Wednesday, July 18, 2007

The Navy Shower?


This reminded me of the dorms at Tsinghua University in China. For us international students, we were lucky enough to have our own bathrooms in relatively new buildings. The buildings were maybe 2 years old. The catch? We paid 8x the rent compared to local students. Also, since our building was built on a rushed schedule, and rather cheaply at that (everything in China is done this way), our hot water pumps would clog all the time, resulting in days, even weeks without hot water.

So I and a few of my friends took advantage of another perk of being an international student: all rooms were equipped with an electric hot water pitcher. When the hot water would go out, we'd boil water and mix with cold water, and take "showers" that way. I was able to make do with only one liter of boiled water! Nothing made me feel more connected to my heritage than pouring water over myself with a little cup while squatting.

Big, cheap dormsThe fabulous bathroom

1 comment:

eddy said...

One liter of boiled water? Did you actually manage to wash your hair AND soap up? I think I would need a liter of water just to wash my face.

BTW -- the title of this post made me think of things that were completely unrelated to what the actual post was about.