Anyone who visits a public toilet has almost certainly discovered graffiti on the walls. Drawings, caricatures, love messages, dirty limericks or lewd offers. Some call it “toilet poetry”. Others consider it simply vandalism.
In the People’s Republic of China, there have also been such graffiti and embassies for some time. However, these have a much more serious character. They are protests, criticism of the country’s communist dictatorship.
China is a surveillance state par excellence. Public space is monitored, the internet, smartphones. State censorship controls the media and the internet. Protests – especially against the government – are a rarity. There are few corners of the country where you can express yourself freely. One of those places are public toilets. Because there are no cameras there.
According to the China Digital Times, a US-based independent media outlet that reports in Chinese on topics that are blocked or deleted by state censorship in China.
According to the China Digital Times report, the likely trigger for the toilet resistance is banners with dissident slogans that were hung up at the Chinese Communist Party congress in Beijing.
Since then, handwritten protest slogans have appeared in public toilets in many cities in China, the content of which refers to the banners in Beijing. Internet users would assume that the messages on the toilets have a low risk because there is no surveillance and the authors are difficult to trace.
The “China Digital Times” shows photos of the protest embassies from Shanghai, Shenzhen and Jiangsu. A picture from Nanjing criticizes China’s zero-Covid strategy, the dictatorship, the lack of freedom, dignity and the lack of reforms.
The name of this new toilet criticism in China is derived from a reform that was also called the toilet revolution. In 2015, President Xi Jinping initiated a reform aimed at improving sanitation across the country – especially in tourist spots – otherwise notorious for being “dirty holes” in the ground.
One of the people who wrote these toilet messages is Raven Wu. This isn’t his real name. He only spoke to US broadcaster CNN on condition of anonymity.
“While doodling, I felt a long-lost sense of liberation,” Wu said. “In this country of extreme cultural and political censorship, no political self-expression is allowed. I was satisfied that, for the first time in my life as a Chinese citizen, I was doing the right thing for the people.”
He was also afraid of being discovered – and of the consequences, but he managed to push them aside. He is very concerned about the future of China. In the past two years, “desperate news” has repeatedly shocked him, he said.
Chen Qiang (also not his real name), who lives in southwest China, also shared his criticism in a public toilet, according to CNN. He was also afraid of being caught. “I don’t love the (communist) party. I have feelings for China, but not for the government.”
“Due to censorship and surveillance, people can only express political opinions by writing slogans in places like toilets. It’s sad that we’ve been oppressed to this extent,” Chen said.
But it’s only a matter of time before the “new toilet revolution” is over. According to the China Digital Times, an internet user writes: “In the future, you will have to go through security checks when entering the toilet, so you are not allowed to bring pens with you.”
Another wrote: “Starting next week we will reach the point where face scans and personal identification are required to buy office supplies and go to the toilet.”
And that’s not at all unlikely. For example, there is toilet paper in the toilets at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing – against a face scan, as the British BBC reports. According to the authorities, the reason for the scanner was the theft of the paper rolls. But these scanners can also be used to determine who used the place – or who wrote protest slogans there.
Quellen: “China Digital Times”, CNN, BBC, “South China Morning Post”
