Posts do Fotolog (www.fotolog.net/erikachina)

[Finalmente consegui acessar o blogger da China! Descobri que, acessando a internet pelo servidor proxy da minha universidade no Reino Unido, consigo contornar o bloqueio a sites como o BBC News, blogger etc. Alguém sabe se isso é crime? De toda forma, aqui estão os posts que tinha colocado no fotolog nos últimos dias. Porque sei que o Fotolog não vai durar muito.]

Something funny happened the other day. I was at my hotel room, when someone knocks on my door. It's the housekeeper, holding two toothbrushes. I tried to explain I hadn't asked for toothbrushes, but she obviously wouldn't understand. So I went into my bathroom, took all 2 toothbrushes that were already there, and showed them to her, trying to explain I was good in the toothbrush area.

The look on her face was priceless. She seemed really puzzled, trying to understand why someone who had two unopened toothbrushes was still ordering two more... Finally, I just pointed at the other rooms and there she went, offering toothbrushes to other people who didn't need them.

This is just to illustrate how hard it is to try to say anything here. I just can't be bothered.

***

I wish I had a picture of Chinese toilets. They are hard to describe. Google Images, however, is always there when we need it: http://www.kimrom.info/blog-images/beijing-toilet.jpg

Anyway. In much the same way that restaurants will be happy to offer you a knife and a fork, in some places, Chinese toilets coexist alongside the "normal" toilets (which do NOT include Dutch toilets, that are somehow special but won't be considered here). You will usually have a few toilets in a public restroom; some will be Chinese, and there will usually be one or two normal toilets.

I believe this is a way of the Chinese tell us the following: "We acknowlegde the existence of a clearly superior type of toilet, but we will not give in. Our traditional toilets will survive the threats of the Western world".