The French Traditional WC - CHIOTTES À LA TURQUE
A description of a still-common French installation
You will still find these in an old fashioned French brasserie, a autoroute minimalist style "Air de .." or a low grade municipal camping. The door is usually labelled "WC" and leads to a cubicle a little less than a metre square, a high water cistern with a powerful jet and sunken into the floor so that there is at least some possibility that your feet won't get splashed, a porcelain utility with two oblong splodges where you put your boots and squat over a four inch diameter hole which is located exactly under your arsehole when you squat. As it is a water closet, there is water down there and if you score a direct hit you will get the splash of the rebound.
No handholds are usually provided and the paper, if present, is out of reach when squatting.
You can stand and piss at the hole but will surely splash the "footprints" which (together with the powerful flush water jet) explains why they are invariably slippery.
The French point out to the English that as there is no lavatory seta you cannot catch anything like VD from it. That is assuming that your keys or change don't fall out of your pockets while squatting.
Terry mentions that this is infinitely superior to the Indonesian version (I believe the French colonised and civilised that area) where the flushing is performed with a jug which you fill before entering the cubicle.
A variety which I have encountered in market town brasseries has a wooden pallet over the floor porcelain and a showerhead so you can clean off. When used as a toilet, the lower edge of the pallet is usually washed every time the toilet flushes as it is too close to the business...
Do you still want to go to Paris?
A correspondent adds from Japan, a country with a strong French colonial influence:
John:
So, in other words, the French WC is almost precisely the same as the Japanese one, except that here there is apt to be more space, and if the place has any pretensions at all (like a restaurant) there will be flowers. Also there is often a second jet of water when you flush which emerges from the top of the tank, so you can rinse your hands. Toilet paper, however, is equally catch-as-catch-can.
The sit-down style is spreading in popularity, though. Most recently built apartments and houses are equipped with it, and many stores have both. Here too the argument that there is no seat to transmit disease (the Japanese as I'm sure you're away tend to be almost neurotically clean; you can buy "germ-proof" pillowcases, for instance). As a result, a lot of places--including the toilets at work--have a special set of slippers you use there, so as not to transmit any pollution to the rest of the building. On the same principle, most Japanese of my acquaintance loathe the idea of having the bathtub and the toilet in the same room, though most non-luxury hotels do.
Richard
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Subj: argot
J'ai oublié de répondre à ta question sur un mot d'argot.
Fais-tu référence aux toilettes sans siège que nous appelons des "WC à la turcque" ? Mais cette expression n'est pas de l'argot. A vrai dire, je ne vois pas.
En argot, on parle de "chiottes" pour tous les types de WC.
Jusqu'au années 60, il y avait dans les rues des urinoirs qu'en argot on appelait "tasses", mais je ne crois pas que tu fasses allusion à cela.
CP
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Subj: CHIOTTES À LA TURQUE
Dear John,
The slang word for the toilets you describe is CHIOTTES À LA TURQUE, and were suposed to come from Turkey.
Indonesia was not a colony of France, but of Netherland, so you can't blame us.
And I have to let you know that the standard toilets has not been any chiottes à la turque since the end of the war, even if some have still been put in public places. The matter is not on hygienic purposes but on the easy way of washing them (a water pipe is enough...)
All the rest is true, except you has no need to step on the two oblong feet shape for pissing, but stay outside of the whole block. I normally put my trouser off when squatting to avoid any trouble of keys/change/etc and also to squat in it...
I thought you still had some things to learn about french behaving. By the way, in Paris they still have plenty of those, when in France they stopped a long time ago...
Yours,
Pierre
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Subj: Chiottes Turques
Date: 07/05/01 21:19:46 GMT Daylight Time
Hi John,
I''m perusing your most interesting homepage, and I have a really good time..
One of the interests we share is what the French call Chiottes Turques, and they claim that these come from Turkey.
My venerated boss told me a funnier version of the provenance of the name Chiottes à la Turque: very often there is no hook, and the place is utterly dirty. I order to keep your pants clean. you're obliged to put them on your head, and, by twisting the legs and making a knot aboveyour head, you obtain a turban. There you are, a sultan on the throne.
Cheers,
Erik