Common Talk Weeklyshuang yu zhou kan
issue date

Culture Clash
January 7, 2004
By Kako (Japanese)
Picture by Zhu Lijun

Bu-hao-yi-si for my direct title, but the first thing to come to my mind when I hear the word, “culture shock” is the Chinese toilet. I don’t care that people spit on the road, cut in a line, talk on the cell phone loudly in public so much, but I do care about the TOILET!

It seems that it’s natural for Chinese people to bring their own paper to the restroom. However, for me, a Japanese who is accustomed to restrooms with paper, it was a little troublesome, at first. I also felt inconvenient when I couldn’t find a hook to hang up my bag on in the bathroom cubicle. If it was only an inconvenience, I could bare it, but restrooms in China have given me a lot of shocks, too. I was really startled when water overflowed from the bowl as I pushed the flush button. On the other hand, I found myself in trouble so many times being unable to work the flush button. More than once, I felt knocked down when I saw a lady doing her thing with the door wide open! These were too much for me, so I don’t even feel like mentioning cleanliness, seat covers, and so on.

There has been great progress made in many fields at an amazingly high speed in China. I expect that the toilet situation and the traffic rules and manners in China will also catch up with the international standard very soon.