As a youngster I liked to stroll through the East India Docks.
I loved the atmosphere: goods and people from the farthest parts of the world came here, places I could only imagine.
The one day I noticed the toilets on the dockside.
Lined up in a row they said: Male. Female. Asian.
I’d seen segregated toilets in America on the news.
Whites Only. Blacks Only
I thought we were better than that, but here was the proof we weren’t.
Asians not allowed to use the same toilets as us.
I stopped going to the docks after that, it didn’t seem so exotic anymore.
Fast-forward twenty years.
I married a Chinese Singaporean art director and began to learn a lot about the Far East.
For instance, I learned Singaporeans are fanatical about hygiene.
My wife’s father ran a large plumbing contractor.
One of his clients was a very rich Chinese businessman.
His wife wanted all the bathroom fittings in turquoise: bath, shower-stall, sinks, bidet, toilet.
No problem, except the toilet.
Her husband didn’t want a standard western sit-down toilet: he wanted a squatting toilet.
He found crouching healthier and more comfortable than sitting.
But my father-in-law’s UK supplier said they didn’t do squatting toilets in different colours, only in white.
But the wife of the businessman wanted it in turquoise and she didn’t care what it cost.
This wasn’t going to get sorted over the phone so my father-in-law flew to England.
He explained that he bought an awful lot of bathroom fittings from this supplier.
If they wanted that to continue they needed to make a turquoise squatting basin specially, as a one-off.
The supplier agreed and the businessman’s wife got her turquoise bathroom.
My wife’s sister was listening to this story.
She said her husband was exactly the same.
He hated travelling on business because he thought western toilets were unhygienic.
He said squatting toilets were more hygienic because there was no contact with the seat.
Apparently, a lot of south-east Asians agree, they prefer squatting toilets.
They are healthier and more hygienic.
Which caused me to reconsider those toilets on the East India Docks.
When I saw the signs saying: Male, Female, Asian, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was racist.
But actually it was the opposite.
The Asian toilet was the squatting kind.
So it was a courtesy to Asians who preferred it to western style toilets.
They were welcome to use the same toilets as us, but if they preferred the other kind here it was.
I was wrong, but we can only interpret the world through whatever we know.
So we shoehorn the facts in to fit whatever pops up in our mind.
As a teenager, I had no knowledge of squatting toilets.
I certainly didn’t know some people preferred them.
So my mind defaulted to a racist interpretation.
I find that’s what a lot of political correctness does, it creates preformed opinions.
It strangles thought because it strangles enquiry.
As Adlai Stevenson said “Some people approach every problem with an open mouth.”
Nice post; makes me think of the classic Guardian “Points of View” ad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SsccRkLLzU
In Asia, from the 60s to 90s, teachs had Western type bogs & bumf. And schoolkids had squat loos with no kybo paper. Among kids, there was resentment over this toilet hierarchy/politics.
Nice one, Trotty. Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman illustrated a similar point via chess. He said you could make your mind up about what chess entailed very quickly, but you’d be wrong unless you’d left your mind open to random changes in pattern – like castling. You can watch games for ages without seeing a player castle. I guess the point here is that, even if the dock owners weren’t anti-Asian, they may still have been anti-black or something.
M
Do you remember a brand of toilet paper called “Izal” which had no cleaning properties whatsoever and was one step removed from Teflon. Thank goodness for our nice soft brands these days.
Dave, I can totally relate to your post. I spent 19 years of my life living and working in Asia, Hong Kong, Japan, and China. Sometimes I worked in advertising there, sometimes I did not. My Japanese (unfortunately ex) wife once explained to me that of course humans are simply a single two ended tube, and a sitting toilet Western style cramps the intestines making the job of defecating more difficult. A squat toilet is therefore very practical. However, Asian people as you May have noticed have far more body flexibility and a higher pain threshold than other races. Observe sports that Asians excel in: judo, karate, aikido, archery, pistol shooting, and of course Kung fu. I learned a lot about how to live life by living in Japan, and how to enjoy life in a hearty “we all may die tomorrow” in mainland China. Colonial Last Days of the Raj Brits in Hong Kong can sod right off in my view, they are an embarrassment to .britain and thankfully most of them have retired or moved. I do not regret leaving the London ad biz, after all it can be regarded as simply an office job. And who should get worked up about that? When I was teaching advertising creative to students in Cardiff last year, I showed a few examples of GGT work to my students. I had met a few of your guys like Jan, Dave, Chris, around 1984 or so as Alex was matey with them. I made a very clear point to my students in Cardiff, a mixed interesting bunch from many parts of ?Britain, that they accepted, and that was your business was the very first ad businesses in Britain to talk directly to British working class people in a way that was not patronizing, condescending, or disdainful. Your guys and ladies used wit, common sense, and directness, to communicate. But communication moves on, and things change. Personally I would have liked to have visited the Shaolin monastery in China, but China won’t let me back in. The monastery has a tree outside the gates where the young monks practice finger punching. How can a humanpunch a tree with a finger and leave a hole? There is still much to learn.
Dear Dave, our friend Marcantonio suggests I write an obit of Graham Rose.
Can you help me?
Phil 0776 99 75 222
As always anything but bog standard thinking, thank you. Went to share this on Twitter and shock horror discover our Twitter account @TunWellsWoodies has been blocked by you. No idea why or when. This has ruined our day. What did we do? We’re jolly nice folk and would never troll or abuse anyone. Please let us back in.
Unblocked
Thank you, all is once again right in the world
My Dad used to work in the Aberdeen shipyards in the 1930’s to 40’s. They had a look in the factory up
On a gantry. There were 6 loos in a row and a water trough that ran down stream. If someone was taking too long reading the paper, someone would make a paper boat, set fire to it and sail it down the trough. He said: “You knew when someone was in there because the foreman would laugh when he heard the scream.