Today’s post is going to talk us on a cultural journey of a different kind, and we are going to spend some time talking about bidet’s, why they are so great, and why the United States is woefully behind the rest of the world when it comes to bathroom hygiene.

If you have spent any time travelling abroad, you will have discovered pretty quickly that we are one of the few places in the world that doesn’t have a really strong bidet culture. Europe, East Asia, South America, and the Middle East all have a strong bidet game.

I myself a decade ago would have scoffed at the premise of a bidet, until one fateful summer found me in Tokyo at a department store called Tokyu Hands. The afternoon spicy ramen started knocking, and I found myself in a bathroom staring at something that looks like this:

Little did I know my life was about to change. I discovered a literal hands free way to get yourself clean, refreshed, and feeling good. Did it really play me a jingle and blow dry me too??? I immediately realized my whole life up to this point was a sham. Why in the world would we ever clean our backsides with dry harsh paper? We don’t clean anything else with such cavalier disregard, and yet for some reason, Americans decided, dry Charmin was all we needed for adequate hygiene. Imagine hopping in the bathtub, just to dryly wipe yourself down with TP.

After I got back from this trip, I ordered a washlet bidet, and never looked back. From this point on whenever I travelled the world, I began to notice how every country other than ours seemed to run some sort of bidet system. Brazil, Philippines, China, Russia, Iceland, it didn’t matter where I travelled, they all had some sort of bidet. Even here in Mauritania, shower bidet’s are in every single bathroom, of every single house I have seen.

From an early age were are sort of ingrained to believe in American superiority, and although we do indeed come from a wonderful country, we are outpaced by the rest of the world when it comes to bathroom hygiene. Even countries in what we would consider the “third world” are ahead of us, and it’s a cultural difference I find so fascinating. Why does the rest of the world pride themselves on a cleaner backside than us?

These are complex questions and I don’t think there is an easy answer, but Newsweek ran a great article a couple of years back summarizing things quite nicely. Fortunately, I have noticed that online and in many places across the U.S., the bidet making a strong push into our homes, a cultural trend I can get behind (pun intended). For the time being though, I’m happy to be living abroad in countries that take pride in keeping their undies spotless.

Until next time…keep it clean! -Nick