Toilet in a Glass House

The Philip Johnson Glass House is one of the most famous houses in America. Its walls are made entirely of glass, and inside there are no walls to break your view from one side of the house to the other. There is only one place you cannot look into from the outside, and that is the bathroom. The bathroom is in a circular enclosure of brick on the inside of the house. It was a revolutionary idea to build a house that is walled completely in glass. However to some people, namely architects in China, Johnson didn’t go far enough. Why not make the bathroom walls out of glass too?

Now, I know what you are thinking. Usually the types of activities that you like to perform in the bathroom you like to perform without an audience, so it really would make sense to have an opaque enclosure. But evidently there millions of people who would disagree with you. In China I have come across countless bathrooms that are built with windows in the door or windows on an inner wall.

I remember staying in a nice apartment in a coastal city for a few days with friends. This apartment must have been pricy, being within walking distance of some of the nicest parts of the city and having the best location on the building. Not only did it have good surroundings, but it was nice inside too, its interior design having been professionally done. When you walked inside, you would probably notice two things immediately. The first thing you would notice was the abstract nude on the wall over the plasma TV. A large portion of the canvas was gilt, so it was really shiny. Plus, it had a bold checkerboard pattern on it, which immediately arrested one’s attention, very striking. And then, of course, there was the nude, the gilt abstract nude, sitting on the checkerboard. I never managed to divine the meaning of that piece; I always was an oaf when it comes to art. But anyway, after you had blushed and looked away from the artwork, the second thing you would see was the bathroom at the end of the hallway, especially if someone were in it. Pretty much the entire end of the hallway was glass. The wooden bathroom door was on the left and had windowpanes from bottom to top. The panes were, mercifully, frosted with a light frost or with those little textured snowflakes or something. Behind the glass door was the sink. Then to the right of the door was a wall of glass brick. At the builders’ supply store there are different kinds of glass brick, probably with names like “Ice Land” and “Ocean Cube.” Well, these were the “Keep no Secrets” glass bricks. Behind the glass bricks was the toilet.

My friends, most of them American, were puzzled and distressed by this bathroom. How were they to carry on their business in front of these floor-to-ceiling glass bricks? The regular inhabitants of this house, on the other hand, were accustomed to this open-bathroom concept. Once, as I was walking from the living room down the hallway to the bedroom I was staying in, I was horrified to see the figure of a person undressing very close to the door. It was a slight figure and was wearing dark blue undies, which were pressed tightly against the window. It turns out that the figure was that of the young boy who lived in the apartment. One of my friends told me later that it was the boy I had seen because this friend of mine had come into the hallway on another occasion and had had the same scare.

My foreign friends were a little more careful in their use of the bathroom and put much thought into how they should conduct their activities. It was suggested by some that we should put a test subject in the bathroom, who would then walk around nearer and farther from the door and the glass bricks and shout out their position. “One foot from the door!” they would shout. “Two feet from the door! Three feet from the door!” And those assembled outside to watch would consider the amount of visual distortion caused by the glass related to the distance from the door to see at what distance it might be safe to change clothes, pick one's nose or do other potentially embarrassing activities. Maybe we could work out a mathematical formula, they suggested. Nevertheless, such an experiment was unnecessary, others said, because one can clearly see the toilet through the glass and clearly see if someone were sitting on it. In such a small room the distortion caused by those little snowflakes was insufficient to make them feel comfortable doing anything anywhere in there, they said.

Therefore, the only solution was to erect a physical barrier of some sort so that one could use the restroom with peace of mind. When I walked in the first time, I looked around carefully to strategize how I would use the room. Beside the shower there was a big wooden tub that was about waist high. With that in front of the glass bricks, there would be something in front of the toilet. However, people outside could still see the color of your shirt and so would know who was in there and what they were doing, more than you want them to know. The solution: the shower curtain. By pulling the shower curtain and spreading it out along the tub, you could hide yourself completely, yet this was difficult to do because the curtain barely stretched that far and would fall back off the tub easily, leaving you scrambling to replace it. I snooped around but never found any clothespins anywhere to pin the curtain to the tub. “Anybody know how to say ‘clothespin’ in Chinese?”

