Do you squat or sit? Bizarre toilet etiquette signs ‘aimed at Asian tourists’

[Lissos]

Toilet paper reminds me of part of Satanic Verses where one of the characters says some thing like "They wipe their <deleted> with paper! So unclean. Paper!".

Did some temporary work in a food factory some years ago and another temp, an Indian, was a fairly recent arrival (Christian Indian though, not Muslim) and I soon found that he confided in me about all sorts of things he felt he couldn't share with,nor ask, other Brits (I seem to have that kind of effect upon foreigners). One of the things he asked first was where he could buy sex. Secondly, he seemed rather distressed by the fact that the factory toilets were paper only. "But it is not possible to get clean" he said with a pained expression. For those of us who have travelled in Asia we may agree, but the fact is that you're in a food factory mother f****r (didn't put it to him that way) and although not directly hands on in this instance, we still have no idea how vigilant you are with hand sanitation after getting a squeaky clean bum. For me that was the issue.

We were dealing with food products on an industrial scale, and however effective the water method how often do you see soap or more effective hand sanitiser at the Indian squats? Usually you don't, and that's why gastrointestinal issues blight people so much in India, no matter how 'fresh' they feel. Very little understanding about this, in India. He had to adapt for the greater good, at least while at work, and I guess he got with the program. I wish more would, instead of our culture bending to their 'sensitivities' by the year.

I'm not someone against multilingual signs and such things as I benefit from them myself when overseas. I do think however that it is easy to forget who must adapt to whom.

[whaleboneman]

I think it`s time to teach some people what cleanness is. Collecting used toilet paper, full of shit, in a dust bin is asking for diseases. It`s just disgusting unhygienic.

I think its time that people learned to stop using paper and to wash after pooping. This is one of the best things the Thai people have taught me.

[pomchop]

I think it`s time to teach some people what cleanness is. Collecting used toilet paper, full of shit, in a dust bin is asking for diseases. It`s just disgusting unhygienic.

Yes but unless you do, the whole building may suffer blockage and if widespread, the sewerage works cannot cope.

Correst, it is not the best possible solution but it is the only one they can afford.

Toilet paper if it is even available is to be used to DRY yourself AFTER you have used the bum gun to wash away all traces of crap....the ones who put the filthy toilet paper into the dust bin are usually the farangs that think it's there for wiping.

[Canuck50]

I think its time that people learned to stop using paper and to wash after pooping. This is one of the best things the Thai people have taught me.

I agree 100%...one of the best but also one of the few!

[Canuck50]

Toilet paper if it is even available is to be used to DRY yourself AFTER you have used the bum gun to wash away all traces of crap....the ones who put the filthy toilet paper into the dust bin are usually the farangs that think it's there for wiping.

Agreed but unfortunately many places, especially big shopping centers do not have a bum gun yet have a sign indicating NOT to put paper in the toilet!!!

[copa8]

Well the most vile toilets I've ever encountered in the world, were undoubtedly in China. India has some horrors at dhaba stops occasionally,but Chinese ones can be truly horrendous outside of the eastern side of China. Once there is a block, people just keep using it and a mound develops. Pity the poor son of a ming who comes to deal with it. Just bringing up the memory of some of these is a visceral nausea, they were that vile.

You actually found a public toilet in India?!?

[copa8]

Actually, squatting is better for your bowel. Plus, who the heck would wanna sit on most public toilets, even if you had tissues for padding.

[TimmyT]

actually squatting position is dedicated by nature for defecating. humanity defecated in this positions for millions of years.

but Westerners always sure they know it better

lol

[Canuck50]

actually squatting position is dedicated by nature for defecating. humanity defecated in this positions for millions of years.

but Westerners always sure they know it better

lol

Squatting may well be a healthier position but I don't think it is a matter of "always sure they know better", more like that is how toilets evolved in the west...likely because it was thought to more comfortable. In any case, the user should adapt to the way the device is designed to be used, whatever country you are in. People more comfortable with squatting should no more try to balance on a western toilet seat in a squatting position any more than a westerner should try to sit down flat on a floor level squatting appliance. I think that was the point of this thread.

But personally, I have somehow managed to not have to actually go in a squatted position in Thailand....always found a western toilet to use. I'm afraid if I had to do that, since my muscles are not evolved for the squatting position, I would suffer a tragic accident, loose balance, slip badly and end up with my head down the hole with only my feet sticking up. I just hope it will never come to that!!!

