Comments on: Toilets in China: On cleanliness and filth

By: Rachel Heller

Rachel Heller — Wed, 27 May 2020 12:09:08 +0000

In reply to A. I think you're missing out on some really special places if you brand all of Asia as not worth visiting just because of unfamiliar smells! I had trouble with the toilet smells, but I'd go back to China in a second for its beauty, its history and OMG the food! We shouldn't make our own discomfort an indictment of a whole nation (or in your case, continent) just because their customs are different from ours. Why should they comply to our expectations in their own country? And you can't expect that your two anecdotes apply to a whole nation. I mean, to be blunt, isn't that just racism? I mean, if someone you know gets mugged by a black man, does that make every black man a mugger?

By: A

Tue, 26 May 2020 14:25:56 +0000

This is why I never wanted to visit China (any Asian countries for the record). I’m easily grossed out, I’m very sensitive to smells as well as disgusting sights and it’s just not worth it to travel that far and then panicking about all the icky stuff. I think these habits along with the cramped living conditions is what made Covid spread so easily. There are a lot of Chinese stores where I live (a small European country) and I don’t really shop at them, but I went to one with someone else once and I saw the man running the store just walk around aimlessly while picking his nose and then flicking the findings everywhere. Eww! Also, a distant relative of mine had Chinese tenants and she found such a mess when she went to collect rent that she started cleaning and kicked them out on the spot.

By: Rachel Heller

Rachel Heller — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 08:22:34 +0000

In reply to William. I think it's safe to say that everywhere was "germ-filled" as you put it, in previous centuries. Read anything about the Middle Ages in Europe, for example: disgusting!

By: William

William — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 19:35:24 +0000

In reply to John. Re chinese becoming less filthy: wishful thinking at best. All the blame on communism and it’s antecedents are a non-issue, the people of china have been living in a germ-filled country since its Inception. Read travelogues from three to five-hundred years ago and they describe the same things the author did. Cleanliness as we know it has never been a goal of the chinese.

By: Rachel Heller

Rachel Heller — Thu, 23 Jan 2020 14:26:37 +0000

In reply to Jaeson. Yes, I saw all of these things, but it was the smell that bothered me most. In a month of travel in China, I only got sick once, and that was when I ate the duck in the dining car of an overnight train. I avoided all uncooked vegetables and only ate fruit with a peel. But otherwise I ate what I wanted, even in street markets. Those woks are heated so hot that no germs could live. And the same goes for anything boiled. I'd go back if I could, just for the food!

By: Jaeson

Jaeson — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 14:36:18 +0000

This reminds me how gross it was when I lived there for 3 months. I was in Beijing for around 8 weeks and Shanghai for 6, and various other places in between. I remember the restrooms at the Beijing aquarium- you could smell the pee about 30 feet away from it. In another instance, I had the usual “Chinarrhea” bout and luckily for me I was near a Western run hotel in Chaoyang district– so I made a b-line for the potty inside the hotel. Where i spent the next 3 hours running in and out until it felt like I had 3 enemas. A woman came out of a closet each time to clean up the potty after (what an awful job) and hand me a warm rag for my hands. Although every other bathroom in Asia was filthy. Western-style pottys are frequently covered in urine since most people from Asia just stand on the toilet seats. Even in a fancy mall- pee EVERYWHERE. People letting their babies poop publically in trashcans, you name it. Spitting old ladies, spitting men.. Then of course the long fingernail for picking your own nose in public. Asking a young woman who was making bread if the mall is open, while she was picking her nose and putting it INTO the bread. Absolutely horrifying. I feel like the Chinese have no sense of what a germ is, or how to not spread them. I’m sure some educated people do- but in general there isn’t much idea of cleanliness. Even some of the people I know from China and Taiwan who live here- public nose picking is normal, leaving a chicken in your car for 8 hours then eating it, etc. NOPE.

By: Lily

Lily — Sun, 25 Nov 2018 13:41:18 +0000

In reply to John. Taiwan was a Japanese colony for almost half a century and HK was a British colony for 99 years. The foreign influence on these two places do not allow a comparison for how China could have developed without the cultural revolution. Macao was a Portugese colony for many years and it was pretty filthy when I visited 20 years ago.

By: Rachel Heller

Rachel Heller — Fri, 25 May 2018 17:28:59 +0000

In reply to John. Yes, that makes sense. I haven't been to Taiwan, but Hong Kong and Singapore were very different from mainland China.

By: John

John — Fri, 25 May 2018 16:33:17 +0000

The answer is pretty straightforward if you think about it historically. China prior to the (pre 1950s) cultural revolution was a society with better education, sanitary habits, and overall cleanliness. World war II and the subsequent cultural revolution practically wiped out all intellectuals, aristocrats, and educated people in most cities, leaving in its wake a relatively uneducated and uncultured mass that became the status quo. This is the generation that you see living in the cities. Where as, if you go to chinese societies untouched by the cultural revolution like Taiwan, HK, or Singapore, you get a completely different picture. The hotels and clean facilities you are seeing is the result of the recent industrial revolution and transition to a modern society. As China’s society continues to modernize and improve with education, the squalor will disappear within the next decade.

By: Rachel Heller

Rachel Heller — Tue, 06 Feb 2018 16:41:37 +0000

In reply to Bek. Interesting. Susan's comment above seems to confirm that, since her ancestry is Chinese.