Many parts of China, I'm told, lack what we consider modern plumbing and what little I witnessed this summer supports this claim. Most of the public outhouses I saw were vile, some unspeakably so.
With that as background, my cousin and I spent an hour wandering the picturesque backstreets of a neighborhood in Zhangjiakou, some 4 hours northeast of Beijing. As normally happened, we attracted a following of young children, curious to know about the obvious foreigners. (I'm sure my cousin's excellent Chinese and the colorful stickers I handed out did nothing to encourage this.)
After I suggested we take a picture of this unusualy colorful community outhouse, I was initially annoyed that our entourage wouldn't take the hint to step out of view. Of couse now I'm glad they stayed as we caught them nearly doubled over with laughter.
Why are they laughing? I can't say for certain but wouldn't YOU laugh if some rich foreigner waltzed into YOUR town and decided to take a picture of such a humble, meaningless structure?
No comments:
Post a Comment