Lessons for my daughter

Oh good. An article in the Japan Times that covers my interest in both Japanese toilets and theology: Paying respect to the Japanese toilet god.

Amongst other things, it notes that there was a popular folky song in Japan last year - "The Toilet God":

The lyrics were inspired by the singer's grandmother, who held that women should clean toilets in order to honor the beautiful female deity presiding there. My own grandmother used to say that daughters who cleaned the family toilet were destined to become beautiful, and would in turn bear beautiful daughters.

I must admit, my daughter already finds cleaning a toilet an entertaining past time. My son - not so much.

The article also notes Japanese toilet folklore:

Anyone who has been through the school system here has the old stand-by: toire no Hanako-san (トイレの花子さん, Hanako in the toilet stall), the ghost of a girl who died mysteriously — usually bullied by classmates and locked into a smelly toilet — who has come back to haunt her old grade school.

The older generation, who grew up in rural Japan, may come out with some pretty macabre stuff. One that's practically legend is the story of the village brute who crawled into the compost tank of the local girls' school and mired himself there for weeks, only to be discovered when an inquisitive student peered into the creepy darkness of the washiki benki (和式便器, Japanese crouch-style toilet bowl) and saw a pair of eyes looking up at her.

A bit more impressive than redbacks on the toilet seat.