TOILET TALES

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!