“I will take you to Toilet World”, promised Journey as soon as we met in Foshan, her hometown in Guangdong province, in the South of China.
“What? Toilet what?!”, I asked her, picturing in my head some kind of huge retail store where they sold all kind of toiletry for the newly built homes. It was my last day in China, my visa was expiring in a few hours and I was eager to see a few landmarks of my friend’s town. Toilet World, however, sounded… weird.
“Oh, you will see. I’m sure you’ll like it”, she reassured me mysteriously, knowing about my interest in the bizarre.
I had met Journey a few months ago while we were both travelling in Thailand, and we became good friends immediately. I loved her relaxed attitude towards life and her passion for travel; that’s why, when she told me she would take me to this “Toilet World” I trusted her choice.
Later that day, we walked inside what I thought would be a “simple public park” and without any introduction whatsoever from my friend, I came face to face with this:
Toilet World: a 100-meter long, 5-meter-high waterfall built with more than 10,000 recycled toilet bowls, urinals and sinks. The waterfall was built in October 2009 as an artistic installation for the Pottery and Porcelain Festival of Foshan by local artist Shu Yong. The toilets and sinks were collected from factories and donated by foreigners and the installation was completed in two months.
This must be said: Foshan, a city of 5.5 million inhabitants, is famous for being China’s capital of china (porcelain!). The organisers of the exhibition decided to leave the waterfall as a public art installation even after the festival, with the objective of raising awareness about water waste and the importance of recycling.
So forget about the old and boring Iguazú or Niagara Falls, this is a bizarre waterfall you won’t find anywhere else in the world!
Aniko Villalba
Aniko is an Argentinian writer, photographer and traveler. She is currently traveling around Southeast Asia and writing about all her interesting, bizarre and curious experiences in her blog Viajandoporahi.
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