Bathroom drama

I overheard this story in a bathroom at the summer party a couple days ago:

 

“So my friend and I are waiting in line at our center’s bathroom.  There are three stalls, right?  The one on the far end opens up, my friend goes in.  I wait a few minutes, and then my friend comes out.  I go in and do my business.  I come out.  Neither of the other doors have opened or closed this whole time, but suddenly my friend says she can hear music coming out of one of the stalls.  It’s very faint, but we listen and can hear it—soap opera music!  The two ladies who are supposed to be cleaning the bathroom are hiding in the stalls watching Chinese soap operas on their smart phones!”

 

I had to laugh at this, because it’s a weekly occurrence at my center, too, and probably is common everywhere in China. 

 

When my family lived in Qinghai Province in the late 1980s, my mom often mused that people spent an extra long time in the bathroom simply to get some privacy.  Listening to my students even now, I’m sure it’s true:  many of them are in their late 20s or early 30s, married, and still living with a set of parents.  In a country of a billion people, privacy is not a common luxury.

 

Being an American, I find this all highly disturbing. 

 

The bathrooms themselves are pretty disturbing, too. 

 

DISCLAIMER:  If you are squeamish about bathroom stuff, do not read any further!

 

The toilet seats in the ladies room are, 98% of the time, un-sittable, if that’s even a word.  When you’re in a culture that still has “squatty potties” most places, people will still squat, even over a seat, sprinkling it with urine or whatever else.  Sorry, but it’s true!  It’s very common, also, to see footprints on the toilet seat—that instinct to squat is still prevalent, even if it means you’re squatting a couple of feet off the ground, balanced precariously. 

 

Toilet paper is not thrown into the toilet (plumbing is not something the Chinese are known for), but is tossed into a small plastic garbage bin on the floor next to each toilet.  Toilet paper has just become available in the bathrooms, by the way:  there is one dispenser near the door to the bathroom.  You pull off what you need and take it with you into the stall.  Each stall does have an ashtray, though, so you’re covered there.  But one cannot count on the dispenser being full at all times, so it’s still best to take your own with you from the office to the bathroom.  Yup, students and coworkers all know where you’re going and what you’re going to do when you get there, unless you have deep pockets.

 

When the cleaner ladies aren’t busy watching soap operas on their smart phones (occupying stalls while a line grows outside on the busy first and second floors), they are plucking used toilet paper and unwrapped sanitary napkins out of the trash with old black tongs.  These tongs look like something you’d use to move logs around in a fireplace, or to flip brats on a grill.  This trash goes into a larger garbage bag, to be disposed of later.

 

They also mop daily, sometimes more often, although that mop will also be slopped up onto the sinks after it’s used to clean the floors around the toilets and urinals (this is coming firsthand from one of my male coworkers, who tried to explain cross-contamination to the lady in Chinese—she didn’t get it, even when a Chinese man translated).

 

China is impossible to dislike for long, though, it really is!  Yesterday after washing my hands, one of the cleaner ladies pulled out a long roll of toilet paper from the dispenser for me, holding it out with a so I could dry my hands.  The sweetness in her smile made it hard for me to be angry at her for watching soaps on her phone.  After all, if I cleaned stinky, disgusting bathrooms all day long for a living, I’m not sure I’d be able to smile at anyone.  But she can.