When I first got off the plane in Beijing, I experienced my first culture shock right in the airport.  It wasn’t seeing the signs with all the characters I could not decipher or the crowds of people speaking a language I could not communicate back in.  The first thing that made me realize that I was completely out of my element was my first trip to the bathroom.  The toilets were in the ground (as seen in the picture below) and since then I have coined them “squatters.”  There was also no toilet paper or soap in the restroom but luckily I had some on me along with hand sanitizer.  This concept of using this device was so foreign to me, I wondered if I could ever get used to it.  I also was confused as to why there was no toiletries there.  The only places in the U.S. with this kind of scenario are sketchy gas stations in the middle of nowhere.

The purpose of having the toilets in this way is to make the bathrooms more sanitary which is something that I have come to agree with.  I find that the bathrooms are generally cleaner (for the most part) in the stalls than most in America.  This varies depending on the place though since some of the family owned restaurants aren’t really kept up at all.  Most public restrooms don’t provide toilet paper or soap purely because it costs the business extra money.  Those establishments that do are generally nicer places or cater to an international crowd.  A few weeks into the program, I still feel as if it is highly inconvenient for me to have to carry along toilet paper and a bar of soap that I stole from the hotel in Beijing.  This will not be one of the things that I miss about China.

A typical public bathroom in China