Shinya Shimatani

As the Japanese Society Class explains, the Hafu and foreign people in Japan make efforts to understand the Japanese Society to adjust themselves to it. The film “トイレット” can be shown this in the different point of view. I want to introduce you this film and encourage you to learn more about the Japanese Society Class.

The theme of this movie is ups and down of a family in Canada connected with cross-cultural interaction. The place is Canada and characters are an elder brother, a younger brother, a sister, a cat, and their Japanese grandmother who will not speak English. They all live in a house together and sushi is prepared on the table. Sometimes the grandmother cooks gyoza. It means that the grandmother takes “Japanese Society” to this family. One of the most interesting and important scenes is the incident in bathroom. Every time grandmother goes out of the bathroom, she breathes a huge sigh. As you guess, this scene is related with the culture of bathroom, or toilet. For instance, in India, people don’t use paper when they use toilet. In Europe, papers and a toilet seat is sometimes nothing. The culture of the toilet differs from country to country. About Japan, we have the great technology we are proud of. It is washlet that give us the warm seat and the system of automatic washing, and it is too original or innovative for non-Japanese. In this film, at first, brothers and sister cannot notice this point and make clear the reason why their grandmother sighs. Although, thanks to this event, they and grandmother gradually understand each other beyond the language barrier after all, this incident is difficult for them to deal with.

As the case of toilet shows, although, of course, there is blind connection between grandchildren and grandmother, they cannot communicate with her and grasp what grandmother is. In fact, elderly brother have tried DNA test in order to make sure if she is their real grandmother. In this way, various Japanese cultures she have makes them confused, and this shows the cross-cultural interaction. I’m sorry for revealing some important scenes, but I recommend you to this film to promote understanding of Japanese Society through the toilet.