You’d think he’d be working out of Flushing, N.Y. but he works out of KITAKYUSHU, Japan.
His job is to prevent a pain in the ass:
Darting through the 3:30 p.m. passenger rush at a new airport here, a hurried 35-year-old in a gray business suit made a beeline for the men’s room. Heading for the nearest open stall, Kyoji Asada threw aside his briefcase and quickly got down to business — a spot inspection of the toilet bowl.
For more than a decade as a top designer for Japan’s bathroom appliance giant Toto Ltd., Asada has been responsible for developing the Rolls Royces of porcelain thrones. There are toilets with heated seats. Toilets with cleansing water sprays and drying-action air blasts. Toilets with built-in deodorizers and soothing river sounds to cover up embarrassing smells and sounds.
“Going to the toilet should be about relaxation, comfort and cleanliness,” he said. “I strongly believe the Japanese have the cleanest and most comfortable toilets in the world.”
And that isn’t a lot of crap.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.