Sometimes You Pee on Your Foot: C'est La Vie

So probably one of the things that most people find the most intriguing (and horrifying) about my trip to China is the whole toilet situation. Now some of you might be thinking: "ew, is she really going to do a post about toilets?"  But trust me, there is a very good reason for this post on potties, beyond answering questions from the excretingly curious.

But first, the Squat Toilet.  The Squattie Pottie.  The Porcelain Spelunker.  Okay, I made that last one up, but squat toilets are the toilet du'jour in China when you are using a public restroom (in people's private residences, or really expensive/touristy establishments, you will find western style toilets.  There is a mall in Shanghai with the most gorgeous bathrooms I have ever seen).  So what is a squat toilet?   I want you to imagine your normal porcelain throne, except someone took it and sank it all the way into the ground so that the seat part is level with the ground.  Instead of sitting on this contraption, you hover, or squat, over it.  I know what you are thinking:  "What if you miss?  Where do your pants go and how do you wind up not peeing on them?  That can't possibly be clean?!"  I know this is what you are thinking because my discussion of squat toilets always seems to lead to these alarming questions and ensuing confusion.

My Cousin Alec, during a Skype call, trying to follow my voice instructions on how to squat over a toilet...he's doing it right. 

So let me answer those questions.  You will miss sometimes.  You will pee on your foot.  If you are having a digestive bad day, you might splatter your last meal all around the edges of that toilet.  However, after the first few tries, you get the hang of it, and on normal digestive days, you would have to try pretty hard to miss that toilet. You are not going to pee on your pants, just trust me on this; the physics of it works out.  And no, these toilets are most frequently not clean.

The pictures to the right and left are from my shots of the restrooms in Wumart, the grocery store.  The one in the center is taken from the internet and the site can be found here, but it is identical to some public toilets I've used. 

Here is why they are not clean.  Again, these are the toilets found in public restrooms, because the Chinese believe it is really gross to stick your butt onto a surface that another unknown butt has been in contact with; a valid point, when you think about it.  So they use these squat toilets in public.  The Chinese public is currently at 1.7 billion people--the city I lived in had 10 million people in it.  That is 10 million people in and out of these public restrooms everyday.  This means that it is pretty hard for a custodian to do more than run a wet (not necessary soapy) mop through there every couple of hours.  Also, toilet paper is not provided for you in China, you must bring your own little packet of tissues--NEVER LEAVE HOME WITHOUT THEM!.  During certain months of the year, it is not good to flush  your toilet paper down the toilet due to poor septic conditions.  Therefore, peoples shit-stained tissues are in garbage cans in each stall, and these cans occasionally overflow with use, giving the place a really unpleasant smell (in addition to the smell coming from the sewers during these poor septic conditions).  Soap is also not typically provided in public restrooms in China unless you are in a very nice location or a tourist spot.  So, as you can imagine, what might sometimes be an uncomfortable unsanitary experience in America (you know, if you pull into a gas station in the middle of nowhere) becomes a part of your everyday bathroom experience in China.

The left would be an example of a digestive emergency that didn't make it to the bathroom (it's actually behind a building on the great wall).  The right would be a typical squat toilet. 

Another reason that these toilets are off-putting for westerners is that the restrooms they are in do not always resemble a 'normal' restroom appearance.  Oh sure, most of them do; you go in, sinks line one wall, and stalls line the other wall.  Each stall has one toilet inside, a door that latches, and a door that goes all the way to the bottom, so people do not see you squatting there.  But this is not a 100% guarantee.  No, some of the public restrooms, especially at rest stops when you are traveling in the country, look like this:  Half walls, no doors, in a big open room.  You are literally trying not to make eye contact with the person across from you, or trying not to mind that the person next to you just stood up, and since there are only half walls, has a nice aerial view of you in all your squatting glory.  I have only used bathrooms such as these twice in my stay in China, and it was near the end, when I would (and still can) go to the bathroom anywhere.  I don't know what I would have done had I encountered these early in my time in China.

This was taken from the internet.  The one I used was not in this bad of shape, and was cleaner, but its the same basic idea; half walls and no doors. 

