Man Tasked With Preserving Japan’s Heritage Drives Into the Country’s Oldest Toilet

Whether it’s forgetting to flush the toilet or to wash your hands after a particularly pungent one, we’ve all had bathroom accidents of some kind. 

But one Japanese man’s mishap has done far more damage than merely violating hygiene standards. 

The 30-year-old, whose job is to conserve Japan’s cultural heritage, accidentally rammed his car into the country’s oldest toilet on Monday and broke down its wooden door in the process.

The bathroom is located in the 700-year-old Buddhist temple Tofukuji located in Kyoto prefecture, which is considered Japan’s cultural capital. 

According to local media reports, the employee was visiting the temple on a work-related trip. He was turning his car around in the temple’s parking lot, but forgot he was in reverse and pressed down on the accelerator, Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported.

Though no one was hurt, the extent of the damage was “stunning,” Toshio Ishikawa, director of the temple’s research institute, told Japanese newspaper Kyoto Shimbun. The temple aims to restore the bathroom before the prefecture’s autumn foliage lures crowds, but restoration will likely take until the new year.

The communal toilet—known as “Tousu” when found in Zen temples—was built between 1333 and 1392, according to the prefecture’s agency for cultural affairs. The bathroom was built for ascetic monks and houses 20 toilets lined up in two rows. 

The latrines are holes in the ground measuring about 30 centimeters deep. They used to contain glass containers for monks to defecate or urinate in—the toilets were separated based on use. 

The bathroom was built during what’s known as the Muromachi period of Japan, when the country witnessed significant cultural developments under the influence of Zen Buddhism like the Japanese arts of tea ceremony and flower arrangement. 

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