Couchsurfing in China: Taking a Shower in China

When I last left off in the story of my recent trip to China, I was looking forward to taking a shower. Like really looking forward to taking a shower. A long, hot, luxurious shower. Oh how naïve I was. As if it would be that simple. I was soon to learn that taking a shower in China was a bit more complicated than I expected.

1. Get over my initial shock that there was not an actual shower. Bathrooms (or water closets – WCs – as they are more commonly called) are typically tile rooms without separate showers. Rather there is a showerhead and a hole in the floor. Right next to the toilet.
2. Turn on the heat lamp and/or radiator because otherwise it will be freezing.
3. Don’t forget to wear shower sandals!!
4. Turn on the water, but not too hot because the hot water heater is tiny and the hot water will not last for long. Oh and remember that the hot and cold are backwards.
5. Shower quickly.
6. Squeegee the floor. Because it is not designed to drain.
7. Try to get my clothes on without getting them wet. The floor is not actually dry; there is just no longer standing water.
8. Begin to daydream about the long, hot, luxurious shower I will have when I am back home the following week.

Okay, so perhaps it was not quite as bad as all that. And it was far from the worst conditions in which I have showered. Although squeegee-ing was involved. As was a heat lamp and some creative moves in order to get dressed.

My experience taking a shower the first night served as a metaphor for many of my experiences in China. Sometimes it was confusing, or uncomfortable, or made no sense. But that is the charm and the challenge of China. It was not always an easy place to be. In fact, there were many difficult moments. And yet those moments somehow made the trip better.

Of course, I was also fortunate to be hosted by people who live there, who know what they’re doing, and who speak the language. They were wonderful and made my time in China rather simple, all things considered.

And yet, there were many moments where the only appropriate response was to say, “It’s China.” Often said with mild befuddlement and a hint of exasperation, the phrase perfectly captures the incongruities between visiting China and being accustomed to life in the US. My friends introduced me to the phrase almost immediately upon my arrival.

Another example of “It’s China” moments included the toilet situation. Specifically the “squatty potties.” They are exactly what they sound like – essentially holes in the floor over which one much squat.

Oh, and they are BYOTP. When out in public, I could generally expect that going to the bathroom would be eventful. That is, if I could find the bathroom and subsequently determine which side was the women’s restroom in the first place. Because sometimes there were no symbols. Rather, some bathrooms were marked solely by Chinese characters, none of which I recognized. There is a certain level of trust involved when walking into what you have been told is the women’s restroom.You know how sometimes restaurants will have creative ways of delineating which restroom is for which gender and despite the fact that you check at least three times before walking into what you are 99% sure is the correct restroom you still feel afraid that you will, in fact, walk into the incorrect restroom so you feel tense and sort of use your peripheral vision to determine whether you were correct (oh good, no urinals)? Yeah, it was like that, except worse.

On another note, I had been warned that I might get some attention simply for not being Chinese. There were certainly moments when I felt a bit like a celebrity. For instance, when a stranger would ask to take a picture with me, an experience that was both awkward and weirdly fun. But nothing prepared me for the amount of attention that Jobie and Junie received in public. Yes, they are two very cute children, but seriously, they could draw a crowd just by showing up.

Jobie and Junie would even receive gifts from strangers, such as apples.

Just as the children received the most attention, children were also the most likely to openly stare or come up to speak to us in order to practice their English phrases.

Short version, if you want to know what it is like to feel famous…

Then there were the things that were just, um, interesting.

And a final, and much less energetic, example: The Great Coffee Shortage of 2015. Coffee is not exactly a hot commodity in China, tea being the beverage of choice. During my visit, the place that Candi usually buys her coffee, Starbucks, was OUT OF COFFEE BEANS. Yes, I was that upset at the possibility of not having morning coffee. We randomly tried another brand that we found in the foreign food market, but it was rather inadequate. And by inadequate I mean it tasted like an herbal tea and both Candi and I had headaches by 9 am due to caffeine insufficiency. Thankfully, we learned that the less than ideal coffee was able to make a decent Thai iced coffee when copious amounts of ground coffee beans were made into a coffee concentrate. Although I imagine most things taste better with the addition of sweetened condensed milk.

I loved my time in China. Even in the baffling, confusing, and uncomfortable moments (side note: uncomfortable is an understatement when it comes to describing a caffeine headache) I was fascinated and enthralled. I would endure weeks of WC showers and squatty potties and awkward celebrity if it meant more time to explore China. Although perhaps I would draw the line at days of bad coffee. Even so, sometimes the only thing to do was shrug my shoulders and say, “It’s China!”