The Wind and Moon on the Poplar and Willow Bank-- an interesting talk on the toilet

Hello, everyone. First of all, I'd like to ask you a question. How long is a minute?

this is a very esoteric question of relativity.

but the answer is simple: how long a minute is, depending on whether you are squatting in the toilet or waiting outside.

Today I'm going to talk about toilets.

the reason why toilets are difficult to talk about is that sometimes we pay so much attention to the contents of squatting pits that we ignore the toilet itself. I thought, let him go with such a disgusting thing, who cares about him? People are mortal, there is a restaurant to eat, can defecate to the toilet, not even a day away.

Don't look down on the toilet. Chen Jingrun had no office space at the university, so he asked the school for a toilet to work. So our great Goldbach guessed that the "1x 2" problem was overcome in the toilet. Ouyang Xiu once said, "what I have done in my life is on the three, right away, on the toilet and the pillow." writing articles in the toilet is also a stunt of Master Ouyang Xiu. So the toilet and the master are inextricably linked. Toilet, it's also very academic.

the toilet is the only place where emperors and generals and ordinary people can be equal except death. For many years, we thought that to talk about toilets was to talk about vulgarity. The toilet is not only an indispensable part of history but also the embodiment of aesthetics and humanistic care.

Liu Yong once said: where to wake up after drinking tonight, the willow bank will know the wind and the moon. When Su Dongpo read this word, he said with a smile: what willow shore Xiaofeng residual moon, a public convenience. From then on, the toilet got a nickname: the willow bank, the wind, and the moon.

then please relax now, with a beautiful mood, under the guidance of this beautiful word, let's start this beautiful trip to the toilet together.

"toilet" refers to the filthy place in Shuowenjiezi. "it should be repaired regularly to make it clean and clean." The word "toilet" itself also has the meaning of holding water on the high bank. Compared with today's squatting public toilets, it is very vivid.

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first of all, let's go back to ancient times and see how the ancients went to the toilet without flushing toilets. The earliest toilets in China were found 5000 years ago in Banpo, Xi'an. At that time, the toilet was just a dirt pit. But the world's prototype of a toilet appeared in China, around 2300 BC. Of course, that is only an exception. Until the Spring and Autumn period, toilets in China are still very simple. At that time, the toilet was not only primitive but also full of life-threatening at any time. According to the Spring and Autumn TV "Zuo Zhuan" report: at noon on June 6, 581 BC, Jin Jinggong, the state leader of Jin, felt sick in his stomach after dinner, so he went to the toilet, unfortunately, fell into a cesspool and drowned. This station expressed deep condolences.

the tradition of using a dirt pit as a toilet is still fortunately preserved in the countryside. In the Han Dynasty, the toilets still didn't seem to make much progress, and even the toilets in the palace were speechless. At that time, the toilet was connected with the pigsty, and the ancient toilet wrote "pig", that is, when a little water was added to the pigsty, it became a toilet. At that time, the toilet was on top and there were steps to climb, which was also in line with the physical principle, that is, the stench of the toilet could float high to achieve the effect of deodorization. But the problem is that there is a small door next to the steps to communicate with the pigsty so that the wild boar can come when you go to the toilet.

Historical Records record that one day when Han Jingdi went to the toilet in the royal garden, a wild boar broke in. "Han Shu" once said: "the herd comes out of the toilet", which means that a large flock of pigs rushed out of the toilet, which is even more spectacular than the animal world. So now people feel so lucky to think of this when they go to the bathroom comfortably at home.

for example, up to now, we can see that since ancient times, people don't want to think about the toilet. Just do what you have to do! From Han to Tang, toilets have hardly changed. It's two pedals and a pit. However, the Chinese are smart, and they have invented mobile toilets based on fixed toilets, which are called toilets.

the toilet originated in the Han Dynasty when Flying General Li Guang shot a tiger and asked people to build a tiger-shaped toilet as a sign of contempt. In the Tang Dynasty, because there was an ancestor of Li Shimin's family named Li Hu, this thing was changed to the beast, or girlfriend, to avoid taboos. No, no, this is not what you think, this is the origin of the toilet. Such a thing is recorded in the Book of Mengliang in the Southern Song Dynasty. It is said that in Lin'an, every household does not have a toilet, so they put the filth into the toilet, there is special personnel to collect feces, and each collector has a fixed customer, and others are not allowed to rush to collect the filth of the fixed customer. There is a work ethic in everything! In the end, the toilet no longer moved, but instead of the pit, was fixed in the toilet, this is later.

