I have alluded to the lack of sanitation in Southern China and it is so – by Western standards. The boat people leave their sewage in the Yong Jiang river, the main waterway here, about the size of the Missouri river, with little or no flow because it is not sped along by a Chinese corps of engineers. There are a lot of foul run-offs into the river as well. I don’t think about where the fish for dinner came from.

The Japanese have a whole high-tech industry devoted to the manufacture of toilets. Theirs have heat, massage, cleansing jets, auto flush and every other conceivable accoutrement. Europeans have the bidet and Americans have the porcelain commode. In China, only a few hundred kilometers away from the Japanese and their futuristic crappers, they have a ceramic-lined hole in the floor, like some southern European countries (i.e. Turkey, Greece, Italy). The victim stands astride the hole and squats. Now the Chinese have been doing this pretty often since childhood, and it surely comes naturally for them. For fat Americans this is reminiscent of hunting trips and being caught short in the woods – without toilet paper or leaves. Western toilets are available only in hotels and McDonalds. The Chinese toilets in public places are universally filthy and never have toilet paper, so I carry some with me at all time and I hope everyone does; I shake hands a lot here, even with the cook who has been pounding and stretching the dough for my noodles while I watch. It is like bacterial Russian Roulette; I am glad the odds are 6:1 against in this bacterial revolver.

This is a hot climate most of the year, and most floors are some kind of terrazzo, marble, or tile. The entire bathroom floor acts as a shower, and all the water runs into the toilet off to the side of the room. Very efficient – Wash yourself, clean the floor and flush the toilet with the same water. Wish I’d thought of shower shoes; there are none here to fit my size-12 feet. Serendipitously, Yuening shows up with a pair on my second day in Nanning and the abacus of the Monkey King clicks another tally of gracious deeds.