This is a note to this school that I am about to leave:
In future, when refurbishing the foreign teachers’ apartments, make sure you buy toilets with seats that can support the weight of at least a 70 kilo man. I’m serious about this. Really. I’m not fat. I am, in fact, incredibly thin. I have always weighed considerably less than the average for a New Zealander. Even here in north China I’m probably on the lighter side of average. If a toilet seat snaps right in two under my weight as I’m trying to take a shit, nearly sending me into the toilet, then there is something seriously wrong, and it’s not my weight.
yours sincerely,
Disturbed in Haidian
So it’s not too bad from my point of view. The toilet is still mostly useable. Of course, should I need to defecate again before we leave I will either have to time it so that I’m near a reasonably clean and useable public toilet or in a well-appointed restaurant, or I’ll have to pop next door to the public loos. I’m not sure what lzh is going to do, though.
But given this record I have developed in China of breaking Western-style toilets, I suspect that, if we ever manage to save enough money to buy a house here, we’re going to have to install a Chinese-style squat. I’ve never broken one of those. Yet.
Thing is, I weigh a little less than 70 kilos. How could someone as thin as me have a toilet seat break under his weight? This is ridiculous.
Perhaps the gravity is extra strong where you are. I know there are some really weedy loo seats, but for you to break one…
I know, I know… Personally, I was starting to suspect I’d acquired an unusually large amount of anti-matter that was somehow affecting the actual force placed on the loo seat. But really, me breaking a loo seat?
I have yet to live in an apartment in China where the toilet seat did not break.
Thank you, Kevin, I made lzh read this to prove that it’s really not my fault that the toilet seat broke. China needs stronger toilets.
Also, anonymouse isn’t letting me read your blog today.