the toilets in the birthplaces of other ancient civilizations are similar to those in China. I dug a hole and went to it. But we need to introduce the toilet in ancient Rome because it is so powerful. The ancient Romans liked to talk about politics and eloquence, so their toilet was a real public social place. The toilets in Rome are completely open, regardless of men and women, and the toilets are in the square with a panoramic view of people coming and going. In ancient Rome, people were a community, and this kind of gregariousness was also reflected in the toilet. The toilet in ancient Rome was a row of wall seats with many holes dug so that the ancient Romans could talk to their neighbors about the latest hot events when they went to the toilet. It's called politics. It stinks.

after talking about the development of toilets, let's take a look at how to deodorize in the past. As mentioned above, ancient toilets were built high to prevent the smell from escaping to the ground, which is also away. After that, Xiaomin casually solved the problem in the field, but in the aristocracy, all kinds of deodorization tricks have already been used.

according to Shi Shuo Xinyu, Wang Dun in the Western Jin Dynasty was recruited as the horse of Princess Wuyang. When she was newly married, she saw the legendary royal toilet for the first time. I was very excited and found that there were still in the toilet. When the lacquerware was filled with dried dates, I thought that this was probably a special food for squatting pits, so I ate all of it. As a result, I found that dried dates were used to plug my nose to prevent stench, which made a joke. In addition to this more extravagant method, sandalwood shavings and goose feathers are also used in the palace to prevent the stench. The specific methods of operation are as follows: the filth falls in the pit, sandalwood shavings, goose feathers float up because of light, and finally fall on the filth, it is said that the effect is good.

there is also the method of smoking incense, which is probably the origin of "night incense". The same is true in foreign countries. It was not until 1597 when John Harrington designed a toilet that used flushing, that the filth was flushed away, and the old method of deodorization no longer existed. In ancient times, because the stench was sometimes difficult to get rid of, for fear of sticking to clothes, aristocrats had to change their clothes every time they went to the toilet. This is why going to the toilet is also called "changing". Because ancient Japanese royal women wore "twelve orders," it took 15 minutes for them to take off their clothes and put them on after going to the toilet.

so how did the ancients solve the problem in ancient times when there was no toilet paper? In ancient China, there was a time when anything could be used, tiles, leaves, hands. Later, people may think that bamboo slices are easier to use, so a new tool came out: toilet chips, chips are bamboo slices, but bamboo slices are often hairy and very uncomfortable. It was not until the Yuan Dynasty that our great art of papermaking was applied to the toilet. In the Yuan Dynasty, papyrus began to replace toilet chips as cleaning tools, while silk toilet paper was used in the palace, and the softness of the hand paper was strictly required. In ancient Rome, there was a big fountain in the public toilet, and there was a sponge stick under each seat. After going to the toilet, you would take the sponge stick to the fountain with water, and then you could wipe it, but this cotton swab was for public use.

next, let's talk about the public management measures and drainage system of toilets. As early as the Han Dynasty, China had public toilets, which were called "all toilets" at that time. There is such a story in Taiping Guang Ji: Liu once met a fairy, but he acted impolitely and talked loudly. So the fairy played Liu disrespectfully and asked Liu to "guard the toilet for three years". In the official system, there were even court officials specializing in toilets in the Tang Dynasty. In Rome, toilets were taxed for the first time in 69 BC. In the Qing Dynasty, to solve the funds for the management of feces, the Qing government set up some paid toilets and allowed private operators to run them. People who went to the toilets had to pay one cent, about 20 cents as much as they are now. But at that time, public toilets were not acceptable to people, and to save money, people were reluctant to go to public toilets. And in such a big city as Beijing, there are very few public toilets. So people began to defecate on the road. Not only do ordinary people do this, but some officials also take the lead in doing so. As a result, according to the Records of Yanjing, Beijing at that time was not only a huge capital but also a huge public toilet. If there are girls who aspire to travel to the Qing Dynasty like "step by step", I am afraid this experience is very "flavor". This situation did not change until the end of the Qing Dynasty. Toilets are built all over the streets of Beijing, and defecation is not allowed anywhere. Moreover, there are dung cars on the street, with the number of ringing bells, the city of Beijing becomes clean.

generally speaking, the development of ancient toilet culture in China is much more advanced than that in the West. In medieval Europe, people did not have the concept of toilets; it was not until modern times that toilets in the West gradually moved towards civilization. Ancient China had a very developed sewage system. A few years ago, when a flood peak broke out, cities all over the country were flooded to varying degrees, only Ganzhou in Jiangxi Province, and there was an urban drainage system represented by Fushou ditch in the Song Dynasty, which even made the old city of Ganzhou not submerged at all.

