How Mastering the Squat Toilet Will Improve Your Life

When I was much, much younger, one of my most memorable things to do was to visit my grandparents from my mom’s side. They lived in a small village in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, on a land that was given by the government. They were not rich in money, but oh so rich in love. And it was in this lovely home where I first discovered the squatty toilet.

Unlike many whose association of squat toilets are mostly of the sights and smells they’ve experienced in both public and private Chinese lavatories, mine was in a clean bathroom that always stayed clean, where the flush lever was very high and very far from the squatty toilet and where water didn’t bounce back so forcefully that your poop is caught in its tidal wave. It wasn’t until later on, when a school friend talked about her “China Experience” of yucky squat toilets and public bathrooms (which to be fair are sometimes gross in my other home country, the Philippines, as well) that I realized that squat toilets were considered ewww …

But take away the negative publicity the Chinese squat toilet is constantly marred with and – for now – instead of calling it the squat toilet, let’s call it by its other name, the “Natural Position Toilet.” There’s a reason why it’s still being used all over the world, and today, its positive attributes are slowly being recognized.

This article originally appeared on our sister account beijingkids.

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