Speaking of my arrival in China, you can imagine how much of a shock these bathrooms were to me.  I wish I could also find someway to put the smell coming out of many of the public restrooms in this post.  When I arrived, I hated everything about these bathrooms; I hated squatting, I hated that I had to bring my own toilet tissue, I hated that there was no soap (my mother eventually sent me the largest bottle of germ-x you can buy), I hated the smell.  I just hated them.  You might not need to know this, but I have a very small bladder; liquids literally run right through me, so I pee all the time.  Well, I came up with a pretty good plan to limit, if not erase, my need of public restrooms.  I decided that I would pee right before I left in the morning, in my apartment, around 6:45 am.  I would then not drink anything all day at school (where the public toilets were squat toilets) and then wait until I got back home at about 6:30 pm to pee again.  That is 12 hours of not drinking and not peeing, five days a week, in 80 degree weather with lots of nice humidity.  I think you know where this is going.

You know, because you don't want to do it wrong.  Image taken from this site.

I was at lunch one Sunday afternoon with Dave, when I got the weirdest pain in my right side of my back.  It started out kind of dull, and I thought maybe it was a cramp of some kind.  After contorting and shifting around in my chair, trying to stretch, we decided to walk it off on the way back to our apartments.  I barely made it to my bathroom in my apartment before I started revisiting that lunch I just ate all over the place.  Dave insisted we go to the hospital.  By the time we got me (and Dave, Justine, Eva, and Liv) to the hospital--maybe 30 minutes?--I was in the worst pain of my life.  I could not get that pain in my back to go away no matter what I did, how I sat, laid down, curled into a ball, etc.  And I was throwing up at regular 20 minute intervals.  I was throwing up into squat toilets--karma; I didn't want to pee in them, so instead I get to stick my face in them.  There was no soap in the hospital bathrooms either.

Once we were at the hospital emergency room, Dave, Justine, and Eva were trying to explain what was wrong with me in a mix of Chinese and English.  They sent us to a bone doctor, they sent us to neurology, and when we finally got back to the emergency room where we started, I was pretty much in agony.  We finally saw one of the emergency room doctors, and by this time, someone from the school I worked for had arrived to help with the translations.  They asked me about six times if I was menstruating because there was blood in my urine.  I assured them I was not, and they decided I was massively dehydrated and rocking a kidney infection, with possible stones.  They gave me a shot in the butt (after I paid for the shot--you have to pay for each procedure before they do it) for the pain, wrote me a script for IV fluids and antibiotics and sent me up to the IV Bar.

To the left is my super nice splint that they made me after the I blew my IV site, seen in the picture on the right.  In the center is the sign for the IV Bar: The Bar of Venous Infusion 1. 

Yes, the IV Bar is exactly how it sounds.  It is a counter with a bunch of nurses on one side.  You hand them your script, they change gloves, swab your hand, insert a needle and hook you up to your meds.  They give the IV bag to a friend of yours and the friend drags you over to a chair.  Above all the chairs are hooks for all the IV bags; you are in a giant room with people receiving various medications via IV.  We eventually paid a whole 2 dollars for a bed in a smaller room, which is where I remained while they continued with the IV stuff and waited until my bladder was sufficiently full to do an ultrasound of my kidneys.  We hung out for several hours, eating, drinking, and waiting.  By this time the shot had worked, and I felt no pain.  They did an ultrasound and found kidney crystals.  They sent me home that night and told me to come back tomorrow when the pharmacy was open for antibiotics and pain killers.

To the left and center are shots of the IV Corral and to the right is me in my bed.  There was about 15 other people in there in various states of life and health. 

You never want to have kidney problems, because the pain is excruciating.  You definitely do not want to have ANY kind of health problem while in a country where you can't really communicate your needs on the first or sixth try.  And this is all because I refused to pee in a public restroom.  Which in retrospect--and having become a champ at peeing anywhere (restroom, hole in the ground, cup, behind a tree)--seems so incredibly stupid.  If you are going to live abroad, you know things are not going to be the same as they are back home, and some of it is going to be the bad kind of different.  But embrace it nonetheless, because you do not want to find yourself in a hospital because you're a stupid, unbending idiot.  So my message here: Pee- always.  In the words of Olivia: "Accept the fact that sometimes you pee on  your foot. Life goes on."

Below is a video, captured by Justin, of the IV bar process.  Did I mention this all happened on Halloween weekend of 2011?  Most authentically terrifying Halloween of my life.  Let's hope it stays that way.

I also would like to give a huge shout out to Dave, Justin, and Eva for being my translators and expediters--by the time we got back to the emergency room, both of them were yelling in Chinese for the right medical attention.  And to Liv for keeping track of everything and keeping me calm.  All four of you have my sincere gratitude and appreciation that you were there for me that day; I literally do not know what I would have done without you. <3