That bathroom was probably one of the worst offenders that I’ve seen against an American’s desire for privacy in the privy. But there are many other examples I could share not only from city houses but also from countryside houses. One countryside house that I visited really caught my fancy. If I could buy a vacation house in the countryside, this would be it. It had a covered gate in true Chinese style, and inside the gate was a wonderful little courtyard. On one side of the courtyard was a garden, the other a storage building and the pet cow’s bedroom and opposite the gate was the house. The house had four large rooms, kitchen, master bedroom (with the kang), garage (of sorts) and guest bedroom. It was a beautiful little brick house with a red tile roof. I learned with sorrow yesterday that it is slated to be demolished to make way for a new highway. When the highway is built to ferry spoiled city slickers as quickly as possible past the countryside, it will have been at great cost to the world. Nevertheless, as wonderful as this little house was, its bathroom design was intolerable.

There were two toilets. One was outside of the courtyard wall. The other was in the pet cow's bedroom. When you think of a toilet, you are probably thinking of a sleek porcelain bowl like the one that you sit on to read the local newspaper. Forget that image. These toilets were just rectangular holes in the ground. You might think that this is awful, but actually it’s not. Many people prefer this kind of squat toilet over the porcelain bowl sitting kind because . . . (how do you explain this? tactfully?) . . . well, suffice it to say that some people like it better. Plus it’s much better for public restrooms because it’s more sanitary: you don’t have to touch the seat.

My grief wasn’t with the toilets themselves. The trouble was with their location. The first one was truly an outhouse because it was outside the courtyard as if it were a boon to weary travelers. It was to the left of the gate and was enclosed on three sides with brick and had a kind of cornstalk roof. The cow spent her days out there beside the toilet under a lean to, so you could talk to her whenever you went out to use the restroom. She was a good companion, but I was always afraid that she would try to eat the privy roof while I was in there. The entrance side, which was completely open with no door, was facing the courtyard entrance. You know how a lot of campuses have security shacks at the entrance? And security guards sit there at the entrance of the campus and can see everyone who goes through the gate and can likewise be seen by everyone passing through? That’s the way this toilet was. You could squat there like a diminutive security guard and shout out a hearty “hullo!” to anyone who came to knock on the courtyard gate.

The other toilet inside the courtyard was all the way in the left corner and shared the same pit with the outside toilet. This one was a little more private, but was still had no door and was in full view of whoever was in the courtyard. It was odd that during the day the family (and guest) would use the toilet outside the courtyard and at night use the one inside the courtyard. In short, we would go wherever the cow was.

Like I said above, this was a beautiful little courtyard house. There was nothing wrong with it. I just think that if I were to move there, I would spend about ten minutes to construct a little cornstalk wall for each of the privies so you could feel a little more at ease.

The last example I want to give of an open bathroom is in a business that some of my expat friends and I often frequent. This restroom also has a hole-in-the-ground toilet, but this one is porcelain, can flush and is connected to the sewer. I haven’t heard any of my friends complain about the hole-in-the-ground style toilet here, so I think they are accustomed to it. This restroom is small, a one holer. The door is a wooden door and, you guessed it, has a top-to-bottom frosted window.

Though the toilet itself doesn’t seem to bother people, it’s obvious the door does. Some expats like to go into the restroom with the light off. Enough light comes through the door from the outside for the person to do without it. However, this is an undesirable situation too because when the light is off, it appears from the outside that the restroom is unoccupied. The lock doesn’t really work, so I can only imagine that the person inside is nervously hoping that no one will just trot on in.

Once I was standing outside the restroom talking to somebody, and a lady came, wanting to use the restroom. She asked me, “Is anybody in the bathroom?” I said, “Go ahead and have a look through the window.” She didn’t take my advice.

Having a window in the bathroom door might seem to be advantageous for whoever is outside. That way they can know if the bathroom is occupied or not. Still I don’t think I really want to accidentally see anybody during their alone time.

Despite having lived in China for a few years and becoming accustomed to many things here, I still do not prefer the open-bathroom concept. I would side with the architectural school that says Philip Johnson was wise to include at least the bathroom of the Glass House in a very opaque brick cylinder.

