Ah yes, the JApanese honey buckets. The aroma would permeat the post war countryside. I was a chilfd there in 1955. They had these deep and about 10x10 as I remember (ha, memories at 4 years old) pits for waste, including human. It was a sudge for creating wondeful fertiizer.
Momma and her friend got a flat tire and were pulled off the road in that '54 black and red Buick. Momma and her friend were terrified. Two Japanese men politely were helping them out (not raping and beating, or kidnapping them as feared). I was with a little girl, the friends daughter in the back seat.
During the tire change, she wandered off disobeying. She fell in. She was stripped on het side of the road wiped down and wrapped in scratchy green military blankets. I had to sit in back with her and her bouquet. We were afraid that she could pick up a disease, and I was to stay away from her. She was afraid that she was going to die from the poisons.
I do remember thinking how humiliating being made naked on the side of the road, etc. must have been for her and she was in some "deep sh***t" trouble. She HAD to go naked!! I saw her naked!! The crap that they deposit in children's minds.
What a way to go, drowning in a sh**t hole.
Anyway, The Japanese certainly do have some fermented ancient science, from foods and kombucha and alcohol drinks to fertilizer methods. We were told growing up that the human factor in the fertilizer is what caused diarrhea and disentary, Montezuma's revenge. Don't eat the vegetables. Inferior methods get you sick and that modern chemical fertilizers eliminate such dangers. Corporate propaganda, most likely, way back then.
Yea, Bob, when I was in the Bolivian mountains in the "70's. I was told of a parasite that would get into bare feet and then grow in the system to over six inches. Strange things in teh jungles, don't know if it was a human activity problem, or not.
Jbee