Toilets

Nearly all apartments and homes have western style “sitting toilets”. However, the pipes in China tend to struggle to handle toilet paper being flushed. Many people find after flushing toilet paper several times, the toilets become blocked. The solution is to do what Chinese people do, which is to have a small bin with a plastic bag lining it next to the toilet where they put used toilet paper into. Once the bin is full, you can just throw the bag with the used toilet paper into the trash. I would recommend have one of those small bins which has a pop up lid on it which is controlled by a foot lever.

Public Toilets are usually not “sitting toilets”; instead they are squatters. If you have never used a squatter before, then you may struggle at first. You want to make sure that if you are going to do number two and are wearing pants or shorts then you want to make sure you drop you pants and underwear to just below the knees. You must not let them drop to your ankles otherwise you may end up crapping and urinating straight into them.

Steps to use a squatter.

1. Undo your belt and fly

2. Pull your pants up so the lower bands of your pants around your ankles will not touch the dirty, wet ground around the squat toilet.

3. Simultaneously start to squat as you drop your pants and underwear to just above your knees.

4. Relax.

Note: If your balance is poor or flexibility highly limited, then you may need to use the walls on either side of you for support if there are any.

Public toilets usually don’t have toilet paper there, so you will need to keep little packets of tissue on you at all times when venturing out.