Bowel Movements:

Disclaimer: If the title didn't tip you off, this is going to be a bit of a crude post, so those with weak stomachs, bladders and the faint hearted should not go on. As for the rest of you, consider yourselves warned.

Just once in China, just once, I'd like to walk out of the bathroom without thinking something along the lines of "Well, I don't know what just happened, but that was weird!". Travelling to China apparently makes just about everyone (the foreigners, anyway) talk very openly about bowel movements. Questions like "So... you solid?" are not uncommon in my apartment. The worst part, in my opinion, is that you never know what's going to happen when you walk ominously into the bathroom. You just know it probably isn't going to go well. It is for this reason I have decided to classify the behaviours of my unforgiving digestive system:

"Solid Shit"
A rarity in China, this one is a normal trip to the bathroom to those of you in first world countries.

"Mud Butt"
This is where I feel like I'm peeing brown out my ass. It's severely dehydrating as well.

"The Plug"
You sit (or squat, if a western toilet is not accessible) and start off with something like a Solid Shit. Typically, this has a constipated beginning, followed by great relief when a normal poop begins. Once the first one drops (the plug), the rest of your time in the washroom is spent enjoying the wonders of Mud Butt, or something like it. This is often accompanied by many thoughts of "Why can't my ass make up its mind?!" and "Oh God, what next?". If I were religious, this would probably also include prayers.

"Rapid Fire"
A constant flow of little soft bullets coming out of your behind. None are terribly large, and the consistency is not great, though far more preferable to the infamous Mud Butt.

Earlier in the blog, I posted something about customers warning me at Staples that when I am in China, I am going to have low grade diarrhea. This has not been totally true, though it is becoming more true as time goes on and I've been in China longer.

I also mentioned something about Western toilets and Squat toilets. I have found there's about a 30-40% chance of getting a Western sit-down toilet in any given store. Squat toilets are a bit of an adventure, though often frustrating, because they take too much concentration. You have to make sure you hit the target (the bowl), you have to keep squatting in the same position, you have to make sure you don't pee on yourself, you have to make sure you don't poop on your pants, and it's all just too much work. I want to just sit down and wait for it. That's it. Especially since kids use the squat toilets too, and suck at aiming.