In the late 60's I lived on Hokkaido Island up near Siberia at Wakkanai. Very rural and mountainous. Home of Sapporo Beer. I was traveling by bus to a pre teen christian summer camp in the center of the island and we had to stop to let the girls use the potty. Seems they didn't want to use the bus's steps like us boys. Driver would crack the doors a bit and well.....
So we pull into a train station in a small rural Hokkaido town. Everything is made of wood and looks like it hasen't changed since the Sino-Japanese war. The restrooms are a low wooden building with two doors. Girls go in one side, boys the other. The only difference between the girls side and the boys side was we had a wooden trough urinal in the center of the room. Other than that both sides had the same wooden stepup area with neatly spaced holes in the floor to squat over. No partitions, just a bunch of holes in the floor with roles of TP hanging from the wall.
We boys all man the trough, stare at the holes and crack jokes about the girls in the other room, then head back to the bus. Did I mention how thin the wall was between the girls and boys sides of the place and that the roles of TP for both sides hung on a communal wall? Well, seems the girls heard all the cracks about our observations on how they would fair with their holes in the floor opposed to our trough to stand at.
The nice japanese lady who sold tickets had to come in and demonstrate the fine art of squatting to our american girls. The next 2 hours on the bus was very silent and the girls all crowded into the back and glared at us. But then we boys spent the next 2 hours cracking up about anything if it had the word squat or wood in it.
