My report on China so far came into the world as a "Guangzhou/Kunming/Guilin Edition" of a serial guidebook called "Takarajima Super Guide Asia" that has once gotten ardent support among some enthusiastic fans. A popular topic in that book was the toilet condition in China. Generally speaking, it's the toilet that people--especially women--bother about more than anything else when they travel abroad.

Since Japanese travelers are making their appearances in every corner of the world nowadays, I assume that many of them have a variety of brave toilet-related experiences such as washing themselves with water by using their hands as in Islamic bloc where there is no paper but a bowl and a hose provided in a toilet, clearing up themselves with leaves, or having a pig lick them clean (Is that for real?) But I believe that most of them are still tied to the common sense of Japan. As also for myself, regarding food, I'd eat even at a stall where its sanitary conditions are highly doubtful out of curiosity, but I just can't stand a dirty toilet and bathroom.

Now, here is how it was in China.

When walking in an unfamiliar town and looking for a restroom, you are most likely to find one at a department store. For Guangzhou is the biggest city in Huanan, there is a gorgeous six-storied department store. But, guess how many restrooms there were in that building? Surprisingly, there were only two! It's not that there were several restrooms at two spots, but there were literally two toilets in the whole building. Can you believe that? As a matter of course, there was a long line.

The line was so indescribably long that I decided to go and look for another restroom on other floors at first, but since I couldn't find one at anywhere else, I had no choice but to stand in the end of the line. What is more, when I opened a door of the restroom, there were two steps to go up and a toilet seat was placed at that level. And, because the door wasn't any higher than its ordinal height, as a logical result, the upper part of my body above shoulders was showing over the door. So, when looking side, I saw a person in the other restroom struggling as pulling her underwear down, and when turning my head round, I found all eyes of the people in the line behind me fixed on me. All the while from when I pulled down my underwear to the end, I had the people staring at me, you know. I still cannot understand the point in making a restroom in such structure.

However, things like this is just a matter of sense of embarrassment, and so no local people seemed to care a bit about it. They were standing in the line with absolutely blank expressions on their faces.

Talking of an embarrassment, many people in Japan flush the toilet while relieving themselves in order to drawn out the sound, but if you do that in China, you'd be having a hard time. Because of the poor flushing condition, once you flush the toilet, it'd require a terribly long time to fill up the tank for the next flush. Then, you'd have to make ultimate choice either to endure having your legs going numb by keeping squatting down or to bravely receive everyone's eyes by standing up. I instantly gave up flushing the toilet twice in China.

To make the matter worse, though if you give up flushing to drown out the sound and go for a careful single flush, it wouldn't flush clean sometimes. It's because of the small volume of water and the poor structure of toilet. It's for such case that a bucket with water and a ladle are often prepared right out of the restroom.

It was a restaurant in a flourishing street where travelers often come. Though the restaurant itself was gorgeous, there were only two restrooms as I've expected. So, there was a long line in front of the door. There, I happened to leave a magnificent thing in the toilet bowl in spite of myself. It didn't get washed down. In that moment, I got into a panic. I broke out in sweat. But still, it was just hopeless. Finally, making up my mind, I opened up the door and expressed with my eyes "I'm sorry, I couldn't flush it" to the next person as having an extremely miserable look on my face.

But then, that person (She was a beautiful young lady) ladled water out of the bucket in the corner and flushed down the toilet impassively without even changing her expression. Finally, the toilet bowl was reset uneventfully.

It seemed like such incident was nothing out of the ordinary. Nobody among the large group of people standing in the line behind exchanged glances and suppressed laughter or whispered something into other's ear stealthily. I was the only one blushing deeply with embarrassment, but I suppose that they had no such sense of embarrassment.

To begin with, some restrooms in China had even no door.

On the way to Shilin, which is known for its beautiful scenery, in the suburbs of Kunming, I saw a toilet that was no better than just a hole dug on the ground with a partition wall few ten centimeters high, not to mention that there was no door. You can mange to go lower than the wall so that you don't see the person next to you by squatting down, but still, you are completely visible from front as well as from top. That was how the condition really was. Since it was a place to take a toilet break on the way to a sightseeing spot, most people using the toilets were foreigners. So, everybody tried to look away from each other considerately and somehow managed to get over the situation.

I've thought that it was an extreme case, but as I visited the Great Wall of China few years later, even at such a super famous sightseeing spot, there was a restroom with no door.

It was a Western-style flush toilet that appeared to be a normal toilet, but there was no door for some reason. At that time, I was with a few other Japanese women, so we closed up the entrance door to the ladies' room behind us and took turns in using the toilets. Because I have been experiencing something heavier than this, I thought that if we all use them all together at the same time as there were four or five rooms, it would be just fine, but it seemed to be unbearable for them. I wonder why Chinese don't make restrooms with doors.

In passing, I just remembered that at Ephesus ruins in Turkey, there already was a flush toilet as many as two thousands years ago. It was a Western-style toilet, which had been made by hollowing out a stone, and there was a ditch underneath for water to run. I sat on it and had a picture taken when I visited there. But I really feel that a toilet is actually a subject with quite deep meanings that inquires into cultures.

Well, something like this has been spoken by Mr. Hideo Nishida, a professor emeritus of Keio University (He was still teaching when I was a student, and I've attended his lecture once or twice and earned credits as well.) I heard that he is currently serving also as the president of the Japan Toilet Society (There really are a great variety of societies.) Talking of him who is famous for his collection of toilet papers from all over the world, I just remembered that the toilet papers in China were gaudy pink in every city I went. I wonder why they've chosen that color (Is it a good luck color or something?) I'm curious to find out the reason for that.

Translated by Maiko Noda