[mouse click on a photo to enlarge it]

Lest you all thought the squat-toilets were a relic of a hard-scrabble past, let me tell you that a newly constructed, first-rank Chinese medical school is equipped just so. One is forced to the conclusion that it is the considered opinion of Chinese architects and public health experts that these devices represent the ultimate in hygienic public facilities. (They do indeed eliminate the rigamarole with toilet-seat-cover dispensers and ones phobia of uncovered seats.) That a few stiff-kneed, bottom-heavy, shakily aiming Caucasians find them inconvenient, is hardly of consequence to a race which takes its rest and relaxation in the squatting position.

Oh, and don’t forget to bring the paper.