2 Grim subjects….

Stop reading if you don’t like toilet and spitting talk!
Toilets!  I know it’s not the nicest subject to talk about but it’s one that I feel needs addressing, plus I’m sitting on a train bored and needed something to do!! Digging your own hole in Mongolia seems a distant and all together happier memory – Chinese toilets, well at least the ones in public areas, are on the whole a remarkably unpleasant experience. Nothing can quite prepare you at times for what your about to face – think of your worst festival experience and then multiply it a few times! The first obstacle, well for us boys anyway, is that they are squat toilets! I’m not saying that there’s a gang of hippies with dogs on strings inside smoking funny fags I mean that there is nowhere to park your arse! Secondly, pray the light doesn’t work! It takes some getting use to going in the dark but trust me it’s better than seeing….although this would explain the bad aim of some! Thirdly, hope to hell you have a cold and all sense of smell has long deserted you otherwise be prepared to gag – lots! Forthly, communal urinals are one thing but communal squats are a whole new ballgame. When you enter a toilet and can be greeted by the sight of a local squatting doing his/her do it can be a little disturbing and is generally followed quickly by stage fright! Fifth and finally….actually sod it, buy an overpriced cup of tea in a nice tea shop and hope that for £3 as well as a cup of flavoured hot water they also have a nice toilet – money well spent.
Spitting!  Whereas in most other countries spitting is generally frowned upon and regarded as pretty disgusting, well unless you’re an overpaid prissy footballer when we all get to see you spit in HD slow motion whilst earning £200 a second to do so! In China it is quite an art and deemed essential as part of good health. Wherever you go men, women, young and old are all reaching into the deepest parts of their body before making that lovely retching noise to bring back up anything possible and depositing it nicely wherever they see fit! Floors, walls, shops, plant pots (thankfully it’s now banned in buses and trains, although they still get provided with a little spit bucket!) nothing is spared from the phelgm of locals – you should see the looks of disgust we get for blowing our noses….although I do keep telling Shona that she should use a tissue and not her sleeve!