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Note to my Chinese friends and family: Please don’t think I’m mocking. I’m not. There is nothing wrong with the bathrooms in China generally speaking. I admit that bathrooms in China really were funny to me as an American when I first came there, but I don’t call myself an authority on proper bathroom design. They were funny to me only because I was not used to them. When two cultures collide, there are bound to be some chuckles from both sides. I imagine that there is plenty of things that Chinese might think are funny about American life, and I will not begrudge you your laughter.

Bunch of Nothing

There's nothing to say really. I'm listening to a podcast of a Jose Gonzales concert right now. I don't know much about him as a person, and I haven't taken the time to listen to the words yet. However I am hooked to the sound. It is pure guitar and vocal. His picking is pretty incredible. It makes good background music because it is peaceful, but it is full enough to merit giving your full attention to it.

Just a moment ago there was a big fight behind my house involving a couple dozen young men. I'm not sure what was happening, but it did seem that they were beating somebody quite thoroughly. Eventually the police arrived and sent all the youths running into the night.

I have been listening to a class about the life of Francis Schaeffer recently. I haven't really learned a lot yet. I did learn , however, that he looks really cool. Somehow I always expected him to look really normal. I don't know what word I would use to describe his look, but normal isn't the one that comes to mind.

[I deleted the picture in case it is copyrighted. You can look him up on a Google image search if you want to see his pic.]

There Is Still a Potential

Long, long ago I promised to write a blog entry on potentiality. Well, I've been trying to write it for the past three days. The essay that I have written has potential, but it has still not quite made it into actuality. The more I write, the more I realize that I don't understand the topic well enough. I'll keep thinking about it, and maybe someday I'll be ready to post it.

But I'll post something else a little later, something a little easier to write about and something which I have strong opinions about: Chinese bathrooms.

The Job Might Have Seemed to Have Taken Forever.

Imagine that you are flying around in a spaceship. You see a big pyramid far away, so you fly towards it. When you arrive, you see that it is much bigger than you had imagined. Some workers are putting the final stone on the top of the great space pyramid, finally finishing their massive construction. You stop and ask them how long this task has taken, and they say that it has taken an eternity, that the base of the pyramid is infinitely far away and that their task is done at long last. Can you imagine that?

In this imaginary scenario we have a problem: there is a project that has been from eternity past drawing nearer to its completion finally coming to an end. This is inconceivable. It is reasonable to say that there are two lines that start from one point and go eternally in two different directions, but it is not reasonable to say that you have been from eternity drawing two lines towards each other and will soon bring them to their meeting point. If the starting points are infinitely distant in space from one another, then the lines being drawn can never in finite time meet each other. However, in the sentence above the words “starting points” are nonsense because, of course, there is no starting point. Imagine falling into a bottomless well, and when you reach the bottom, you start to climb out. The preceding sentence contradicts itself.

This is the problem that a worldview falls into that says that all living things are inhabited by spirits which are repeatedly reincarnated from eternity past until they finally reach their goal. If the spirits have been nearing their goal from eternity past, they are like those builders who are getting ready to put the final stone on that great space pyramid.

I think this is accurate. If anybody sees a problem in my reasoning above, I would love to be corrected. If this is right, then I wouldn’t mind if somebody let me know I’m not off my rocker.

T

Sunday night I invited some of my brothers over for tea. Actually I invited all of my brothers living in this apartment building to come over, but only three of them—J, M and R—could make it. We had a good time talking about various things. There wasn’t anything really noteworthy that we talked about that I can remember. However the occasion, just being together with some brothers, was wonderful.

Fellowship with one’s brothers is vitally important to one’s spiritual health, yet I had had little time with my brothers for a long time. It was refreshing to have a long evening chat with them. I just wish more of them could have come over.

Two Questions

Before I had these brothers over to have tea with me, I had been thinking about two things: first, how to entertain people and second, what to do about my hobby of tea drinking.

Regarding entertaining people, I wanted to invite people over to my house for a long time, but I am not a cook. Since it is usually expected to serve food to people when they come to your house, I figured it was hard for me to entertain people.