[Mot Dang]

This is an epic thread already. 555

I've never seen toilets worse than in India and China. If you look closely at the tabloid media in both countries, you will notice that each constantly bashes the other for being uncouth. In China, you'll often see (supposed) exposés on the dumping of bodies into the Ganges and in India, reports on Chinese 'street etiquette'.

I'm quite used to the filthy toilet habits of the Chinese (and the Japanese) in Thailand, I choose my conveniences carefully. But I am so pissed off now how travelers out at Swampy, in the Business Class Lounge, foul-up the seats and floors of the toilet cubicles. If I now see an traveler (you guess where they probably could come from) coming out of a fouled-up cubicle I've now taken to embarrassing them about it. Before they can scamper I point them out, in front of everyone, to the cleaners. Who are constantly cleaning up after these morons. It must be shorter than what they think.

But what do they know ? I had to find a toilet in a hurry about 2 hours west of Beijing, found only one public toilet in the village, that looked like something out of the Ming Dynasty. Walked in an immediately eye-balled a guying squatting who was old as Methuselah. The stench was eye watering, and the walls were growing.

I took a walk into the bush beside the road. My friends, from HK, just shook there heads, and said "we told you so".

[Lissos]

I think its time that people learned to stop using paper and to wash after pooping. This is one of the best things the Thai people have taught me.

Well there is no doubt that the water scoop method of India or the pressurised water hose of Thailand get an individual personally far cleaner than paper but both require some direct hand contact to be fully effective, don't they. Fine, as long as full understanding (and practice) of follow up hand sanitation also comes with use of these methods and there are effective hand sanitisers nearby. If not, then it's an effective but fundamentally selfish approach if someone is working with food or other hand to hand / to mouth scenarios, and doesn't be as thorough with hand cleansing. Hand washing is essential after all approaches, right?

[Kondiao]

I think it`s time to teach some people what cleanness is. Collecting used toilet paper, full of shit, in a dust bin is asking for diseases. It`s just disgusting unhygienic.

I think its time that people learned to stop using paper and to wash after pooping. This is one of the best things the Thai people have taught me.

I have read some good things in this post from some very thoughtful, travelled, knowledgeable people and I have couple thoughts to add:

one is that "scientists" and I think that squatting is the more natural and healthy way vacate th bowels - more complete and therefore more less complications from stuff left in the intestines to fester and cause various diseases that come from poor eliminations. Another is that washing the crotch is hygienic, moreso than wiping with paper.

I know that it is difficult for many people to change habits and not everyone is agile enough to squat. I myself learned to "squat", (speaking of the posture), in Vietnam many years ago. In my old age now I can still do this when exercising, having practised yoga and the arts sometimes over the years; and so could most Westerners if they would simply do simple stretches routinely for health reasons. If fact, as you must realize, we all must have squatted to go when we were children, just between the ages of diapers and being toilet-trained so we know it was once possible to do.

Muslims who generally prefer to squat-to-go habitually have a source of clean water at hand to (1) pour into the LEFT hand with the RIGHT, (2) wipe the area with the LEFT hand - front to back for females - then rinse this hand with water and repeat, and repeat...

Nowadays people in the Western world have a new technology whereby they can sit on the toilet with the feet raised up on a stand to approximate the squat-t0-go position. Rich, people with money to waste on silly necessities that humans have done without for hundreds of thousands of years. I myself have a pair of old speakers in my Phoenix apt. that no longer speak, but do give me lift. I have them in front of the toilet, so they serve just like the donwtown product, so that my feet are raised to just a couple inches lower than the bottom, which is perfect. A lot of trouble? No. A lot less trouble than diverticulosus, psoriasis....

I think that if there were a meeting of the minds of Western and Eastern ways we might all learn from our different ways of thinking and avoid unnecessary violent, clashes of customs. This ain't rocket science - Asians have managed to create atomic bombs just like us advanced civilizations. It is not impossible to them to learn the basic need to deal with reality of microbes and disease and we could learn to be more flexible.

I lived in Senegal, WEst Africa, in the Peace Corps (yes, I was in the Marine Corps and in the Peace Corps - don't make too much of this) where I was schooled in water purification and waste disposal and learned to accept local customs. I constructed latrines, dug into the ground, with concrete lining, a cement cover that was easy to wash clean, a hole to squat over, say 6 inches in diameter, a cover that fit it, a tea kettle of water always there, to clean the LEFT hand. AND, - for the squat-challenged - you could use the cover, which was 4 or 5 inches of concrete - to hold onto for balance. It worked fine for most people.

