Ok we all know the drill. I just want to understand what is going on.
Japanese guys just wetting their fingers after taking a big stinker, or peeing. Is Japanese water antibacterial? I’ve even seen a guy use his hand to gargle after, basically drinking poo tea from his hand.
Its one thing that bidet is the norm here, but shit particles are life in toilets. You touched the handles? The paper roll? Anything? Wash. Hell i wash my hands in public toilets cause i have an opportunity. I have been touching all the things outside for hours.
The way Japanese guys wash their hands, they basically just wet the dirt/poop/pee and give it a lubricant to spread it all over their hands in some mild poop tea. I have never seen a guy use soap or do it properly.
I have a theory. きれい means both clean and tidy in Japanese. My wife often struggles with the difference when we speak english and she is fluent. Maybe a tendency just think if it looks tidy on the outside, its clean too(germs bacteria etc etc)? Would explain a lot.
However doesn’t explain the dissonance. Often see TV commercials showing the horrors of pee/poop spraying all over the toilet room unless you buy/do X. Yet people here are happy to use the little water facet on the toilet tank to wash after doing business without soap at home, touch doorknob after etc etc.
Why do you think it happens in a supposedly clean conscious society? Im not saying there are not plenty of dirty buggers in the UK(there are so many. I wouldn’t drink anything by boss used to make me) where im from but I certainly see more hand washing by far even pre-pandemic compared to Japan, and at least an admission of laziness if not.
One thing i will appreciate however is that i have never been into an outright rancid disgusting toilet in my time in Japan. They are all at least tidy and well kept and dont stink of piss like some trogs personal piss cave like so many do in the UK.
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I’ve never paid much attention to the hand washing habits of Japanese guys when I use a public toilet but I’ll ask my Japanese husband if he can explain that phenomenon.
Pee is sterile (barring some disease) so as gross as it sounds, it probably wouldn’t present a HUGE health hazard simply rinsing hands afterwards.
Poo just full stop no, wash your damn hands.
No towels.
A man goes into the bathroom, and he sees a little boy finish at the urinal and head straight out. The man stops the boy, saying “Didn’t your mother teach you to wash your hands after using the bathroom?” The kid says, “My Mom’s dead, but my Dad taught us not to piss on our hands.”
The idea is simple, if people see you with hands dripping water it means they are clean.
It’s all about image. You don’t need to BE clean as long as you LOOK clean.
Most Japanese bathrooms have no paper towels nor hand soap. Why, who knows
Fucking thank you! This pisses me off so goddamn much. People are disgusting af. It’s no wonder people keep getting sick here
I’m visiting the US now. I noticed it’s common here too. I feel like it’s not just a Japanese thing but a guy thing to do.
Remember people, after doing no. 1 or 2 , always wash your genital , wipe it clean, throw away the toilet paper, and lastly wash you hand properly.
Some of my Japanese friends does that,
some of them only wetting the finger tips.
i think its more to personal hygiene care.
edited.
Women here do it too. If they use soap, they rinse it off almost immediately, no real lathering.
I only wash what I touched my nasties with. So next time you see me washing my elbows, better give me some space ok
For pee, honestly I don’t think it’s actually unsanitary, it just *feels* like it is. First of all, are you really getting pee on your fingers? And is it somehow burrowed in so that a stream of water doesn’t knock it off? Humans probably didn’t generally even rinse with water until the last 100 years or so.
Poop is a different story.
On the other hand, most Japanese people I’ve discussed it with think it’s absolutely disgusting to pee in the shower, or even while swimming.
I just clean my hands in the pee stream
Maybe it’s a habit from using toilets at home, which have water coming out the top for you to wash your hands with but you can’t use soap. It’s not a real basin either, so you can’t wash your hands properly. I just rinse them a little and then go out to the bathroom sink to wash properly, but maybe they skip this step because it’s a hassle
You make it sound like this is unique to Japan.
Definitely not. People in general are disgusting.
I’m sure you stuff that’s considered pretty gross by others
Women do this too.
