From the outside it looks like an art gallery. But this is a gallery of toilets, brought to the residents of Shanghai by Roca, the Spanish bathroom people. It has loos disguised as stacks of books and conveniences that flush with grey water from the sink. The best seller is a sleek commode designed by a former Audi stylist, with a leather seat made by the people who supply BMW with motorcycle perches.从外面看起来，这看起来场艺术展，但实质上它是西班牙卫浴品牌乐家(Roca)为上海市民带给的一场卫浴展览。其中有外形像一填充在一起的书本的马桶，还有用洗手池中的污水冲水的一体式马桶。最畅销的是一款奢侈时尚的马桶，设计者为前奥迪(Audi)设计师，它的真皮垫圈由宝马(BMW)摩托车座椅供应商打造出。

The best-selling colours? A striking deep red, viewed as lucky, and a deliciously understated champagne gold known as tuhaojin, or “nouveau riche gold”. Roca’s China manager says the tuhaojin toilet became popular after Apple launched a golden iPhone in China last year. “People apparently wanted a toilet like their iPhone,” he says.最畅销的颜色呢？是显眼的深红色（象征物幸运地），以及一种高调而华丽的香槟金色（即所谓的“土豪金”）。乐家中国的管理人员回应，苹果(Apple)去年在华公布金色iPhone后，土豪金马桶就开始窜红了。他说道：“看样子人们想一个跟他们的iPhone颜色一样的马桶。

”Nothing would be easier than to caricature China’s golden water closets as symbols of a civilisation in decline. But that’s not what I see in them. Because development is always, when it comes right down to it, about just such everyday intimacies: is the loo half a football field away or right next to the bedroom? Does it reek or sit there quietly conserving water? Does it open automatically, play music and let you trade stocks from the comfort of its heated surface? Proper pundits mutter darkly about rule of law and universal suffrage, shadow banking and debt defaults. But I prefer to tell a tale of toilets.将中国的金色抽水马桶嘲讽为文明衰败之象征物，是一件再行更容易不过的事情，但我却不这么看。因为确实说道一起，发展总是要实施到这类日常生活的舒适度感觉上：厕所是离卧室有半个足球场那么近，还是凸挨着卧室？是臭气熏天，还是静音又节水？能否自动翻盖，播出音乐，让你难受地躺在冷却马桶垫圈上股市？确实的专家们坦率地辩论着法治和选举、影子银行和债务债权人，我却宁愿谈一个关于马桶的故事。

When I first came to live in China in 2008, mainland loos said “developing country” loud and clear. On our first train journey, to the home town of my then eight-year-old adopted Chinese daughter Grace, the rail car’s potty ponged so much that we could not stomach our picnic.2008年，我第一次回到中国内地生活时，内地的厕所悦耳而确切地宣告着自己“发展中国家”的身份。我们第一次乘火车去我的中国养女（当时8岁）格雷丝(Grace)的老家时，列车上的厕所粪到我们连盒饭都不吃不下去。

But very soon all that began to change. The train loos stopped stinking. Prefabricated stainless steel commodes showed up on all newer rolling stock, complete with staff to sluice them down at regular intervals. The only odour on Chinese trains these days is freshly brewed coffee from the dining car.但这一切迅速就再次发生了转变。火车上的厕所仍然臭气熏天，所有较为新的列车上都装有了带上盥洗台的钢架不锈钢马桶，列车员不会定期冲刷。如今在中国的火车上，唯一的气味就是餐车飘来的现熬咖啡味。

Closer to home, there was “Pipi Road”, the nickname we gave to the lane just next to our house, where dozens of Shanghai taxi drivers would every day choose to relieve themselves, after dining at one of the neighbourhood dumpling emporia. The stench nearly put me off moving there in the first place. In winter the wet patches froze and in summer they steamed.我家附近有条“尿尿路”，这是我们给凸挨着我家的那条小巷起的绰号。每天都有几十个上海出租车司机在附近饺子馆用过餐后，到这条小巷里解手。臭气让我一开始差点想搬到到那儿。

冬天尿液在地上冻成一块一块，夏天空气里弥漫着尿骚味。And then one morning, a spanking new government porta-potty turned up on Pipi Road. It was staffed from 5am to 10pm every day by a government sanitation worker charged with keeping it smelling like a Swiss meadow. Who said you need democracy to have responsive government? I can’t think of anything more responsive than putting a public convenience where it’s needed. Pipi Road has had to be rechristened.后来在一天早晨，“尿尿路”上经常出现了一个崭新的移动公厕。它备有专人清扫，每天从凌晨5点到晚上10点，一名环卫工人负责管理让它闻起来总是像瑞士的草坪一样芬芳。

谁说道要有民主才能有积极响应民众市场需求的政府？我想不出有什么比在民众必须的地方成立公厕，更加能反映出有政府积极响应民众市场需求的了。“尿尿路”现在必需得更名了。

Even motorway service areas have done their bit for the toilet uprising. On a long bus journey back in 2011 I withdrew to a loo on one of eastern China’s newest superhighways, to find a room with one long ceramic trough for use by all females in need. But on a family road trip on the same motorway last month I found stalls with doors, and even loo roll. Travelling in China just isn’t what it used to be.就连高速路服务区都已完成了自己的厕所革命。2011年我经历过一次长途汽车旅行，在中国东部的一条崭新的高速公路的服务区，我等候去便利，结果找到厕所里有一条长长的陶瓷槽，所有必须便利的女性都在那里解决问题。

但上个月我们全家自驾上下班，就在同一条高速公路上，我找到服务区的厕所不但是单间，有门，甚至还有卫生纸。在中国上下班早已跟过去几乎不是一回事儿了。

Back at the Roca bathroom gallery, the marketing manager Guillem Pages Giralt says he’s seen big changes in how private customers buy water closets too: “Five years ago a customer would just come in and say ‘which is your most expensive toilet’.” That doesn’t happen any more, he says, though Chinese shoppers do like to lie down in Roca’s bathtubs or sit on its commodes for 20 minutes or so before buying, “to make sure it doesn’t hurt the back of their legs”. But the sheer fact that they have 20 minutes (and up to Rmb30,000, or $4,900) to spend making a loo purchase is good news in itself, surely. Only those who no longer worry about the necessities of life can take the time to worry about buying golden ones.再行返回乐家卫浴展的话题上，营销经理吉列姆帕赫斯希纳尔特(Guillem Pages Giralt)回应，他也亲眼了个人客户出售抽水马桶的巨大变化：“五年前顾客只不会走出来回答，‘你们三高的马桶是哪个’。”他说道，如今很久闻将近这种事了，现在中国消费者倒是一挺讨厌在出售之前，再行在浴缸里躺在上个20分钟，或者在马桶上跪上个20分钟之类的（“以确认他们的腿后面不会会硌到”）。

当然，他们能留出20分钟（也能拿走最少3万元人民币，合4900元美金的钱）来出售马桶，本身就是个好消息。只有那些无须再为生活必需品操心的人，才不会花上时间去操心出售金色马桶的事。

So call me puerile, and unworthy of the pundit’s pen for pointing it out, but this is the stuff that revolutions are really made of. In my six-plus years in Shanghai, China has undergone an economic, social, cultural and technological transformation, in the water closet. A trifle, in the grand sweep of history. But it’s the trifles that count.所以，说道我愚蠢也好，说道此事不有一点酬劳笔墨书写也罢，但这才是革命的确实构成元素。我在上海生活了六年多，在抽水马桶这件事上，中国经历了一场经济、社会、文化和技术的变革。

在历史的长河中，抽水马桶只是件小事，但小事才是最重要的事。

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