fcheblog: Frank Ch. Eigler's insignificant weblog² »

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Bah, this is nothing. The picture on that linked page is actually a very modern porcelain bowl! Many toilets are actual hole in dirt or concrete. Because there’s no lid on these things, and not all toilets flush (by design), the smell is the first thing you have to bear with from the moment you are in the proximity to a toilet. The author omitted the awful smell and the $$$ part. Most toilets cost money to use! In my youth, I had many nightmares of falling backwards into the big hole (The non-flushing kind). Imagine trying to go at night where there is no light, you go with a flashlight or candle and prey you don’t mis-step. I have built up stamina to never go at night! Also, not all toilets have stall doors, also by design. So, get used to doing business with people watching and waiting. I wonder if any chinese read while using toilet….
Li - 2006-04-25 18:03

Before I throw up, let me just say, there are a lot of fly larva living in the toilets, especially the non-flushing kind. You can watch them swarm near you as you do your thing. I’m going to barf now.
Li - 2006-04-25 18:09

Those who are not living stuck in a timeloop will recognize that people, despite differing views and lifestyles, do ultimately choose to progress using whatever resources they have, however limited. As one step in the many the Chinese have taken to make their country welcoming to the world, these toilets and conditions of hygiene as described above are now rare even in the more developed villages in China. True, toilets are still mostly squat styled but they are cleaner, built on the sewer system as we have in Canada, covered, safe and flushable. Farming houses now all have porcelain flushable toilet bowls and multiple bathrooms in the same household. Outdoor candlelit adventures are no longer necessary. In fact, one farming family in the village told me they built their new bathroom using squat styled bowls because they did NOT like the sit down style we have. Such sit-down styles are available for purchase by choice, however.

Public washrooms still mostly cost $ to use, anywhere from 10 cents RMB (Chinese currency) to 50 cents RMB (less than 2-7 cents Cdn). The $ goes towards hiring a maintenance personnel to staff the washroom, sell toilet paper to those who need it, and of course, clean it regularly. It isn’t necessarily a bad policy in the most populous country in the world, considering everyone needs a job and a source of income. Some washrooms in public parks and tourist areas are now free.

Stalls now have doors in major cities. Smaller places still do not have stall doors but then again, personal space and privacy have always been less of an issue for the Chinese. As you walk down the street, it is common to spot men hanging onto each other or women walking holding hands. It is a sign of friendliness and closeness for someone you know to sit right next to you and hold you by the arm. The old lady sitting on a stool by the corner of her house gets asked for directions a dozen times daily. About two weeks ago, my companions and I walked right into this house with its doors open, uninvited, unannounced, and not knowing who the owners were, just because my companions wanted to show me the look of the inside of the house. It is simply a society where people are not as worried about intrusion (except the criminal kind).

As someone who recently toured China from the grand 4 star hotels in Beijing to the dirt village in Shanxi to the farming villages in Sichuan, I feel it is important to focus on the present, rather than the past. The Chinese people are making an effort at bringing forth change and building a better future, as is also the Canadian and global goal. Do not hurry to judge until you know the facts.
Feng - 2006-04-30 12:16

> About two weeks ago, my companions and I walked right into this house with its
> doors open, uninvited, unannounced, and not knowing who the owners were, just
> because my companions wanted to show me the look of the inside of the house.
> It is simply a society where people are not as worried about intrusion
> (except the criminal kind).

A different world. I wonder though how criminal intrusion will be detected,
if strangers may legitimately come in uninvited. Is it considered rude to
lock the door? to snack from a stranger’s fridge while visiting? Is this
a throwback to maoist “this is not your property, it’s the people’s property”
kind of thing, or something more pastoral?
Frank - 2006-04-30 15:26

It would be more pastoral if I had to make a choice of the options. Many factors come to mind: being poor and having nothing of value to lose; being traditionally rooted in one area for generations at a time so you grow to know all your neighbours and hardly any real “strangers” would show up at your door; a sense of trust and faith not yet lost; cultural teachings of being welcoming to your visitors and strangers-in-need; environmental factors such as a lack of air conditioning or heating technology meant it was unnecessary to keep windows and doors closed during the day, in fact keeping them open made the house cooler; a lack of telephones meant people always drop by unannounced; a lack of doorbells meant if people came by you might not hear them knock; a tradition of keeping doors open meant if you kept yours closed, your visitors actually think you are not home and will just leave without knocking; and if all your neighbours kept their doors open, you tend to follow the same or you might be seen with a suspicious eye as if you are hiding something.

To clarify, it is common (though getting much less so in the developed cities where people are getting wealthy and crime rates are rising) for families to leave their doors open while at home, during the day. It does not mean people can walk in and do whatever they want. The polite thing is to walk in and yell out the owner’s name(s) at the same time so they would come out to greet you. If you are a stranger asking directions for example, you yell out “anybody home?” If you are a tourist like me just poking your head inside to look, you say nothing, touch nothing and quietly leave. If the owners see you step in and just leave, they usually ignore you, thinking you either got the wrong door or just wanted to look – which gets back to my original point of they don’t care much if you seek to do no harm. Anything criminal however, such as you actually taking their possessions out the door, will probably be met with a chase, calling neighbours for help and you being beaten up then taken to the police.
Feng - 2006-05-01 13:05