Supplemental question: How do you avoid…um…your clothes?
I don’t think the comfort of morbidly obese American tourists is very high on the priority list of people in these countries.
Won’t someone think of the Sumo wrestlers?
That’s what I had difficulty with in China. Somehow getting my pants to bunch up out of the trajectory path, while also trying to keep them off of the wet/dirty/sticky floor, while also keeping little Colonel Klink pointed in the proper direction, seemed to require one more set of opposable thumbs than I was born with.
One assumes a sumo wrestler is an excellent squatter.
They bunch around the knees (and can be held there if necessary) and the parts doing the expelling are below that so no problems. The problem I always found was things falling out of my pockets into…well, the target area.
Women wearing skirts or dresses can actually have something of a privacy fence. I understand that they often remove the undergarmet when doing this, however. I do not know why.
But how does one direct the water onto one’s fundament in the squatting position? I’m squatting, there is a bucket and a dipper; what next? I can’t pour water on my bung, as it is at the lowest point of my body. So what now, cup my hand and splash it on my poop chute? That sounds messy and ineffiecient. I suppose I could pour the dipper onto the small of my back, and hope the stream follows my ass crack down under, but unless I am afflicted with diarrhea, that won’t dislodge stubborn feculence. I could hold the dipper underneath, but lacking a prehensile rectum, or a very large dipper, I don’t see how I can dunk my turd pipe in the water.
I still don’t get it.
Use the dipper to pour some water on your hand. Use the water in your hand to cleanse the bunghole. Repeat rinse cycle as necessary. Use dipper to rinse hand. Use your left hand only. When reasonable clean, wipe hand on unobtrusive area of garment, or handkerchief. Now, I’ve never done this myself, but it seems to be what needs to be done, if you’ve got a hole, a dipper, an urn of water and need to take a shit and want a clean bunghole afterwards. I’d avoid contaminating the dipper. Common courtesy. Now, take food with your right hand only from now on.
Some of y’all are forgetting that Asians squat differently from Westerners, and that their manner of squatting is much more efficient than ours for this kind of activity.
That’s true. I have NEVER been able to get my feet completely flat on the ground.
It comes from growing up doing it.
This thread almost makes me want to go in one of those stalls in the train station bathrooms. Go in and do more than just take a picture of the fixture, that is. I may work up the nerve to do so, maybe in the summer when I wear less clothing. At least I won’t have to worry about those flaming washolets…For the gaijin Dopers, does the electronic water run whilst using these stalls?
PS: Prehensile Rectum: great band name. When I next see a doctor, I’m asking him about if he’s heard of that condition.
I’m told one of the chores that trainee sumo wrestlers have to do is to wipe the bottoms of their senior (and more obese) colleagues.
Think of that the next time you feel inclined to complain about your boss making you make him a cup of coffee.
If this is reccomended by the eminent Chinese doctor Goldstein, it must be the way to squat. 
I’ve shat in the woods more times than I can remember. The process is:
Carry small shovel and paper towels.
Find a fallen tree at a comfortable height.
Sit on it (avoiding any plants with 3 leaves or crawling things)
Do your business
Bury said business and towels with shovel.
Smokit the Bear will thank you.
(No, this has nothing to do with the OP.) 
I just realized the OP said he saw squat toilets in the Tokyo airport on his way to Thailand. I’ve had to change planes in Tokyo lots of times, and all I’ve ever seen are Western toilets. Is that Narita airport you’re talking about??
Not quite true. I picked it up after a few months, and as I said, it became quite an effecient manner of using the facility. I will not deny that I would have avoided a number of leg cramps at very embarrasing moments if I would have grown up doing “it” in that manner, still it is possible to make the adaptation.
That squat comes in handy when visiting with the locals, too. It is the preferred position of the old men and women when they are discussing things. If you can get down there an extended length of time people will talk to you.
You mean you can put your feet completely flat on the ground while squatting? If so, I’m impressed. Of course, I’m exceptionally tall, so that could be a hindrance, too, but I’m not sure I’ve seen a farang (Westerner) who can squat with soles completley touching the ground.
Part of it, I think, is that Asians have longer torsos and shorter legs compared to Europeans, and that might make the “Asian Squat” easier for them. Somebody more mechanically knowledgeable than me would need to analyze that theory, though. And now that I think about it, watch a Western toddler squat. They squat “Asian style”, with their feet flat on the ground. It’s only when they get bigger and their legs get longer that they switch to squatting on the balls of their feet. So maybe the length of the thigh bone relative to the torso has something to do with it.
I learned how to do it. You must have your heels and the balls of your feet flat on the ground. The trick is to bend your back forwards - pushing your titties/moobs onto your knees. It makes a huge difference, keeps your butthole away from your shoes, and allows for you to hook all your pants and so on forwards. Clean and hygienic.
It’s my preferred method of pooping, and if I had the money I’d install one in my house. Together with the water-and-hand method of wiping. Far fewer hemorroids in Asia!
It just never would work for me. I can squat, but not with my feet completely flat on the ground. My theory has always been my height, especially my long legs.
I’ve been in a nice, decent-sized village in Italy that had large, public bathrooms. Go in past the nice sinks with soap dispensers, the electric lighting, the clean tile, open the stall, and voila, a flush… hole in the ground with two grooved foot pads flanking it. Plus toilet paper, at least. Looked exactly like a modern, Western, multistall bathroom except there wasn’t actually a visible tank and seat. So yeah, some people do this even if they have the option not to.
This might work better for slimmer people, but this is how I managed quite nicely. For the pants thing (as a long-legged tall woman who can manage to squat with both feet fully on the ground) - stand over the hole with your feet in the foot-pad areas. Undo your pants and with one hand, grab the waistband of pants and underpants, and slide them down to right around your knees. With your thumb, reach back slightly and hook the back waistband of the pants. Cinch the cloth into your hand until you have encompassed the waistband and crotch area of pants into a tight bundle - this should tuck any extraneous material out of the way. Keep tucking up more cloth as needed. Squat down (the “Asian squat method” is the way to go - er, no pun intended) and double-check your positioning over the hole and the arrangement of your pants so that they don’t get in the way.
This is also the way for a woman to urinate/defecate in the woods while camping. I recommend finding a gentle slope and being sure you point downhill so that you don’t end up pooling it on your shoes. And obviously, be sure you’re not actually touching any plants which might spatter it back at you and/or be something with a contact toxin like poison ivy.