China Washrooms - A Cultural Experience

One thing I find that not a lot of people know about are the major style differences between Western and Asian washrooms.

I'll start off with the essentials - the squatter toilet as seen here (image credit:http://www.relfe.com/toilet_ seat_constipation. html). That link also has a lot of information on how these toilets are healthier for you! Supposedly, they even reduce the risk of colon cancer, but I'll leave the physics of this to the article.

I prefer these toilets to the western style ones as I find them to be far more hygenic for obvious reasons, only your shoes are touching any washroom surface, nothing else! The ones I've come across in China have all been very clean (With the exception of one in a shady restaurant my colleague took me too, but that was a no brainer anyway) contrary to many rumors circulated (not by the media of course because washrooms are not big news). In public washrooms, you must bring your own toilet paper which you don't flush for some reason but drop in a bin next to the toilet. I still haven't figured out why you aren't supposed to flush it. Some toilets you supposedly flush yourself with a water bucket but all of the ones i've come across have an auto flush. That being said, western toilets do exist in hotels (my room has one) and in workplaces too for some variety I guess (my office has one two). Note, most asian western toilets have dual flush for water conservation. The dual flush feature is standard in Asia unlike in North America where politicians still don't take action on getting this feature standardized. That's it for potty talk for now though.

A very smart idea I've seen in China is having a shared sink and a mirror between the male and female washrooms. This saves constructing two sets of everything for both washrooms which is a pretty smart idea I think. The only downside is a lack of privacy if you want to put on makeup, wash your hands and etc. Since privacy isn't a huge concern for Chinese (myself included) this doesn't seem to be a problem as you can look at yourself all you want in the public mirror as long as you don't get too self conscious. Also, this sink is past the washroom doors so your hands are are cleaner when you leave the washroom. This is different from western washrooms where of course you wash your hands in your male/female section then get them dirty again by opening that pesky washroom door. Here, you open up the door before you wash your hands!