The joys of living in a foreign country

Today there was a long line leading to the girls' bathroom at school. When I got to the front of the line, a stall became vacant, but to my despair it contained a Japanese-style toilet. And I don't mean a toilet with a lot of mysterious buttons, I mean this:


Why do they have these? From what I've heard, some Japanese regard sitting on the same toilet seat someone else has used as dirty and gross. In my opinion, kneeing on the bathroom floor is even grosser, so up to this point I have avoided these asian toilets successfully. But today a lot of girls were behind me waiting, so I decided that I didn't have time to wait for a stall with a Western-style toilet to open up. Thus was my first attempt at using a Japanese-style toilet. I knew that using it involved squatting but I wasn't sure exactly how, so...believe me you don't want any further details. Lets just say it was a pretty unpleasant experience, and I hope I never have to try it again.
They don't tell you about this kind of thing on the study abroad brochures.