When I go back to Thailand I will adapt to squat when I must and sit when I can and make adjustments that work best for me. When I build my off-the-grid dream-house in the boondocks I will have a composting latrine and means of sitting over it securely with the knees raised - at least as long as my old bones permit.

My conclusion is that it is not unthinkable for 3d-world peoples to learn to do this toilet thing effectively, make toilets that combine the best of squatting and sitting and washing and wiping in a hygienic fashion. Maybe after they learn to drive safely and do electrical work sanely and have responsible government and responsible police and effective military - after they learn to speak and read English right so they can read these concepts and each them to their young. And Westerners can learn that we are not going to impose our ways - our wills - on others, taking from them what we can use.

[green job]

I think it`s time to teach some people what cleanness is. Collecting used toilet paper, full of shit, in a dust bin is asking for diseases. It`s just disgusting unhygienic.

I think its time that people learned to stop using paper and to wash after pooping. This is one of the best things the Thai people have taught me.

I have read some good things in this post from some very thoughtful, travelled, knowledgeable people and I have couple thoughts to add:

one is that "scientists" and I think that squatting is the more natural and healthy way vacate th bowels - more complete and therefore more less complications from stuff left in the intestines to fester and cause various diseases that come from poor eliminations. Another is that washing the crotch is hygienic, moreso than wiping with paper.

I know that it is difficult for many people to change habits and not everyone is agile enough to squat. I myself learned to "squat", (speaking of the posture), in Vietnam many years ago. In my old age now I can still do this when exercising, having practised yoga and the arts sometimes over the years; and so could most Westerners if they would simply do simple stretches routinely for health reasons. If fact, as you must realize, we all must have squatted to go when we were children, just between the ages of diapers and being toilet-trained so we know it was once possible to do.

Muslims who generally prefer to squat-to-go habitually have a source of clean water at hand to (1) pour into the LEFT hand with the RIGHT, (2) wipe the area with the LEFT hand - front to back for females - then rinse this hand with water and repeat, and repeat...

Nowadays people in the Western world have a new technology whereby they can sit on the toilet with the feet raised up on a stand to approximate the squat-t0-go position. Rich, people with money to waste on silly necessities that humans have done without for hundreds of thousands of years. I myself have a pair of old speakers in my Phoenix apt. that no longer speak, but do give me lift. I have them in front of the toilet, so they serve just like the donwtown product, so that my feet are raised to just a couple inches lower than the bottom, which is perfect. A lot of trouble? No. A lot less trouble than diverticulosus, psoriasis....

I think that if there were a meeting of the minds of Western and Eastern ways we might all learn from our different ways of thinking and avoid unnecessary violent, clashes of customs. This ain't rocket science - Asians have managed to create atomic bombs just like us advanced civilizations. It is not impossible to them to learn the basic need to deal with reality of microbes and disease and we could learn to be more flexible.

I lived in Senegal, WEst Africa, in the Peace Corps (yes, I was in the Marine Corps and in the Peace Corps - don't make too much of this) where I was schooled in water purification and waste disposal and learned to accept local customs. I constructed latrines, dug into the ground, with concrete lining, a cement cover that was easy to wash clean, a hole to squat over, say 6 inches in diameter, a cover that fit it, a tea kettle of water always there, to clean the LEFT hand. AND, - for the squat-challenged - you could use the cover, which was 4 or 5 inches of concrete - to hold onto for balance. It worked fine for most people.

When I go back to Thailand I will adapt to squat when I must and sit when I can and make adjustments that work best for me. When I build my off-the-grid dream-house in the boondocks I will have a composting latrine and means of sitting over it securely with the knees raised - at least as long as my old bones permit.

My conclusion is that it is not unthinkable for 3d-world peoples to learn to do this toilet thing effectively, make toilets that combine the best of squatting and sitting and washing and wiping in a hygienic fashion. Maybe after they learn to drive safely and do electrical work sanely and have responsible government and responsible police and effective military - after they learn to speak and read English right so they can read these concepts and each them to their young. And Westerners can learn that we are not going to impose our ways - our wills - on others, taking from them what we can use.

bloody hell . A Bogologist!!

[impulse]

actually squatting position is dedicated by nature for defecating. humanity defecated in this positions for millions of years.

but Westerners always sure they know it better

Look up the death rate from filth related diseases in the west, and in the countries where they still squat to poop.

Then come back and report who has it right. I'll give you a hint. It ain't the squatters.

