From "romantic city" to "shit city", open-air toilets show a real Europe.

If you have traveled to Europe, you can see this, this and this in the street. Wait a little longer, passers-by will use it in public. Although Europeans seem relaxed when they get together to urinate, if I were you, I would definitely blush with embarrassment on this occasion.

Why do Europeans who call themselves "civilized people" like to gather people to pee in the street so much?

In fact, Europeans have been urinating in the street for more than 200 years. If you have seen foreign historical documentaries, you will find that walking on the streets of most European countries used to be a very disgusting thing. American writer Hoding Carter wrote in the book History of Toilets: "In France, potty dumpers sympathize with pedestrians outside. Whenever they pour wine, they will shout,' Be careful, water! "

After a long time, the street has become a big cesspit, and the civilized European continent was so barbaric hundreds of years ago. "In many western classical novels, we often see people urinating in the street, and pedestrians have to admit that they are unlucky even if they are splashed all over.

Because they have had such behavior themselves, although many people suffer from it, in the next thousand years, people don't think it is wrong to follow this move, but they have developed the habit of gentlemen walking on the left side of women, because this can block the "dirty rain" from the volley at any time.

The world-famous classic Louvre was once the dirtiest place. Robert H. Lowie, an anthropologist, wrote in Civilization and Savagery that everyone can be convenient in the yard, on the stairs, on the balcony and behind the door.

Francis I, as the French king, saw the Louvre become a "public toilet", and his face naturally hung up.

1539, when he issued a decree, "We are dissatisfied and worried about the terrible waste of the beautiful environment in Paris" and claimed that people illegally dumped excrement, but this law didn't work at all. The painter Leonardo da Vinci once made a detailed plan for a sanitary city. Regarding the problem of excrement, his plan is to build enough public toilets.

Finally, in the spring of 1830, the Paris municipal government decided to install the first public urinal on the main road. This open-air urinal is very convenient to separate from the surrounding buildings, and it can also provide a public space for lighting.

So in the following decades, open-air toilets developed rapidly in France. In its heyday, there were more than 1 1,500 urinals on the streets of Paris, and their shapes, sizes and structures were all different. Dialectically, the development of toilets can be approximately equal to the development of human civilization. It was in the 1990s that men and women first became aware of using toilets.

In the American TV series "ally mcbeal", colleagues of the opposite sex in a law firm talk about everything in the bathroom shared by men and women. This scene can be found thousands of years ago, that is, in ancient Rome. The ancient Greeks invented the beautifully decorated chamber pot because of their ease and love of beauty, and always took it with them at banquets and trips.

Romans are different. They paid attention to reality and invented sewers. However, not everyone can enjoy such sanitary facilities. The use license is expensive and only owned by a few wealthy families. Ordinary Roman families can only rely on public toilets, so public toilets, like bathrooms, have become an important communication occasion in Rome.

In the eyes of many ancient Romans, the toilet was not only a useful place, but also a very important social place for gossip and business talks. They talk about politics and gossip in the well-decorated bathroom, but the sanitary facilities are far less exquisite than the appearance of public toilets.

Ancient Rome was proud of its perfect water circulation system, which made the ditches always have running water and almost no odor, so one of the favorite places of ancient Rome was the toilet.

There may be many viewers who don't believe it. In the past, there were some places where excrement was "highly respected". /kloc-in the 0 th century, Hefer, the tribal leader of the Welsh, specially set up the position of "Minister of Urine". As the name implies, the Minister of Urine is the post of managing urine. Heffer believes that urinating is a very precious and useful thing and should not be wasted. Various communities in Wales have also appointed "dung mayors".

Ancient people didn't regard going to the toilet as an embarrassing thing, but the attitude of modern people has changed a lot. In order to express the word "toilet" implicitly, euphemisms emerge one after another, including but not limited to swamps, ponds, gentlemen's homes, places to pass, places to relax, the smallest room and toilets. Only the last word has been used so far, and it seems to be the only word that is easy to understand now.

