There are lots of sounds that we hear every day that we probably don’t take much notice of. One of those sounds is the sound of our own peeing, or even the peeing of other people in the same bathroom in shared restrooms. Most U.S. public restrooms have doors and stalls that do not go all the way up to the ceiling, so as soon as we enter public restrooms that have others in it, we will inevitably hear the sound of other people urinating.

The reason I bring this up is that prior to visiting Japan, I read an article of a traveler who had been there who said that the Japanese are so disgusted by the sound of urination that they would leave the water running while peeing. They had to do something, anything, to block out the sound of their own bodily action. As a society, they realized this wasn’t sustainable since this would result in a lot of water waste, so they started creating everything from recycled water in individual toilets trickling down to mimic the running water sound, to even motion-activated devices that begin making flowing water sounds as soon as it senses someone sitting on the toilet seat next to it. Much to my own intrigue, I experienced all of the above at various bathrooms, from our hotel rooms and ryokans to mall and historic site bathrooms. Surprisingly, even some of the lowest end bathrooms (you know, the Asian “squat” toilets) had motion-activated sensors that would give me the fake running water sound.

The last few times I used the restroom in Japan, I thought about the running water sounds in the bathrooms, and I realized that it was probably one of those things I wouldn’t miss. They were really more of a source of amusement for me than anything else and made it more apparent to me how repressed the Japanese can be.