Public washrooms in China...

A Cautionary Tale

One of the funny things, or highly bizarre and unusual in a very disquieting sense, about China of course has to be the state of public washrooms, in the women's’ washrooms, at least those in which there might be western style toilets, one might see a little warning sign above the toilet that looks something like a no smoking sign, the difference is the warning sign shows a picture of a toilet with an image of a woman squatting on it, and over all of that exquisite imagery is a red circle with a thick red line through it indicating-do not squat on a western toilet.

Never the less women of the non-squatting persuasion will still find footprints on the toilet seat where Chinese women have ignored the warning and gone about their habitual squatting ways.  They find that having contact with a toilet seat is not hygienic. Leaving footprints on the seat for the next woman does show some sort of disdain for the greater good, womanhood in general and hygiene in particular.

Meanwhile in the mens’ washrooms, where few men wash, as there is rarely any soap, there are often pools of pee on the floor beneath the urinals.  Here the warning signs often ask men to step forward one more step (one small step for mankind...) with the supposed objective of increasing aim and accuracy for low pressure users and thereby avoiding spillage and the formation of urinary pools on public washroom floors.  In both cases, male or female, the washrooms come with a cautionary tale.