Day 27 - The China Challenge

originally written: Thursday, December 17, 2009

(Toilet Situation)

Today’s update is not for the faint of heart. Today I’m going to describe the university campus toilet situation. I’ve consulted with my students and they’ve assured me that this is the situation campus-wide (dorms included). Here we go.

Six weeks ago, I visited a campus toilet for the first time. I walked confidently, prepared with tissue (never provided in China) and knowing full well that it would be a squatter. I had no idea what I was in for. After entering the loo, I took a look around, froze and then bolted back to the classroom. I just stood and stared at Donna (my co-teacher at the time), not knowing how to express the horror I felt. “You’ve just seen the toilets then?” she asked with a big smile.

It’s very hard to describe in words (since you simply can’t imagine something like this even existing) so I’ve provided some photos in this email as points of reference, proof and a future “look what I did” bragging right. The campus ‘toilets’ consist of a trough that runs below 4 separated stalls. On one end of the trough, water is flushed every 20 minutes or so and on the other end, there is hole where waste exits during this flushing process. Each ‘stall’ is completely open, allowing for no privacy (door, curtain, anything). When you stand up in this stall, you can see over the separating wall, into the stall beside you. In order to do your business, you must squat over the trough (which is only flushed every so often, but sees a lot of traffic).

I feel sick even explaining it. However, when you teach four hours every morning and drink lots of tea to wake up, visiting the loo is inevitable. I’ve gotten quite accustomed to it, though I try my best to go while my class is doing seat work and I avoid break time. Why? Well, let’s just say you’ve never been completed humiliated until you’ve had a conversation with your students while using an open-squat-trough-toilet.