Tag Archives: western toilets

Toilets in China

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So many questions about bathroom facilities.   These are the little commodes and urinals at the the daycare connected to the high school in Suzhou.   I took a picture as I had never seen a tiny urinal…. It is unusual to see tiny toilets or any western toilets in China.

This is a basic  ladies rest room.  You squat facing the door, cause if some one opens the door you want them to see your face not your booty, so says Alice my friend.  You do not flush any paper products.  There is NO toilet paper in majority of bathrooms, so you bring your own.  The paper you carry comes in packages like this.  You carry a small pack of 10 little kleenex.  If you forget, you hope a friend has some.  Otherwise, well you can guess.  Personally I hold one over my nose when I squat, as the smells are usually horrendous!  A friend told me always lean forward or you might fall in.  I have heard some people have dropped their cell phones in there!  Good bye phone.  By the way this is a clean one at the school.

You will notice in my downstairs bathroom, it is tiled floor and walls with a drain in the floor.  Can be convenient if you have a water issue!  You see a white hose, that is the run out from my washer.  I also have a mop sink, very hygienic, don’t you think?  In my upstairs bathroom, above the commode or western lou I have a hot water heater for my shower.  Never flush the toilet and jump into the shower right after, the water will stop and you will be cold and wet for a few minutes until the water tank fills back up.  The water heater in my kitchen heats water for the kitchen and sink in the downstairs bathroom only.  No hot water for the washing machine.  This is the heater that ignites loudly when you turn the hot water on in the sinks.  It does get ever so hot.

High Rise Living

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Living in a Chinese high rise is a new experience for this Texan.  Looking out at dusk over the city as lites are popping on and fire crackers are exploding at a near by street I realize I am looking at something totally different than I ever saw from any of my past homes.  In celebration of my move I am having a French  Bordeaux wine in my  Confucius Temple mug while boiling some spiral pasta to have Pesto Pasta I purchased at the Carrefour store.   Plus some Spanish olives on the side.  A very internationally prepared  set of ingredients for this new to China cook.  It will be yummy.

My move has kept me cleaning for a couple days.  Meeting up with the landlady, I realized the place had not been cleaned, just painted and lights fixed.   I need it clean!  She had two maids come and  the washing machine man  fix my washer.  Seems everything needed repaired.  The maids got most of the dust, but the folks that lived before never cleaned anything.  So every nook and cranny needed attention.  I could not locate bleach, or any kind of American cleaners in the grocery store.  Sawyer said to use Mr. Muscle cleaner, which I found for every job you need.  It works!  There are no paper towels in Chinese stores, which makes it  interesting wiping grim away using cloth dish towels.  I have dusted and mopped the floors so they are sparkling.  You can walk around bare footed or wear Chinese house shoes that are at my front door.  Debbra Carrol is worried about my bathroom facilities having read about the trenches.  Deb- I have two western toilets, just like in the states!  I don’t have an oven to bake or dryer for clothes, seems that is not a necessity in China, something I will have to learn to live without.  Maybe I will buy a toaster oven, no major cooking of pies, cookies, artichoke dip, or lasagna. Darn!  There is a box like contraption on my kitchen wall that comes on with an exploding  sound of gas igniting when I turn on the hot water.  That is taking some getting use to.  I have three wall air conditioners, which don’t seem to have a filter system, or at least I don’t think so.  Air is pulled in from the outside along with the dust and I am finding a thin layer deposited daily on my floors.   No wonder Chinese don’t like these units.  Central AC/heat is the way to go.

My king size bed was an interesting find.  It had a blue mattress with an old mattress like pad on top and on top of that was a rattan mat.  I sat on it and no comfort did I feel.  I tossed the pad and rolled the rattan mat up and stored it.  Then I bought a brush to sweep the blue felt like mattress.  I thought I might be able to take the cover off and wash it, but not hardly.  When I started to unzip it I found this hard Brillo pad bed inside.  Impossible to remove the cover from a Brillo pad!  Off I went to the Suguo and bought a new mattress pad.  I found my American sheets I had brought from the states and made the bed.  I did buy another pillow.  My giant down comforter and soft pillow I brought from America topped off the bed.  My first night was not so comfortable, as the bed needs a few more of those mattress pads.  Jenny, my Math colleague said she would take me to Ikea to get more!  Yeah a shopping trip in a car.

My first morning I made scrambled eggs and coffee.  I can cook again.  Coming down almost thirty floors by elevator, I am thinking, wonder what happens when the electricity goes off.  This is a long minute or more ride.  I walk out onto a beautiful morning.  The air is fresh and blowing my hair.  Men are busy digging up something in the man holes right by the back door.  What in the world are they digging up, oh my it is raw sewage.  Then I get a sniff and realize they are bagging it into large flour sack bags.   What a job, not mine, thank God.  I am about to the point of running as I move past them and notice they have about a hundred bags of pooh next to the cement fenced wall.  I hope this not a daily job!  That evening when I came back all the bags were gone and there was no smell.  It has made me notice that there is many small excavations around town, wonder if this is a town wide plumping issue?  Oh well, I’m high enough I shouldn’t smell it, right?