I've tried to describe the toilets here, but I don't think I've done them proper justice. I found an article online where a writer decribes her adventures in China and it would be impossible to leave out a trip to the loo. Here's what she said:
"There's a reason to go to the gym every other day and suffer through deep squats with a weighted barbell on your shoulders, and that reason is a public bathroom in a Chinese bus station. I don't mind "squatties" when they're not gag-a-maggot filthy. This one's a tiled trough, no door, with a trickle of water and 10 years' waste running below."
For the complete article, check out this link: http://www.slate.com/id/2153586/entry/2153587/?GT1=8805
Not all toilets are as awful as the ones described above, but very few of them are a pleasant experience. I took a picture of a typical "toilet" at what I guess would be a hardware store. Imagine going into a restaurant washroom and looking down at this thing. Not all places have separate bathrooms for men and women. Few have toilet paper or soap. Actually, there are places that don't even have this "toilet" in the washroom. I was in the unfortunate position of having to use a washroom that was entirely cement...the stalls were divided by a cement wall maybe a foot and a half high. The "toilet" part was something I am not sure how to describe. I would have taken a picture, but I figured the quicker I could get out of there, the quicker I could come home and shower.
I feel sorry for the ladies who wear high heels and nice dresses or skirts and have to squat. But then again, when I walk down the street, so many people are in the squatting position - as if it is the most comfortable way to sit.
At school, you can smell the bathrooms before you see them. No joke.
I really don't understand how so much emphasis is put onto clean food, clean hands, etc when the washrooms are drowning in the aroma of an outhouse and the floors have a variety of streams running in different directions.
It's a big crazy world.
P.S. New photos posted in the My Apartment album.
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