOT have hand soap, towels, or hand dryers, so you must rub all surfaces of your fingers and hands all over the spigot to make sure you don’t miss the chance to accumulate germs. Get your hands completely wet to create a moist environment for the bacteria to thrive, then half-heartedly wipe your hands on your pants. Exchange cell phone e-mail addresses with your pissing partner, and shake hands.  As you and your new friend exit the restroom, just like baseball players exiting the field, he will probably give you a butt-pat. Though it’s not unusual to have your picture taken together before parting paths, this is not always a requirement.

Congratulations! You can now piss like a true Japanese!