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A little about toilets In Beijing 北京!

Ni hao!






In this blog post I will give you some tips on toilets in Beijing. You wonder why? I will tell you why! You only have to visit one of them to really understand why I am telling you this! Now you are in a hurry going to the toilet and you have just now found the place to go to. Number one you will find out that there are only porcelain toilet holes in the floor inside every door you open. They are called squat toilets in english. Now you will have to learn how to use them. Time is running out! I really needed to go here! The next thing you will do is to look for the toilet paper holder. There is no holder, and still worse there is no paper! This is what can happen to you if you do not read this blog post! My number one tip to you is: always bring your own toilet paper with you! If you do not have paper with you, you will find it very difficult to ask anybody for it, because your chinese language is very poor! My very useful and good second tip is: where ever you are in central Beijing and in need of a toilet, you just walk into a Hutong street. Why! Because within the next 150 to 200 meters you will find the toilet that you are looking for. In the Hutongs they do not have their own toilets at home. They are all shared by all living there and you must respect that too. You are welcome to use them free, but remember you are the guest here. Also the toilet signs are mostly with english text and international symbols on them. My third tip for all western visitors is: in all newly built toilets you will find the toilet chair to sit on behind the handicap signed door! If you are unlucky like me, I at one time found this one occupied by a man using the chair and the lamp light just sitting there reading his newspaper. Out in the street there was no light to read. Bad luck as I could not speak to him in chinese! I had to use the squat toilet. You also will get very strong legs using them! I know! And finally I will also tell you that in our apartment in Beijing we have a sitting chair toilet with duoble flush choice! Home sweet home!

Zai jian!

Peter


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