One such thing happened this morning at the local grocery store. On arriving at one of the big supermarkets Carrefour, (which is like the Chinese version of Walmart/Asda), I was in desperate need of the restroom (toilet). Anyone that has traveled through China knows all about the squatty potties and you can rest assured that public restrooms in the grocery store are in a league of their own.
This is an example - but note that it is extremely clean and fresh looking. The ones in use around China do not look like this normally.
Anyway, being kinda desperate I headed straight for the bathroom. I was disheartened to see that I was 4th in line waiting, behind two middle aged Chinese ladies and a young twenty-something girl. Oh man! But wait… I see an open stall, with a western style toilet, why are they not using that one? Okay, maybe there is something wrong with it (eeeww! - it’s best not to get too close sometimes). So I continue to wait (after all I am British and we are known for our love of waiting in lines). A minute or two passes and then yay, someone flushes a toilet and a thirty-something exits yet another western style stall. But the ladies in front of me don’t move a muscle. What? Do they need to go? What are they waiting for? Come on, I need to pee! So I wait the polite 10 seconds and then push my way past them to the now open stall. No one bats an eyelid. I do what I need to and I exit, only to find a line of maybe 5 Chinese women waiting, including the original 3. The other western toilet is still free with the door wide open, but no, the 5 ladies are waiting for the squatty potty. How bizarre? They would rather wait in line longer than use a regular, western style toilet. I couldn’t believe it. As I washed my hands in the freezing cold water (there is never any hot), 2 ladies came out of the other stalls and 2 new ladies went in. So I was right, they really did need to go, but would not use the ‘normal’ toilet. Only in China would this happen. I had to call Richard to tell him the news. He seems to think this is perfectly understandable since probably the Chinese are more comfortable using the squatty and probably think we are strange, and unhygienic for actually coming in contact with the toilet seat. I still think it is bizarre, but as Rich says we wait in line for the western toilet, so why wouldn’t the Chinese wait for the Chinese toilet? He is so darn reasonable sometimes. I am sure he does it to annoy me ;-)
3 comments:
Kim, I nearly fell off the couch laughing at this!
i have no trouble believing this at all. We are used to what we are used to. And, Kim, we are used to Western style toilets.
It kind of makes sense. When we were in China we preferred Western toilets too, instead of trying the squatty potties. How difficult it must be for them to come to the States, were squatty potties porbably do not even exist!
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