Shukan Asahi Concerned About Chinese Toilets
Yesterday’s Mainichi WaiWai column summarized an article in the Shukan Asahi that was concerned about the quality of public toilets in areas where Olympic events will be held in China:
While Beijing has been widely blessed for the excellence of its newly opened National Swimming Center, where the Games’ aquatic events will be held, not everything about the stadium is as world-class as its pools.
Nearly every toilet in the center is a squat style, not the sit-down type of loo most Westerners — and Japanese — are accustomed to.
Squat toilets are the dominant style nearly everywhere throughout China. And though individual cubicles have become the norm on trains and public toilets in smaller cities, doors on the cubicles are still a rarity.
“There are growing numbers of Western-style toilets in southern China,” a Shanghai-born Olympic facility worker tells Shukan Asahi. “I guess squat-style toilets are still the norm up north.”
Toilet paper is also posing a problem. Outside of classy hotels in the big cities, most toilet paper used in China is a rough, harsh type that doesn’t dissolve well in water, the weekly says. To avoid blockage, it’s more common to dump the dirty paper into a trash can instead of the cistern. And though most Chinese are well aware of this practice, there are no notices anywhere informing visitors to the country of the proper way to prime the potty, running the risk of clogging the crapper. It’s a point the Games’ organizers concede.
“We have to put up signs,” an organizer says.
