It's never a good time to find yourself hopelessly confused while traveling, but it's especially disconcerting when that moment comes at the toilet.
Chances are you are already in a hurry to rectify a most urgent situation. The last thing you want is to look down and discover the toilet you are supposed to use is as confounding as the local language.
According to CNET, Japan has launched a campaign to rectify a confusing situation for tourists, making their toilet system as universal as possible considering the various options you have when hopping from one commode to another.
Obviously, the move is to shore up any confusion over the innovative washlets that pepper parts of the country, not every last national toilet. It's these multi-option toilets that have so many confused when performing one of life's most basic tasks.
CNET cites a press release from The Japanese Restroom Industry Association that recently dedicated their cause to making the more innovative toilets in the country a bit easier to understand.
Anyone who has visited the country and encountered these newfangled toilets no doubt suffered a moment of complete and utter terror as you essentially become transported to your three-year-old self, befuddled as you try to figure out how to, well, go.
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Actually, thanks, to Google Translate, we discover what the above images actually mean: "Standard pictograms are classified into three categories: 'lid opening / closing,' 'toilet seat opening and closing,' 'toilet bowl flushing (large),' 'toilet flushing (small), 'clean,''drying' 'stop' in total eight types related to the basic operation."
As CNET explains, the entire campaign is to make Japan easier to maneuver for tourists as the country moves to hosting both the Rugby World Cup (2019) and the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2020.
Hopefully, fewer of those tourists will shoot off toilets in a deluge of water.
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