Even if there are no separate toilets for men and women, public toilets in cities are always much better than open toilets. The semi-open space of street toilets will still bring people a sense of tension, but even if the shortcomings are so obvious, it has not been eliminated by indoor public toilets. This is about the inconvenience of European public toilets.

Europeans themselves love cleanliness, so the environment of public toilets is very good, but a considerable number of toilets need to be charged, or there are staff at the door to sell tickets, or they need to pay for themselves. For many ordinary people, it is better to solve it in an open toilet.

If you are in China, if you are in a hurry when shopping, you will basically not be refused to use any store toilets. But in Europe, passers-by must first become their customers if they want to use the toilet in the store. For example, McDonald's once printed the password of the toilet door in the store on the receipt. Since Europeans like open-air toilets so much, designers should naturally innovate them.

In recent years, many new open-air toilets are an eye-opener, and their privacy and convenience have been greatly improved. For example, the open-air urinal in France uses spiral design instead of door lock, which not only protects privacy but also is convenient and fast, and is specially designed for women.

Elevator toilets in Holland

Disguised as a manhole cover on weekdays. When it is needed, the small room with good sealing will slowly rise from the ground. But many users of open-air toilets still have to face such an episode. Watch the scenery when you go to the toilet, and the people watching the scenery on the street are watching you. The appearance of toilets not only saved human civilization, but also made life in Europe and America more decent.

In the United States, the cholera epidemic in the civil war made people realize that it was inappropriate to throw things out of the window at will, and began to have a deep sense of responsibility for public health.

/kloc-in the 6th century, the British poet John Harington invented the toilet and gradually replaced the urinal;

/kloc-in the 9th century, Thomas Klepa, a plumber, improved the traditional toilet.

After 19, public toilets became a common place in America.

Since then, human excrement discharge has entered a modern period. Huoding Carter once praised: "The most obscure heroes in human history are the wise men who invented sewers and the humble plumbers." Duchamp, a French artist, once took a urinal to an art exhibition and named it "Spring", which became an anecdote in the history of art.

Toilets are very popular in Europe and America. Queen Victoria of England regards a beautiful toilet as a status symbol. In America, toilets represent a new way of life. In the Japanese Far East, the first toilet appeared in the old Iwasaki Mansion near Shinzinchi, Ueno, Tokyo, where the eldest son of Iwasaki Yataro, the founder of Mitsubishi Corporation, lived.

When it comes to toilets, you have to mention "asian squat" and "European Sit"!

The toilet brings out the elegance of toilet. With this elegant posture, people can sweep away the filth effortlessly, and at the same time cover the bare body parts. Even if it appears in the scenes of film and television dramas, it will not feel dirty and embarrassed.

Squatting may not work, but even if it is considered an indecent way to go to the toilet, Asians prefer squatting, with their feet completely on the ground, their hips close to their ankles and their bodies stable. In the eyes of westerners who only touch the ground on tiptoe, this posture is called "Asian Squat".

Europeans are also confused about squat toilets. On well-known foreign video websites, some netizens "naively" think that squatting pits are used to wash feet, and "asian squat" and "Europe Sit" only need their own things. Japanese writer Masayoshi Saito, known as the "Asian toilet critic", wrote in Tokyo:

It is indeed smoother to defecate with a squatting toilet than with a sitting toilet, and there is a feeling that you can come out in one breath.

According to statistics, each person spends about 15 minutes on "convenience" every day. In other words, a person's life, about a year is spent in the toilet.

In the past 200 years, modern public health facilities have extended the average life expectancy of human beings by 20 years, and toilets have therefore become the most important factor to prolong human life. In terms of saving medical expenses and improving productivity, every investment in public health facilities in 6 yuan can get an average return from 42 yuan.

At least at present, mankind has never stopped trying and exploring to solve urgent problems.