but this is not the case in the West when toilet sewerage was speechless and aristocrats were no better. In 1606, Henry IV of France banned aristocrats from defecating in the corners of the Louvre. In 1843, when Queen Victoria visited Cambridge University, she asked the headmaster who accompanied her, "what's with the paper going down the river?" The headmaster knew that they were toilet paper, but he didn't want to embarrass the queen, so he said, "your Majesty, that's a notice forbidding swimming here." Before the invention of the sewerage system, the Thames was a public toilet. It was not until the famous "Great stench incident" broke out on the Thames in London in the summer of 1858 that people began to build a sewer system. In the late 19th century, when water pipes and sewerage systems were installed in major cities in Europe, flush toilets invented in the 16th century became popular.

the 19th century can be called the "toilet century" of the West. In the 1840s, a sewer system for flushing pipes with river water appeared in Hamburg. In 1852, flush toilets were first used in public toilets in England. In China at the same time, Lafayette was still using sandalwood crumbs. After each courtesy, a large number of eunuchs came up to clean up. So let's see, even though the toilet is so inconspicuous, it is also a symbol of human civilization. In the toilet, we all lagged behind others in modern times. If you fall behind, you will be beaten, and if you fall behind on the toilet, you will be spanked!

A toilet is a private place and a place to solve personal problems. The more civilized it is, the more humane it will be. As early as the Han Dynasty, we found squatting toilets with handrails that gave you something to rely on when you were out of breath. A toilet built more than 2000 years ago was found in the Han Tomb in Mangdangshan, Shangqiu City, Henan Province, China. It is the earliest flushing toilet in the world. The toilet in the Han tomb covers an area of about 2 square meters and has a broad handrail on the side of a sitting toilet made of stone. On the wall behind the toilet, toilet builders chiseled out a flushing pipe, whose structure and principle are very similar to those of today's flushing toilets. 7,000 years ago, Egypt already had toilets for men and women. Speaking of humanization, once I went to Japan and saw a bunch of buttons on the Japanese toilet, I pressed them one by one. It turns out that there is a button that can be used to heat the seat to prevent the ass from getting cold in winter, and some buttons are used for massage. I've tried. I don't know where it's going to be massaged. There is also a button, I was startled when I pressed it, and the toilet started Sing! I think this is entertainment? Go out to ask the tour guide, the guide said that sometimes there is an indecent sound when defecating in the toilet, which is used to cover it. The Japanese not only need to save face on the outside, but also have to be decent in food packaging; they also have to be decent in solving internal emergencies, which is also a manifestation of humanization. There is also Braille on the buttons of the Japanese toilet, which is very barrier-free.

from the nuance of the toilet, we can also see the gap. Once, I saw a toilet in Beijing, which is simply a department store, the toilet is very large, once inside, it is full of shopping, it can be seen to make good use of the toilet, it can also have a variety of values.

some toilets are dirty, but some toilets are elegant and artistic. In recent years, more and more toilets have become places to compete for creativity.

in fact, in today's world, the toilet is no longer a toilet but has become a place with a variety of social, artistic, commercial, and other functions, from the ancient times where our ancestors lived to the convenient modern times. From the toilet that will fall into the drowned toilet to the toilet that is so advanced now, from the name of the toilet manager to the dressing room, dressing room, and other elegant names, the toilet is developing step by step, and human beings are also moving towards civilization step by step. In ancient times, toilets were simple and unsanitary, but the earliest handrails, sewerage systems, and other facilities had to be said to be more advanced than we are today. At the same time as the reform of sanitary conditions in modern western countries, the villages and even the imperial palaces in China were still old-style toilets. To look at the level of civilization of a country, it is sometimes necessary to look at such subtle places as toilets. While seeing the future, a modern civilization sometimes needs to look back to the past and look for lost wisdom from its ancestors.

the toilet is the most authentic place of human nature, and it is also the place that tests our quality the most. Paying attention to the most detailed place, paying attention to the truest self, is precisely a kind of consciousness that we lack today.

in Journey to the West, Sun WuKong jokingly called the toilet "the place of reincarnation of the five grains", which means that the five grains are born on the ground, and after being eaten by us humans, they are excreted out of the body and nourish the earth again. A man named Dongguozi asked where Zhuangzi Road was. Zhuangzi said that in defecation, there is a way in such a humble place, so where is there no way? So I hope you will learn more in the place of reincarnation of the five grains in the future.

with the humor of Zhuangzi, this beautiful topic ends here today. To borrow the words of Mr. Yang Zhishui, we can finally "play elegance at the end of the song".