The tiled kingdom

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So the Chinese are always bragging about their civilization being so many thousands of years old, and how they where the first to invent everything, and how they knew this and that before anyone else did, but I am still taken aback by how backwards this place is sometimes.
On the 28th I went out to the airport to meet Emma’s flight into Shanghai. On the way out there I once again took the Magnetic Levitation train that I took in from the airport when I first arrived in China. This is a train with no wheels or rails that floats on a cloud of air. This is caused by reverse magnetic polarity being generated between the track and the train. It goes 430 kilometers an hour and makes the trip from downtown to the airport in 8 minutes. The same trip takes the bus over an hour. Ok, this is what I expect from a civilization that is four thousand years old, or six thousand years old, or whatever.
My opinion of China, however, changes drastically anytime I have to use the bathroom. This is a bit of a crap shoot in this country. No pun intended, as it often isn’t due to the circumstances. The game of chance involves which of the various facilities you will be blessed with each time nature calls upon you.
There is the rare but highly prized western style toilet, which tends to be rather illusive and never comes stocked with amenities like toilet paper. These cagey beasts sometimes even lack the comfort of a stall door or a toilet seat. Despite these downfalls this creature still reigns supreme as king of the tiled jungle.
Next on the food chain is the less familiar “squatter”. This facility is a dressed up hole in the ground that includes a porcelain body, textured foot holds for ideal placement, and running water to wash everything down stream. Those of us lucky enough to do a bit of traveling may be familiar with this beast, as he is native to many other habitats. Awkward and uncomfortable and also lacking anything resembling toilet paper, one is at least usually afforded the privacy of a full sized stall and some running water to make this animal bearable in a pinch.
By far the lowest of the low is the group trough, or simply, the “ditch”. This beast is by far the bottom dweller of the tiled kingdom, much inferior to those higher on the food chain than itself. The “ditch” is basically what its name describes. All functions are preformed in a communal setting, with the ditch generally divided into roughly eight or ten stalls. To call them stalls is a generous description as any divider usually only reaches to about chest level, or for myself somewhere just below the bellybutton. The ditch’s water supply is extremely limited with amenities being non-existent, and as with most things in nature or warfare the position of high ground is highly valued. Unfortunately nature is a cruel mistress and these bottom dwellers are a little like cockroaches, they tend to outnumber the nobler animals by about a million to one.
My high opinion of Chinese advancement once again hit rock bottom when I was forced to make use of the facilities at the airport while waiting for Emma’s delayed flight (Air Canada again, feel free to reference my earlier entry). Upon venturing into the tiled kingdom I quickly saw that this was not my night at the tables. I had rolled a snake eyes, and drawn the ditch. This was made worse by the fact that not one, but both of my neighbours took the opportunity to see if the stereotype of the Asian male was true when compared to that of whitey. I can only hope I did all of us of European decent proud. I had drawn bad ground position however, and someone upstream had started to make a major advancement on my position. The only option left was to form ranks and beat a hasty retreat. I am always slightly disappointed, however, when a country that brags about pre-dating the Egyptians can be so unbelievably backwards in their basic amenities. It also makes me nervous about riding anything they have built that exceeds 400 kilometers per hour. I must give the Chinese credit where it is due, as they have worked out that they can often charge you for the privilege of using the “ditch”.
Emma and I spent a few days exploring the sights around Shanghai, including a traditional tea ceremony with some Chinese university students. After that we headed about 2 hours west to a small town named Suzhou that is famous for its Chinese style gardens and pagodas. After a couple of days there we once again ventured west to Nanjing. Our time in Nanjing so far has been frought with setbacks, but tomorrow promises to be a good day as we have planned to head over to the small hill outside of town where most of the sights are located. Our next stop should be in Hangzhou, which is a 5 to 6 hour train ride away routed back through Shanghai. Travel so far has been fairly light as train journeys are often 30 to 40 hours long. I’ll try and post some pictures soon and keep everyone updated on the travels.

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