Fortunately, Western Civilization is taking over the world in the most important aspect. American Bathrooms are becoming the norm in this part of Asia. But there's a chasm we're trying bridge here, if you think about it. They say "How can you sit on that filthy thing?!?" And we say "How can you squat over that filthy thing?!?" Both have their advantages, but the dang squatters are really hard to balance a newspaper and use at the same time! Our apartment has two bathrooms and both (fortunately) have regular toilets- as evidenced by the fact I'm still married and Julie is still here in Korea.
As a Historian, I realize that to the victor goes the spoils, including getting the say in the History Books about the other guy. If your country's history has an entry that begins with, "We met a new race of people today- we thought we'd just trade goods and be allied with them against our own enemies. When we were eating their strange food and trying to figure out their crazy language, it was going well enough. Until I excused myself to use the restroom. We'll have the rest of the cities burned and sacked by Thursday." If that's what it says, then you've made the world a better place. Indoor plumbing isn't something to be trifled with. It's bad enough the Brits walk around all high and mighty and they just got water closets within the last 40 years.
I'll end this crappy entry on this note- in one of my trips to the Middle East, I'm in the restroom at the upscale mall (not the one for the dumb infidels) and I'm standing next to the guy that's scrubbing his fingernails- you get what I'm saying? Suffice it to say I waited until someone opened the bathroom door to go out so I didn't have to touch it and when we hit the gates of the maximum security prison we called a military base, I was never so happy to be back in my own filth (complete with real sitdown toilets!)
Then again, those squatters look really easy to clean.
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