There are old ways which we shouldn't have forgotten or shouldn't forget.

When I was a child, more than three decades ago, my grandparents' house in Osaka had things that are no longer seen in Japan. At the time, Osaka was already a large city, and old, traditional things were disappearing from many houses there. However, they existed in my grandparents' house and gave me thrilling experiences and a glimpse of the old times.

Going to the toilet in their house was a big deal for me. I was scared to use the traditional Japanese style non-flush toilet (Please see the attached picture. It's similar to the toilet in their house). I first had to open the lid of the toilet stool and put it aside. Then I stood over the toilet stool. Although I was very familiar with Japanese-style toilets since almost all the toilets were Japanese-style ones at the time, I wasn't very used to traditional non-flush toilets. I was vigilant not to drop my large slippers which I had on my feet (At the time, a pair of slippers exclusive for the toilet room is provided. They were usually for adults, so they were too large for children). On top of that, I was sometimes forced to struggle with the foul smell when I opened the lid. I still clearly remember when a vacuum truck was removing human waste from their house because the trucks had never come to my house.

Whenever I was at my grandparents' house, my grandfather would call me at dusk. He would tell me that I needed to collect all the trash baskets there and bring them to the backyard. Can you guess why? To prepare a bath for his family, he would build a fire with paper waste, wood waste, twigs and things like that. Although they had electricity and gas in their home, they still used a traditional bathroom with a traditional cast-iron bathtub. Under the bathtub, there was a space to burn things. You could throw things from the surrounding area into the space (Please see the the 9th and 10th pictures in Link #1 below). I still remember that my grandfather would ask me from the backyard how the bath water was. I loved taking a bath there, but I was nervous about whether I could go into the bathtub because I had to get on a round board which was floating on the bath water (Please see the last picture in Link #1 below). Since the bottom of the bathtub was hot, I needed to get on the board and put it on the bottom. However, I was so light that it was not easy for me.

Anyway, when I read the article in link #2 below, about a month after the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami, somehow I remembered the aforementioned memories. In the disaster-stuck areas, the old ways are inevitably necessary. Even in Tokyo, since the earthquake, we have been forced to be pay more attention to some of the old ways to cut electricity consumption and beat the heat. I feel like the disaster has warned us to not forget old ways and to learn from the past.

Link #1

http://ameblo.jp/anettaijin/entry-10152006781.html

Link #2

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377337/Japanese-resilience-setting-communal-bath-middle-tsunami-disaster-zone.html?ITO=1490