Herodotus is known for his statement “Custom is King.” This was the conclusion he drew based upon the hundreds of cultures with which he came into contact while writing his History. It simply means that no matter where one goes, local variations are considered normal. This contrasts with modern homogenized reality where, thanks to mass media, some imagined universal standard of normalcy is presented and anything that doesn’t correspond is viewed as the doings of the hopelessly backward. The elimination of so many local variations in the modern world, resulting in bland food, predictable music, tasteless art, to the ever-present image of Marilyn Monroe as the standard of beauty, is, like it or not, a clear form of cultural imperialism. The American standard gets imposed as normal, everything else is weird. I’m not immune.
Any American who’s ever visited France knows the shock when first seeing what’s called a Turkish Toilet (Fig. 1). It’s a hole in a square of porcelain, with two places for your feet, where you lower yourself and then take care of business. These are typically, by American standards, filthy. Using one, if the occasion calls for the urgent release of a pent-up mass, is a daunting prospect. There’s always the fear of soiling one’s clothes, particularly pants which must be lowered and gathered around one’s ankles or having to stand in some remnant of the previous occupant’s lingering gift to the public sanitation system. And the idea of touching the wall behind one’s back is also repugnant due to the residues of innumerable splashes of various human intestinal productions. This isn’t as easy, for often these “cabinets” are about three feet square.
There’s another form of toilet which by my American “puritan” standards is odd. I’ve seen them in Amsterdam and Germany (Fig. 2). The toilets are designed, so when after one’s bowels are evacuated, the droppings are on display. They illustrate a very particular Northern European mindset, both practical and functional. They’re built with a sort of shelf which shows you the product of your completed fecal act. Because the digested mass is not submerged in water, these toilets also don’t hide the smell. I can only think that these toilets were designed so that one may like to inspect the droppings, hoping not to discover some odd color which indicates a mortal health issue.
There are other “strange” varieties of toilets that I’ve only heard of. These come from what was once called The Mysterious East. One was reported to me by a friend who visited China. It was a lady’s room. There were no individual cubicles. One straddled over a metal trench about 20 feet long, with a crevice running along its entire length. While so doing, you’re in a makeshift society of others in similar need and let it rip. My friend said she was the only non-local in the place and that the other ladies were amused by her initial shock. She assured me that she rose, or rather physically lowered herself, to the occasion and did what needed to be done. I didn’t ask if the other ladies applauded or not.
Another variation I heard about was in a monastery in Nepal, reported by the same friend. Here there was a room of dirt, again with a hole in the middle. One urinated directly on the floor, or, if defecation was called for, one targeted the hole where the droppings fell into a wheelbarrow on the floor below and were subsequently used for manure. I was told that it was a very hot day and when she at first opened the door that the odor in the room hit her like a sledgehammer and she was afraid she’d pass out.
I imagine that today these discoveries are rare. The friend who told me about China and Nepal spends her travel time off the beaten track which explains why she often meets the unusual. More and more travelers visit only destinations specifically put in place for them, where “the facilities,” are of the imagined universal norm. This means they can expect no shock, no surprise, things will be “just like home.” It’s fair to ask why they even travel.