TOILET TALES!
This
is not a pleasant topic! Yet to paraphrase the opening line of a famous song by
the Platters “When the toilet is gone”, we will realise how important toilets
are when you need them in a hurry.
Toilet
Water!
Toilets
should not smell like “toilets”. My
daughter Juni, as a small girl, was fond of entering hotel toilets while on
holidays in Europe. They smelled so
clean and fresh. There is the famous perfume water called 4711 Eau d’Toilette,
which literally means “Toilet Water”! Actually, the original meaning of “toilet”
is to “freshen up”, so the toilet water is a light perfume, not the toilet
water which comes first to our mind!
In
the West
However, using public toilets in Europe can be
expensive, from 50 cents to 1 Euro, depending on “small” or “big business”! In
Greece, they are so environmentally friendly, that the used toilet paper was
not thrown inside the toilet bowl but thrown into a bin nearby for recycling!
In America, the urinals are usually too high for Asians. I had to use the
children urinals or I had to stand on my toes! There, I often faced curious
stares from the American children who have seldom seen Asian organs! I was
initially embarrassed by the low partitions and low doors of American toilets,
where we can hear all the noises of bowel movements. Yet surprisingly, they
were not so smelly, probably from the better air circulation.
Asia
Toilets
in Asia however, smell very far from the original meaning. Signs are not needed
in Asian toilets, as the odour will lead one to them. Some years ago in China,
toilets were the bane of tourism. We heard horror stories of going into
communal toilets with several people squatting in a row with no doors. We were
advised to bring umbrellas for additional privacy. Much has changed since then,
and the public toilets in China are now very advanced. In India, many people
still performed their bodily functions in public, even in some cities, where
there are many homeless people. As a medical student, I remembered the gate
outside our hospital in Bombay, which would reek of ammonia! On the other hand,
toilets in Japan are super-modern with so many computerised gadgets to manipulate
the different ways of washing.
Malaysian
Toilets
Toilets in Malaysia
are not much better. Before the sixties, there were many houses in the old town
areas where there were no modern sanitation. There would be large rubber
buckets below the “jamban” (toilets)
which would be collected every morning by men into lorries with 20 doors! How could these workers handle that type of job?
Fortunately, our sense of smell is easily dulled (refractory) by the constant
smell, as experienced by ourselves in the toilet.
In the days before
the PLUS highways, we dreaded to make toilet stops, especially at petrol
stations and in the coffee shops along the way. They were usually overflowing
with wastes and old newspapers! In the kampungs, we had to resort to the fields
or at best in outhouses, squatting over buckets of wastes and flies! People often
forget to flush. Thus in Singapore, fines would be levied on those who forgot
to flush. I just wonder whether there were CCTV cameras in the toilets to catch
the culprits!
On
Missions
For me, going on
mission trips to some of the Asian countries was rather a struggle as far as
toilets are concerned. I am very adaptable to different kinds of food, but not
so used to the native toilets. In Bangladesh, we had to stop over in a school
in the countryside, where we had to do our “business” within seconds because of
the swarms of flies and mosquitoes! Fortunately, in many of the “mission”
villages, the local leaders have prepared modern “pour flush” toilets for
visiting missionaries.
Even in the Orang
Asli villages, while there are “proper” toilets for visitors, the local
residents still prefer the fields and river banks. To them, it would be not
proper to return to the same place for the emptying of their wastes. Many of
the toilets built by the health departments have been used as store-rooms
instead.
Toilets
on trains
In the past,
toilets on trains consisted of holes in the toilet floor where the wastes would
just drop on to the tracks. Of course there is a warning notice, and even a
jingle “Don’t use the WC, when the train is standing in the station”! When I travelled on trains in India forty
years ago, the trains would be so crowded that we often could not use the train
toilets. Instead I would look at the train schedule and planned my toilet
visits when the trains would stop at the bigger stations for at least 10
minutes or more. I have yet to miss a train for that purpose!
Some people were
even fooled when they told that the same situation was found on the planes.
Children were warned not to look up when the planes were flying overhead!
However for some people habits die hard. When we were on British Airways flight
via Madras, the plane toilets were flooded, as the Indian passengers would use
lots of water, instead of tissue paper, for cleaning.
No
Paper
Many Indians and Malays still prefer water
than paper for cleaning after. I made a faux
pas one day when I was in an Indian friend’s home and asked for paper when
I entered the toilet! When I first studied in Bombay, I was curious to see
metal tankards in the bathroom. I later realised
the containers were not for drinking but for carrying water into the toilets
for washing the bottoms. Since then, I have no qualms using water to wash, but
usually preceded with tissue paper to clean initially. It is the custom to use
the left hand for washing the bottom as most Malays and Indians eat with their
right hands. It is also rude to present gifts with the left hand.
Toilet
Signs
There are many
euphemisms for the toilet, words like powder room, gents or ladies, small room,
or simply bathroom. The English term “Water Closet” is hardly used nowadays except
as the abbreviation W.C. In Indonesia, the Dutch pronunciation for these
letters is “Weh Seh”, a term used for the toilet. However the term “toilet” is
universally understood.
Toilets had to be
separated into “Men” and “Women” and signs are labelled accordingly. It could
be difficult in foreign countries to decipher the local terms for the gender.
Often there are symbols indicating the gender, but in some cultures, men wear
“skirts” and keep long hair! It was understandable when the men were pictured
wearing hats, but I objected when they showed men smoking a pipe or cigarette! Tourists
to Malaysia are sometimes confused as near the toilets are also suraus (prayer
rooms) with symbols for men and women.
Safari
My worst experience was during our holidays in South
Africa. We joined the safari tour where we sat in a three-wagon vehicle through
the wild animal reserve. We were warned not to get out of the vehicle as there
were wild animals around. My bladder was getting full and the jerking of the
vehicle over the rough road did not help. There was no toilet stop for over two
hours. When it finally came to a mid-station shop with rest rooms, I was the
first to jump out and ran to the rest room. As I was so full, it took some time
for me to empty the bladder and I was the last to return to the vehicle which
almost left without me!
