Bathrooms are what people remember when they travel. And bathrooms are what everyone at home wants to know about. "What are the bathrooms like in Italy?" "In Egypt?" "In India?" "In China?" "Were they gross? They were gross, weren't they?" "Eww… were they squatters?"
They WERE squatters, in Grandpa's time. And they WERE gross. But not any more. The Chinese government has recognized that, in accordance with Symbolic Meaning of Poop #1 ("poop exposes the lowness of the high"), the memory of a disgusting toilet will always overshadow even the most serene tourist experience. So to ensure purity of memory for the half-million Westerners soon to descend on the country for beauty, serenity, and the love of sport, China has been frantically modernizing their bathroom infrastructure [1], spending over US$57 million to build or renovate 5,333 public toilets in Beijing alone.
And now that they've built all the toilets, they're focusing on maintaining them. Just yesterday Beijing announced that they've dispatched an army of 8,000 men and women specially trained in the fine art of bathroom maintenance [2]. These brave soldiers will ensure impeccable standards dung shui during the Games and, hopefully, in perpetuity.
In 1994, a survey of foreign tourists found that more than sixty percent were dissatisfied with Beijing's toilets -- "a revolting experience." Even the locals were unhappy. "Zhou Jiang, 76, lived in a siheyuan, or courtyard home, with no modern amenities for decades. He used his nose to locate a public toilet when he was a child. ‘I would squat over a huge pit, and would feel dizzy if I looked down because I could be hovering over a two-meter pit with no water to flush to it,' he recalls."
That was the Beijing that Grandpops experienced, and never forgot. If the Chinese government has succeeded -- and if the bathroom army accomplishes their mission -- that Beijing will no longer exist.
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