[TimmyT]

actually squatting position is dedicated by nature for defecating. humanity defecated in this positions for millions of years.

but Westerners always sure they know it better

Look up the death rate from filth related diseases in the west, and in the countries where they still squat to poop.

Then come back and report who has it right. I'll give you a hint. It ain't the squatters.

total manipulation. "filth related diseases" are connected with washing hands after defecation but not with the way how you poop.

[impulse]

actually squatting position is dedicated by nature for defecating. humanity defecated in this positions for millions of years.

but Westerners always sure they know it better

Look up the death rate from filth related diseases in the west, and in the countries where they still squat to poop.

Then come back and report who has it right. I'll give you a hint. It ain't the squatters.

total manipulation. "filth related diseases" are connected with washing hands after defecation but not with the way how you poop.

Your statement: but Westerners always sure they know it better (with an lol thrown in for derision)

My contention is that the evidence seems to be behind the westerners. Higher standard of living, lower death rate from sanitation related diseases, and (on the whole) fresher smelling public bathrooms.

Edited July 5, 2015 by impulse

[green job]

Everyone,is talking a load of crap.

[TimmyT]

actually squatting position is dedicated by nature for defecating. humanity defecated in this positions for millions of years.

but Westerners always sure they know it better

Look up the death rate from filth related diseases in the west, and in the countries where they still squat to poop.

Then come back and report who has it right. I'll give you a hint. It ain't the squatters.

total manipulation. "filth related diseases" are connected with washing hands after defecation but not with the way how you poop.

Your statement: but Westerners always sure they know it better (with an lol thrown in for derision)

My contention is that the evidence seems to be behind the westerners. Higher standard of living, lower death rate from sanitation related diseases, and (on the whole) fresher smelling public bathrooms.

nobody is denies overall achivements of Western medicine and science. but it does not mean that everything is good on the West and East should copy all. East copies only useful things. and toilet with a seat does not deserve to be copied.

[impulse]

nobody is denies overall achivements of Western medicine and science. but it does not mean that everything is good on the West and East should copy all. East copies only useful things. and toilet with a seat does not deserve to be copied.

Show me a public squat toilet design that eliminates the problem of standing in someone else's wet waste, then dragging a trail of that waste down the hallway on the bottom of my shoes, and I'll give up the toilet with seat.

In your home? Maybe- if you're careful and don't have kids.

In public? Give me a seat on a bowl that keeps the waste in, over standing in the wet stinky patch, squatting over a hole in the floor. I prefer my shoes clean.

Edit: And in 10 years in China, I found it was almost impossible to enjoy the comics while squatting over a hole in the floor. No so with a nice seat...

Edited July 5, 2015 by impulse

[Lissos]

But personally, I have somehow managed to not have to actually go in a squatted position in Thailand....always found a western toilet to use.

Your post reminded me, that on my early visits (late 90s to early 2000s) to Thailand, the squat toilet was the norm in places I was staying. Maybe I just stayed in really cheap places (I did), but I even remember a number of Beer Bars on Ko Samyi that had the squat toilet and water through (and scoop). Simple bungalows on Koh Samet had them also. I was so used to them after years of South Asian travel that it was not new, but somewhere along the line they seem to be being replaced in aforementioned places as it has been a while that I've encountered them. One of the last I saw was on Crete of all places, in a public bathroom. Many people like Moroccan migrants were in the area so perhaps after instances of contaminated (or damaged) western toilets, they installed one?

Edit : Forgot to mention the country.

Edited July 5, 2015 by Lissos

[TimmyT]

nobody is denies overall achivements of Western medicine and science. but it does not mean that everything is good on the West and East should copy all. East copies only useful things. and toilet with a seat does not deserve to be copied.

Show me a public squat toilet design that eliminates the problem of standing in someone else's wet waste, then dragging a trail of that waste down the hallway on the bottom of my shoes, and I'll give up the toilet with seat.

In your home? Maybe- if you're careful and don't have kids.

In public? Give me a seat on a bowl that keeps the waste in, over standing in the wet stinky patch, squatting over a hole in the floor. I prefer my shoes clean.

Edit: And in 10 years in China, I found it was almost impossible to enjoy the comics while squatting over a hole in the floor. No so with a nice seat...

normal squat toilet in any PTT gasoline station is usually quite clean. and one can use it without wetting his shoes if he knows hot to use it. but toilet sprinkle is usually missing, that's bad.

as for me, I use toilet for it's intended purpose, not for reading comics or playing ipad...