Let me interrupt this story for moment to talk about the inconveniences of chopsticks and squat toilets. Many times I was complimented on my almost expert skills using chopsticks. I mostly just picked it up eating Korean food from nearby restaurants and food trucks back home so I didn’t have much of an issue until it came to hot pot or any type of soup. Grasping those slippery ingredients or noodles with two sticks is both unsanitary and horribly inconvenient but I wasn’t going to be one of “those guys” that use a fork or spoon. Nope, I kept at it and learned from criticisms over my chopsticking technique.
I’m a tad better now I think but I still think a fork, spoon, or the holy grail of cutlery, the Spork, is far superior.
This was especially true a couple times when my hands were numb from being exposed to prolonged periods of cold rain. When your hands are so numb that you can barely make your fingers touch, there isn’t enough muscle strength there to use chopsticks.
Next up is squat toilets.
Sure, I’ve squatted before but I had never used an actual squat toilet before coming to China so I wasn’t briefed on the techniques and etiquette of using them. They seem very impractical for guys. You either pee standing up and there’s a lot more splashback than normal toilets or urinals because of the increased height and velocity with very little water to absorb the impact. And if a guy pees while squatting it’s just weird and, more importantly, doesn’t provide an optimal angle for flow. So I just followed suit of other guys and pee standing up and let any splashing happen. I walked out of a stall once to see a guy facing the stall but also not inside the stall either. Maybe he was going for a new distance record or something. So yeah, squat toilets are not optimal pee receptacles for guys.