The Japanese style toilets have a little button, there's 2 versions. The first uses the water pressure to function, so when you press it, the water causes it to come out and spray, these don't have any control, it's dictated by your taps water pressure.
The other is the fancy eletric ones that can go from very basic, to multi adjustment, temperature, self-cleaning, etc.
When I first saw these in Asia I thought they were absolutely stupid and pointless.
But one night I got food poisoning and ended up on the toilet, a bit messy, and i used the bidet to clean myself and...
Ok when I got gastro living in australia, I went to the toilet so many times i made my bum raw with toilet paper that it hurt.
After having food poisoning in Asia and cleaning with the Bidet then just drying off, even tho I went to the toilet many times, I didn't get a sore butt. This convinced me that they are awesome, and I've used ever since.
Oddly enough, by my second trip, that same bathroom(I assume, but can't be positive) had at least 2 functional western toilets, bidets and all. First time using one of those, and not what I'd describe as pleasant, but story for another time :).
On another note... in my wife's country many people actually do use western toilets as squatting toilets. People typically have just a typical western bowl, with no tank or seat.