Pondering loo world views
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
AT the risk of descending into toilet humor, have you ever noticed
how few countries have the same lavatory rituals?
A wire story which landed from Amsterdam last week examined loos the
world over. Amsterdam, I discovered, is one of those many places which
charge you for a little light relief. I am always left to wonder what the
traveller without the right coinage does? Cross their legs and emigrate?
The story lifted the lid, so to speak, on the loo idiosyncrasies of
Europe, like “see-through doors which only frost over when the lock hits
Engaged’’ (pray for a lock that actually works) and doors that automatically
open after you’ve exceeded the time period. Heaven help the traveller with
Europe’s equivalent of Bali belly.
Still, these don’t seem to be such unbearable impositions, at least
compared with one stop I made in the United States.
I have always known Americans have odd loo habits, what with those bowls of water up to the rim - threatening a mini-tsunami over your shoes every flush. However, I remember being startled by a li’l ol’ loo in a
Texas-themed pub in, well, Texas.
Entry to a stall in the women’s loo was via one of those small flap
doors you might see in a Wild West saloon ... and that’s it. No lock.
There was three times as much air as door. Nothing to prevent folks ambling by, glancing (not even peering) casually beyond the wood flaps to see you in your toileting throes. Call me crazy, but this probably explained why I was the only woman in that li’l ol’ Texan pub.
In Japan, my challenge was figuring out the squat toilets for the
first time. These are slits in the floor with water running under them. With
the shoe on the other foot, suddenly those cartoon signs in my Singapore
hotel comically depicting how to use Western loos didn’t seem so funny.
Anyway, I finally repeated to myself mantra-like: “I am on a camping trip.
I am on a camping trip.’’ Don’t laugh. It works.
In Japan, I also came across the first truly unisex loos. None of
this wussy Ally McBeal stuff. At one restaurant, I had to amble past the
(thankfully unoccupied) urinals to get to the unisex stalls. The only
problem was that while in the cubicle I suddenly heard the voices of my male Australian colleagues coming in.
Visions of us all being morbidly uncomfortable when I tried to
tiptoe past them at the urinals flitted urgently through my mind. Westerners have such fretfully embarrassed notions regarding toilet behavior, to be sure, but world-view philosophy didn’t help my dilemma any.
So I compromised: I called out (not a little hysterically) that they
had to wait a moment and I’d be right out and to KEEP EVERYTHING ZIPPED UP.
Four immensely grateful men complied and found their shoes fascinating as I scuttled by.
If I have learnt anything from my toilet travels, it’s this: There
is a good reason why our mums told us to wear nice underwear. It’s to give the foreigners a giggle.
© Sheryl-Lee Kerr & The Advertiser, 14 MAR 2000