Toilets

Forgive the crass topic. It is one that is essential, in more ways than one, on a China blog.

The toilets at the academy are, thankfully, western style toilets. Chinese plumbing still cannot tolerate toilet paper, however. Aside from that minor inconvenience, the facilities are quite satisfactory; once one gets used to the smell. I have made it a rule not to smell anything in China on purpose. The various scents and odors wafting on the wind or assaulting your nose like The Blitz are unavoidable. Let me explain: Often in the evenings, during training outside the lower training hall, a cloud of smoke from the trash pile being incinerated behind the academy will settle over the courtyard. More often than not, this cloud is colored by the distinct smell of burning plastic. Luckily smoke and the smell of burning trash are fairly easily tolerated, especially by someone who smoked for as long as I did. The most difficult to negotiate are the public restrooms. Walls and floors covered in urine, used toilet paper filling waste baskets or in small piles on the floor, cigarette butts and burns marring the walls of the pit toilets, and the general sense that the place has never been truly cleaned is rather overwhelming. There are some public restrooms that don't fit into this category but they are in establishments that can segregate their clientele. Even in nice places, the Black and Gold for instance, the smell of the bathrooms is immediately offensive to the western nostrils.

Once one gets used to the smell, using the bathroom in China presents other problems; those of flexibility and endurance. Pit toilets are, in fact, a hole in the floor. Sometimes, as in outdoor toilets, the pit simply runs outside the building, preferably onto a hill, but not necessarily. Nicer toilets do have full plumbing, if not the capacity for paper. One then places one's feet on either side of the hole and guesses at one's aim. Many newer toilets have places indicated for the feet, complete with little ridges for grip, to help with aim. Toilet paper is the responsibility of the user of the restroom so one must always carry a small roll in one's bags. Once in position you face the endurance trial of holding yourself, flat footed, in a full squat throughout the whole course of the deed. If this weren't enough, when it comes time to wipe, balance is called into play as you try to keep your clothes and bags from falling to the dirty floor as you clean yourself up. Once done, however, one feels a certain satisfaction at having successfully negotiated this imperative transaction.