Here’s some more lavatory news for those who never get tired of reading about China’s strange bathroom culture.
The other day, a couple of university students came to my friend Damian’s apartment and handed him a written warning about putting toilet paper in the toilet. (Foreign teachers have Western-style toilets, as opposed to the squat version used by the Chinese.)
“All foreign teacher, we are sorry about the rules, but we have to remind you not to throw the toilet papers in the closestool. The design of closestool in China is different with foreign country, the power of water is not enough, so that the toilets papers will block the pipe. If you do that, it will take some troubles to you. Meanwhile, it is not easy when our workers clean the pipe. So please don’t do it, thank you very much.’’
Translation: Our lousy plumbing system can’t handle all this junk. So cut it out and throw your toilet paper in a trash can, just like the rest of us.
By the way, closestools are as outdated as China’s plumbing. Closetools were wooden stools or chairs with holes in the seat and a chamber pot underneath, a primitive device used before the invention of the flush toilet.
