Great Public Sympathy: Venus of a Bathroom

music · 201101

This is a writing by co-reviewer, Mei Kanata：In 2010, a song with strange title became a hit. That was ‘Venus of a Bathroom’. The story in its lyric goes as follows.

Venus of a Bathroom

I had lived with my grandma since I was in the third grades.One day, she said to me “there is a beautiful Venus in a bathroom. So, you would be beautiful if you clean the bathroom every day”. Since then, I started to clean the bathroom everyday while dreaming of being a beautiful bride in the future.

When I grew up, I always had conflicts with my grandma. I spent time with my boyfriend and didn’t go home at times. Finally, I moved out from my home, leaving my grandma.Two years after that, my grandma got sick and stayed in the hospital. I visited my grandma, who had been already emaciated.

“I’m home!” I said as I used to do in my childhood on purpose. But she said ‘Go away’. Then, she passed away in the morning of the following day as if she had been waiting for me.

Today, I am still carrying on cleaning bathroom everyday with being filled by gratitude for my grandma.

Kana Uemura

This song by Kana Yuemura, 28-aged singer-songwriter from Hyogo, caught great public sympathy. Many people reminded of days they spend with their grandma. Also, many women recalled the legend of Venus in the bathroom told by her grandmother or mother.

My mother also told me a similar legend. “A girl who is willing to clean bathrooms has beautiful heart and thus grows up to be a beautiful woman”, she said. For my case, cleaning of the stairs in my house was the daily assignment given by my parents. So, I had cleaned stairs every　day since I was in the third grade. The lyric of “Venus of a bathroom” reminded me of a lesson that I was taught through this assignment. My parents always told me “whenever and wherever you clean, do it wholeheartedly while thinking about how users feel. If you clean wholeheartedly, users can see it and feel happy even though you don’t tell them your effort”. I think that my parents intended to encourage me to be a compassionate and warm hearted person who can take care of others.

I think that the legend of Venus in the bathroom is derived from grandparents or parents’ wishes for their granddaughters and daughters to grow up to be kind persons loved by everybody. That is why this song reminded many people of affections by their parents or grandparents and make them filled with warm feelings.

I am Noboru Shimizu. Reading Kanata-san's great review, I really wanted to help to see this song with English subtitle. I found it. This is not Kana Yuemura, but she is also good and we can see whole lyrics in English from below.

#3
Mei Kanata (土曜日, 29 1月 2011 09:58)

Thank you for your comments, Kanko-san and Shimizu-san.

It was my first time to know another saying "If you clean a bathroom during your pregnancy, your baby will be beautiful".

Also, it is good to know Yellow Hat's training for cleaning. I have sympathy with Yellow Hat's philosophy that cleaning polish your mind.

Recently, I have neglected cleaning and depended on Roomba (cleaning robot) and also my husband. But I changed my mind to do cleaning by myself time to time.
#2
o-sha-re-japan (土曜日, 29 1月 2011 07:47)

Thank you for your amazing comment, Kanko-san. I got a heart-warm feeling from yellow-hat website, especially an essay of a five grade student of elementary school. My last daughter is now same grade but she has never cleaned a toilet in my house. I will let her read it. In any case, thank you for a precise information.
#1
kanko (金曜日, 28 1月 2011 11:53)

Clean the toilet, everyone might want to do one job. I was born a beauty and a grandma to clean the toilet too! Such as is said, to clean the toilet every day during pregnancy.(^_^;) (Maybe that's born beautiful?)

I clean the toilet training of the famous yellow hat. Mind is that there is a toilet.
http://www.kumagai.com/?eid=17
As well as toilet, it can lead to the dislikes of people, I would not that be great?

English subtitles YOU TUBE, Thank you very much. It was fun in plain English.

With the help of the translation functions, there are places I'm sorry I wrote wrong