I went on a 6-week trip to Asia (mostly spent in China) in 2007. While I knew about plenty of things ahead of time (ie. to expect squat toilets) there were still plenty of things that felt like culture shock at the time.

The variety of the squat toilets was really the biggest. Before the trip, I’d heard that there was “no sense of privacy” in China, but it wasn’t until I was there that I truly appreciated it. I’d already been in the country several days and was getting the hang of (e.g., no longer had to totally take my pants off) using “squatters”. (I’m still “Western enough” that I carried toilet paper around with me, because it was rarely available in public toilets - and where it was, there was usually a garbage can or box to throw used TP into.)

I’d experienced everything from super-modern squatters to mere holes in the floor, little more than aiming into a wide pipe. Then I walked into the ladies’ room in one of the city’s train stations and found that the bathroom consisted of troughs that ran around 3 of the room’s four walls, with no dividers and certainly no doors to give any sense of privacy. I wasn’t ready for that level of public bathroom, and decided I could manage to hold it until I got on the train.

In most of eastern China, if you were shy/squeamish about sharing body functions with a room full of unabashed locals, you could generally still find private bathrooms/stalls, be it squatter or ‘Western’ style. As we traveled across Tibet, most of the toilets were squatters, and sometimes they’d be nothing more than a hole in a dirt floor; somebody had the job to shovel out the nightshade from the space below and take it away.

A few examples (nothing gross in sight in these pics):

This was a roadside toilet building on the road leading west out of Lhasa, Tibet. The box is for toilet paper, although none was provided. Not sure how the trough “flushed”, but the trough emptied out the side of the building, not far from a river. The doors had no locks so basically they’d just swing back open.

A “two-holer” one-room outhouse somewhere between Gyantse and Shigatse. The door came up to my chest (so anybody walking up could easily see inside) and didn’t lock.

The outhouse at the hostel at Everest Base Camp/Rongbuk in Tibet. The door on the left says ‘Man’ and the one on right says ‘Woman’. Like the one outside Gyantse, these were two-holers/one room each side and the doors didn’t lock, just closed. (Also fun: midnight potty run when it was about 10 degrees outside.)

In addition to ‘bathroom shock’ in China, I wasn’t ready to deal with the smog/pollution that some cities had - one day in Shanghai, I could barely see across the river; in Pingyao, I could taste the pollution on my lips.

Coming from the States, where most if not all states have public ordinances against smoking, it also felt weird to see people smoking everywhere, including restaurants, something I hadn’t experienced in several years in the U.S.

As a red-haired, fair-skinned, blue-eyed foreigner, I got stared at a lot - the more remote/less urban the location, the more people stared. People would ask to take pictures with various members of our group all the time. In Tibet, several times I had people - strangers! - grab my butt or thighs to see if they were real. (I’m not skinny, let’s put it that way.)

After leaving China/Tibet, I went via Kathmandu and Bangkok before landing in Tokyo. After spending the previous two weeks traveling across Tibet’s dry, empty, rocky, mostly-barren landscape, it had been overwhelming to land in green, steamy, hot, colorful Bangkok, so I’d spent most of my 36 hours there holed up in my luxe hotel room, repeatedly luxuriating in the oversized tub. (I’d also lost about 20 pounds at that point, from so much walking on the trip.)

Then Tokyo had its own culture shock for me. Unlike China, the ultra-polite Japanese didn’t stare quite so bluntly, although occasionally people would still ask to take pictures with me. Harajuku’s wild fashions absolutely delighted me, and I had to take care not to be the one obviously staring. The ultra-politeness and, at times quiet, of Tokyo felt jarring after the controlled chaos of Shanghai, Beijing, Kathmandu, and Bangkok.

In Tokyo, there is an unofficial business look: dark suit, white shirt for men; similar for women, but with a skirt. Few people stray from that look with bold ties or colorful dresses. I set out around 9:30am from my hotel to explore the city; I was staying across the street from Shinagawa station (one of the largest train hubs in the city). I was dressed in my red and grey windbreaker, khakis, a plain russet-colored t-shirt, and hiking shoes. As I stood inside the station, trying to figure out where to go, the morning rush hour foot traffic surged around me. Locals would do little more than glance at me and then hurriedly, politely, look away. I realized - at 5′7″ - that I could see over most of the heads around me; my gaze traveled across a sea of black hair. I felt like a giant; I had never felt so tall!