Regarding my hobby of drinking tea, I had noticed that it was actually isolating me from other people rather than providing a bridge for me to reach out to people, and anything that separates me from other people rather than bringing me closer to people actually prevents me from fulfilling my purpose in life. I was wondering what I should do about this. Should I quit drinking tea altogether? Or how could I use it to come closer to people rather than further?

The solution to my two questions was a no-brainer: invite folks over for tea.

No Frilly Laces

Maybe to Western ears it might sound funny to have guys over for tea because teatime is considered a girl thing. But having tea in China is definitely a guy thing. In the West teatime is marked by frilly laces and delicate flowered teacups, but in China it is not so. In fact, in China you can find stores all over that sell three products that are viewed as macho things here: vodka, cigarettes and tea.

In China the process of tea and the utensils are a fine art. On Sunday evening I did my best to brew tea fit for an emperor. I brewed some Iron Goddess oolong tea in my little (4 ounces?) green Yixing pot, and I brewed some Tenfu brand Yunan black tea from Xiaguan City in my gaiwan (a china cup with a lid and a small platter). The teacups I used for the oolong and the black tea were only one ounce and two ounce cups respectively.

You might think that a four-ounce teapot and a one-ounce teacup cannot hold much tea, but actually the size is perfect for brewing and drinking fine tea. A four-ounce teapot allows the flavor to develop better than a large teapot, probably because one brews the tea in it for only about ten to thirty seconds. One should time each infusion carefully to make sure that the tea is not too strong or too weak, and the time depends on how many infusions you have done already. Each successive infusion should be longer than the last one. And each successive infusion tastes a little differently than the last. That is why the teapot and the teacups are so small, so that the drinkers can taste the flavor developing from infusion to infusion.

On Sunday evening we quaffed so many infusions that I lost count. I don’t know if all that caffeine had kept anyone up late afterwards, but I’m pretty sure of one thing. I’m pretty sure that all of them after leaving my house went straight to the bathroom.

A Few o My Favorite Links

This is another text copied over from my other (now deleted) blog.

Anywhere that I can get full texts of classic works for free is a great place in my opinion. In the following place you can download classic works from church history. For example, you can read Thomas a Kempis' famous book there.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/kempis/imitation.i.html

I get a kick out of G.K. Chesterton.
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/index.html
http://www.chesterton.org/discover/who.html

The Stanford Encl. of Philosophy is kinda thick stuff, but it is good information about all kinds of ideas.
http://plato.stanford.edu/

This page has links to lots of free texts that you might not find in your local library. One fellow here that I have heard about for many years but never read is John Chrysostom. I'm interested in learning more about Medieval thought. It can't be as dark as people say it is.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook2.html

A good page to find full texts of literature.
http://bartleby.com/

Eggs

As I was shutting down an old blog I had, I moved some of the posts over to my current one. Below is one of them.

I came across a couple quotes from G.K. as I was reading his book on St. Thomas Aquinas. In the first one he was talking about how it was in vogue for philosophers to get all caught up in epistemology and start doubting if things they perceive actually exist.

"I saw an almost startling example of this essential frivolity in a professor of final scepticism, in a paper the other day. A man wrote to say that he accepted nothing but Solipsism, and added that he had often wondered it was not a more common philosophy. Now Solipsism simply means that a man believes in his own existence, but not in anybody or anything else. And it never struck this simple sophist, that if his philosophy was true, there obviously were no other philosophers to profess it."

This is a quotation from the same book. It is a simple comparison of various viewpoints' takes on eggs.

"Against all this the philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded on the universal common conviction that eggs are eggs. The Hegelian may say that an egg is really a hen, because it is a part of an endless process of Becoming; the Berkeleian may hold that poached eggs only exist as a dream exists; since it is quite as easy to call the dream the cause of the eggs as the eggs the cause of the dream; the Pragmatist may believe that we get the best out of scrambled eggs by forgetting that they ever were eggs, and only remembering the scramble. But no pupil of St. Thomas needs to addle his brains in order adequately to addle his eggs; to put his head at any peculiar angle in looking at eggs, or squinting at eggs, or winking the other eye in order to see a new simplification of eggs. The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God."