What Does the Prevalence of Squat Toilets in China Says About Her Version of Modernity?

For many people, a squat toilet represents backwardness. In the olden days, a hole in the floor opened up to a smelly cesspit, from which farmers shoveled excrement into their fields for free manure. Grimy public bathrooms in third-world countries are almost always portrayed by broken, dark squatters with flies buzzing above. In contrast, Japan, commonly portrayed as the pinnacle of advanced toilet culture, is represented by heated seats and remote-controlled bidets on sitters, with squating toilets (washiki or "Japanese-style" in the local parlance) relegated increasingly to the oldest houses and schools.

In some ways, China fits right into this global toilet narrative. Public bathrooms in rural areas and messy wet markets are still smelly, dark affairs. Rooms in the swankiest hotels advertise those high-tech Japanese toilet seats as a sign of luxury for those willing to spend. And even in mid-range hotels and apartments accessible to the majority of common people, squatters are increasingly a thing of the past, nostalgic for their memories of deceased grandparents and travels in a different century. Perhaps, as the country continues to develop, squatters will continue to disappear from the public eye.

That assumption, surprisingly, fell apart during my most recent visit to the country. Public bathrooms in train stations, airport terminals, and shopping malls constructed just a few years ago have chic decor, automated water, soap, and paper towel dispensers, as well as rows after rows of squat toilet stalls. But unlike the ones found in counterparts from decades past, these squatters are clean, bright, devoid of smells, and are branded by some of the world's biggest toilet makers. Rather than pushing squatters into the history books, China is singlehandedly getting toilet makers to see that they also belong in the 21st century.

As I frantically looked for the one sitter stall that is almost obligatorily available amidst the row of squatters, I found myself perplexed by the persistent belief in the squatter. To me, the squatter, from a practical point of view, had little advantage to speak of. Like me, a next generation of children, used to sitting on the toilet in their homes, are incapable of squatting on one when they are suddenly thrust into public. If China is to be more friendly toward foreigners, perhaps getting Westerners with traditionally no experience of squatting to start doing so is not a good start.

Yet, while looking for those hard-to-come-by sitters in public bathrooms, I soon started seeing some previously unconsidered benefits of squatters that may be perpetually relevant. For one thing, it is a good thing that many people are unaccustomed to squatting. In the smartphone age, people are prone to sitting for many more minutes on the toilet than is needed to expel whatever is in their intestines. But no one is comfortable enough to squat and play with their phones, so the squatting toilet opens up for the next person much faster than the sitting one, when both are available. 

Moreover, modern porcelain squat toilets are much easier to keep clean than sitting ones. The squatter has a simple construction: grooves on the side to prevent shoes from slipping and a big opening in the middle for where the stuff drops. This simplicity means that the cleaning staff really just need a mop to wipe the floor around the porcelain and the grooves, and a toilet sponge to scrub the inside of the opening. Compare this to a sitting toilet, with hard-to-reach undersides and backsides that build up dust and molds. Keeping squatters just as clean as a sitter takes less energy and man-hours. 

These two qualities matter in China's public spaces, with their extraordinary amount of foot traffic and usage from a population with different diets, bowel conditions, and attitudes toward keeping public facilities clean. With toilets constantly being damaged in the process, resorting to squatters is, logically, the most optimal way to ensure that the public bathrooms can be maintained in relatively good conditions with minimal labor costs. The sacrifices in comfort provided by the sitting toilet, in this context, can be overlooked, first by the bathrooms' operators, and then by the users themselves.

As the rest of the world moves relentlessly toward a world without squatters, China's insistence on giving them a place in new public spaces says something about the country's unique vision of modernity. It is in the quest for finding "good enough" functionality at scale while keeping operating costs low, a mantra that its businesses also take to bootstrapping startups and breeding indigenous IT innovation. For people who can all enjoy their sitting toilets at home and in high-end hotels, why not learn to distinguish individual luxuries with the needs of problem-solving at scale?