Revolutionary Toilets — Totalitarian Toiletarianism, or Toiletarian Totalitarianism?
Just what sort of toilets do you find in the Workers' Paradise of the People's Republic of China?
Some are pretty nasty, but at least they have amusing names.
As you can see from this sign, the Memorial to the Martyrs park in Guangzhou, People's Republic of China, has a toilet named the "Tomd of the Martyrs of Guangzhou Commune W.C." Presumably they meant "tomb"... The W.C. is just to the left, along with:
- Tomd of the Martyrs of Guangzhou Commune W.C.
- Blood-Sacrificing Xuanyuan Pavilion Yacht Section
- Sino Soviet Union People's Blood-Condensed Friendship Pavilion
Once inside, as one should expect, the Tomb of the Martyrs of the Guangzhou Commune W.C. is, in fact, highly communal.
There is no place for privacy in a totalitarian state striving for the completely collectivist society.
This being a men's facility, we have separate areas for functions #1 and #2.
The water flows from the large open tank, where it can be used for washing your hands (you do have your hepatitis immunizations up to date, right?), through the open trough, then under the porcelain floor-mounted squatting units.
The Temple of the Six Banyan Trees, is one of the few Buddhist temples left standing in Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.
Click here or on the image for more pictures of that temple's toilets.
The Chinese train toilet at right is surprisingly non-nasty, but then it is on board an elite train frequented by decadent Capitalist Roaders.
This is from the express train linking Hong Kong and Guangzhou, P.R.C.
The similar train toilet design at left (minus the theoretically non-slip foot pads) is from an overnight sleeper from Guangzhou to Guilin in the People's Republic of China.
It's also surprisingly non-nasty, but it is from the "soft sleeper" car. Yes, in the allegedly classless socialist wonderland, trains have classes. Oh, the irony!
Note the handy two-handed handle, necessary for use when traversing those irregular tracks.
This is one of my most disappointing toilet images — I really wish this one had turned out better. You'll have to make do with my transcription of this sign listing the "Latrine Regulations" from the toilet at the park along the Pearl River on Shamian Island, in Guangzhou. I was so taken with this sign that I copied it down, word-for-word.
Click here or on the image for a the transcription. Beware the non-clinical terminology that may be blocked by content filters. So much for the myths of the perfect socialist society and the progressiveness of the People's Republic of China, when they really have to spell out rules like these!
The rest of these are toilets found around Guilin, Yangshuo, and Xingping, in Guangxi Province, in south-eastern China. These are very nice and highly westernized (that is, non-communal) toilets, as far as Chinese toilets go. Most are from bars in Yangshuo. Compare these to those found in the Tomb of the Martyrs of the Guangzhou Commune W.C., above.
If you are keenly interested in
Communist Toilets,
then be sure to also see
Leon Trotsky's toilets at his nice home
in Mexico City.
"When we are victorious on a world scale,
I think we shall use gold for the purpose
of building public lavatories in the streets
of some of the largest cities in the world."
— Vladimir Ilych Lenin
Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box."
In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.
| A Sani-Flush blue border indicates a toilet that I've used. |
How long have my Toilets of the World pages been around? I'm not exactly sure, although they started in the mid 1990s as a single page on a Purdue University server. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine lets you see what that looked like as far back as January 17, 1999.
My cromwell-intl.com domain appeared in September, 2001, although the Wayback Machine didn't notice its one enormous Toilet of the World page until January 17, 2002. Some time soon after that I split it into categories, and the collection has grown ever since.
If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):