They forgot a towel or they don’t want to get their purse wet pulling the towel out or its winter and washing with ice water sucks. Or they’re just lazy and washing thoroughly is mendokusai but other people will notice if they don’t go through the pantomime of washing.
See also: doing a ghost swipe under a hand sanitizer and rubbing bone dry hands together as they walk away.
I’m guilty of the ghost swipe but I reserve it for those hand sanitizers that smell awful. I use my own sanitizer beforehand.
Yeah, this is a problem here. Guys just wetting their finger tips then walking out the door like they did something. People say it’s because of no paper towels, but the culture here seems to be to bring your own small hand towel everywhere, so I don’t see any valid reason to make your fingers even less sanitary for touching surfaces. I don’t want you spreading your hydrated dick grease on everything at the grocery store.
Not just a Japanese thing. It’s a Human thing.
They turned off all the air dryers so they don’t want to have to get their hands soaked only to be wiped on their pants.
Japanese people don’t shake hands, and instead of eating with their hands they use 50cm chopsticks. So there’s no real need to have clean hands.
/s
they need to make up for the lost time after blocking the toilet for 20 minutes taking a nap or whatever.
Thank Christ handshakes aren’t a thing
Plenty of men the world over don’t even wave their hands under the tap like most guys in Japan… which is why I use the paper hand towel (wherever possible) to touch the door handle. (PS. Try the toilet outside of Nakano Station next to the New Days if you really want a rancid one!)
OP needs to get out more. People do this all over the world.
Because most of us grew up in the house where we have the tiny hand wash sink attached in the back of the toilet seat.
You don’t wash your whole hands there, but only finger tips to avoid water spill.
We’ve been taught that is ecological also.
You might not believe this in 2020s but back in time when we had rumor of global water shortage, many school or offices tighten the faucets in the hand wash basin to save the planet.
Time changes.
Just bad personal hygiene, and bad education in that respect. So many people think that peeing doesn’t warrant handwashing, and that pooping just requires wetting their hands. Also, don’t forget the belief that gargling LOUDLY with plain old tapwater can kill any kind of germs. And then spitting said water all over the sink.
I want to taste extra seasoning when I go to sushiro
People still doing this after almost 3 years in a pandemic? I guess I should just be happy they have soap available now.
Idk about summer, but there’s no hot water so people just quickly dunk their hands in if they do anything at all during the winter.
“…i have never been into an outright rancid disgusting toilet in my time in Japan.”
You lucky sod. Station toilets REEK of dehydrated piss filtered through bonito. And let’s not talk about public toilets inside parks…
Honestly, wherever you go, people just so a cursory sprinkle on the hands if not out right avoid eye contact with the sink. It’s universal. Though, I noticed a distinct lack of soap in some toilets.
I asked my Japanese husband about this when he came home for lunch a few minutes ago (he does it, too) and he said 決まりが無いだから何でも良いです。
Longest average life expectancy in the world. :^)
No soap and no towels.
Without soap, you’re not getting the “I cleaned after the last couple hours of activity” refreshment. It’s not like touching your own dick with a couple fingers will kill you anyway, so if there’s no soap, you don’t have a strong incentive to really wash thoroughly.
I know everyone’s supposed to carry a towel, but lots of people don’t carry or are in a hurry. You don’t want your suit wet, so you do the de minimus finger-wetting and call it a day rather than having drippy hands/splotchy suit.
It’s not a *good* outcome, but it’s the outcome you get when you make proper hand-washing difficult.
The little taps that come out the top of the toilet bowl I think encourage this. Never have I seen one with a space to leave a lil soap bar or dispenser.
At least they tend to use water to clean their butts, better than a lot of people lol
What is the idea of Americans spying on people in toilets? How do you know that a person in a cubicle was taking a dump?
It’s just to annoy you, it’s a countrywide plot for that purpose.
I once saw a guy place his hand under the faucet, trigger the sensor, and immediately pull his hand away before the water even touched it. Like what is even the point ¯_(ツ)_/¯