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 sleek¹ commode designed by a former Audi stylist, with a leather seat made by the people who supply BMW with motorcycle perches².

从外面看上去，这像是场艺术展，但实际上它是西班牙卫浴品牌乐家(Roca)为上海市民带来的一场卫浴展。其中有外形像一堆叠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。最畅销的是一款奢华时尚的马桶，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。

The best-selling colours? A striking deep red, viewed as lucky, and a deliciously understated champagne³ 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 apparently⁴ wanted a toilet like their iPhone,” he says.

最畅销的颜色呢？是醒目的深红色（象征幸运），以及一种低调而悦目的香槟金色（即所谓的“土豪金”）。乐家中国的管理人员表示，苹果(Apple)去年在华发布金色iPhone后，土豪金马桶就开始走红了。他说：“看样子人们想要一个跟他们的iPhone颜色一样的马桶。”

Nothing would be easier than to caricature China’s golden water closets as symbols of a civilisation⁵ 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 intimacies⁶: is the loo half a football field away or right next to the bedroom? Does it reek⁷ or sit there quietly conserving⁸ water? Does it open automatically, play music and let you trade stocks from the comfort of its heated surface? Proper pundits⁹ mutter darkly about rule of law and universal suffrage¹⁰, shadow banking¹¹ and debt defaults. But I prefer to tell a tale of toilets.

将中国的金色抽水马桶讥讽为文明衰落之象征，是一件再容易不过的事情，但我却不这么看。因为真正说起来，发展总是要落实到这类日常生活的舒适感受上：厕所是离卧室有半个足球场那么远，还是紧挨着卧室？是臭气熏天，还是静音又节水？能否自动翻盖，播放音乐，让你舒服地坐在加热马桶垫圈上炒股？真正的专家们严肃地讨论着法治和普选、影子银行和债务违约，我却宁愿讲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，我第一次来到中国内地生活时，内地的厕所响亮而清楚地宣告着自己“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，列车上的厕所臭到我们连盒饭都吃不下去。

But very soon all that began to change. The train loos stopped stinking¹². Prefabricated stainless¹³ steel commodes showed up on all newer rolling stock, complete with staff to sluice¹⁴ them down at regular intervals¹⁵. The only odour on Chinese trains these days is freshly brewed¹⁶ coffee from the dining car.

但这一切很快就发生了改变。火车上的厕所不再臭气熏天，所有比较新的列车上都装了带盥洗台的预制不锈钢马桶，列车员会定期冲刷。如今在中国的火车上，唯一的气味就是餐车飘来的现煮咖啡味。

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”，这是我们给紧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不想搬到那儿。冬天尿液在地上冻成一块一块，夏天空气里散发着尿骚味。

And then one morning, a spanking¹⁷ new government porta-potty turned up on Pipi Road. It was staffed from 5am to 10pm every day by a government sanitation¹⁸ 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”上出现了一个崭新的移动公厕。它配有专人打扫，每天从凌晨5点到晚上10点，一名环卫工人负责让它闻起来总是像瑞士的草坪一样芬芳。谁说要有民主才能有积极响应民众需求的政府？我想不出有什么比在民众需要的地方设立公厕，更能体现出政府积极响应民众需求的了。“尿尿路”现在必须得改名了。

Even motorway¹⁹ 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 ceramic²⁰ 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，我下车去方便，结果发现厕所里有一条长长的陶瓷槽，所有需要方便的女性都在那里解决。但上个月我们全家自驾出行，就在同一条高速公路上，我发现服务区的厕所不但是单间，有门，甚至还有卫生纸。在中国出行已经跟过去完全不是一回事儿了。

Back at the Roca bathroom gallery, the marketing²¹ 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.

再回到乐家卫浴展的话题上，营销经理吉列姆•帕赫斯•希拉尔特(Guillem Pages Giralt)表示，他也见证了个人客户购买抽水马桶的巨大变化：“五年前顾客只会走进来问，‘你们最贵的马桶是哪个’。”他说，如今再也见不到这种事了，现在中国消费者倒是挺喜欢在购买之前，先在浴缸里躺上个20分钟，或者在马桶上坐上个20分钟之类的（“以确定他们的腿后面会不会硌到”）。当然，他们能腾出20分钟（也能拿出最多3万元人民币，合4900元美金的钱）来购买马桶，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，才会花时间去操心购买金色马桶的事。

So call me puerile²², 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 technological²³ transformation²⁴, in the water closet. A trifle, in the grand sweep of history. But it’s the trifles that count.

所以，说我幼稚也好，说此事不值得费笔墨书写也罢，但这才是革命的真正组成元素。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，但小事才是重要的事。