A RABBIT, Belgian Pie?
Yeah, well … no more paper and the stuffed rabbit doll was within reach …
Using toilet paper is bad for the environment, so I wont use it. I carry an extra sock in my pocket at all times for such needs. I’ve been using the same sock now for six months, but I’ll probably have to wash it soon.
Man,
What a wierd topic for a newspaper. Can You imagine if the United States had an article about something like this? It would probably go like this:
Research shows that Peeing in the shower is ok!
Professors at the University of Montana have shown that peeing in the shower doesn’t really matter. “You get all sorts of germs when the shower is used, it doesn’t matter if you pee or not.” Senator Chuck Hagel announced his satisfaction with the research. “I pee in the shower every morning, for busy senators like me, this is great news”. THe research…
I thought for a news article it just seemed odd
Who wipes? 
Mine doesn’t. I’m not sure how your landlord would know unless the toilet clogged.
Mine told me ominous and graphic stories that would happen if I threw toilet paper in the toilet. I’ve been doing so for four years now and the toilet clogged ONCE and could be unclogged with a plunger in 30 seconds.
The plumbing in a lot of the older walk up buildings (the 4-7 floor ones all over the island) often have sketchy plumbing and they cannot handle gobbs of toilet paper. I would still put toilet paper in anyways (I’d be fucked if I had to clean my own shit tickets, let alone a dodgy roomate’s), but I may flush twice is the wipe job is cumbersome.
If you live in a dinglou (rooftop) you probably have ad-hoc’ish plumbing with shit water pressure which adds to the problem.
Newer buildings should be fine.
My advice, get a Thailand style asshose installed (a shuaydian can do this for under $500), then spray your ass before you wipe. You’ll feel cleaner, you’ll save your plumbing, you’ll save on toilet paper, mother nature will be happy, and it will increase the likelihood of someone giving you a rim job.
Win Win!
If only wives give rim jobs eh?
There’s nothing ‘civilised’ about dumping your shit in the river. Halfwitted humans have been doing this since the beginning of time. Just because they’ve invented a shiny porcelain thing that makes it look civilized doesn’t make it so.
It sounds like Taiwan’s sewage system still can’t cope with toilet paper, principally because there isn’t a sewage system. I’ve long suspected most of it gets dumped untreated into the waterways, but this is the first time I’ve seen actual confirmation in print.
Most people in the world don’t use toilet paper. They wash instead. A lot of Taiwanese people seem to do the same (hence the fully-tiled bathrooms and ‘open’ showers). This seems a much more genteel arrangement than smearing shit around your ringpiece with a bit of tissue paper. Frankly, it’s a bit arrogant for Westerners to go around the world trumpeting about their great “solutions” for things when most of what we’ve got only appears to work because we throw huge amounts of money at it to keep it working, or to hide the fact that it doesn’t.
What’s sad is that foreigners actually take notice when we go around spreading our stupid memes. So now we’ve got a world full of pollution, cars, processed food, and flush toilets, leaving the scientists and engineers to try to figure out a way to mitigate the consequences.
There is a serious problem with wet wipes clogging up sewers around the world, they don’t break down.
washingtonpost.com/local/inc … story.html
Of course the major problem in Taiwan was the poor piping and ‘crap’ toilets and lack of sewers until wet wipes added a new factor to the equation. I for one am not convinced 1000s of tonnes of tissues and wipes added to the waste flowing into the rivers and oceans is a good solution. Things need to be thought through.
The arrogance of Westerners is puzzling like Finley said, the washing solution surely is the only real hygenic one.
I’m fairly certain that most Taiwanese use TP instead of washing. The problem is that they have a system that requires sewage treatment plants but almost no sewage treatment plants. Frankly the TP issue is almost a non-issue considering we have untreated shit washing out into the rivers and ocean. The ‘washing solution’ doesn’t even begin to address the real issue.
when in a public toilet, flush it all. the whole roll at once. i love the way it backs up.
So, for normal Taiwan people, No: use the waste paper bin.
But for normal humans like me who use 4 sheets or so of dissolving paper: fine, flush away.
Exactly - but focusing on a non-issue and ignoring the huge floating turd in the ointment is par for the course … and not just in Taiwan.
Exactly - but focusing on a non-issue and ignoring the huge floating turd in the ointment is par for the course … and not just in Taiwan.[/quote]
That means that your rant against TP is meaningless then.
I won’t claim to be an expert on Taiwanese ass-wiping habits, but I don’t think it’s an either-or. A lot of bathrooms have one of those little water jet thingies installed beside (or in) the toilet; they’re even more common in other Asian countries - or, alternatively, a bucket of water and a plastic ladle. TP seems to be in common use because it’s “modern” (and for public toilets it’s definitely more convenient), but there’s a general recognition that it doesn’t actually get you clean.
I was addressing the question as originally framed. The fact that flush toilets are inherently wasteful, expensive and polluting doesn’t negate the fact that TP is also a dumb solution to a simple problem.
The non-tissue is and issue for wimmins. Washing, you still need a tissue.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]
The arrogance of Westerners is puzzling like Finley said, the washing solution surely is the only real hygenic one.[/quote]
Why is it the arrogance of Westerners? Did a Westerner write the article?
And the editorial doesn’t even mention washing.
And, and this is not for you headhoncho, but is the China Post really an expat paper? I mean, it’s in English, and expats read it and write some of the articles that aren’t wire stories. But the editorial department is hardly the province of expats.
My original point was that a lot of routine technology was developed first in the West and then eagerly adopted by others - often (not always of course) with disastrous results. The reason it appeared not-so-disastrous in the originating countries is that they were “rich”, and therefore more able to paper over the cracks; for example, Westerners are able to disguise the fact that disposal of human and animal sewage is a massive waste of resources by mining phosphorus, and they can afford the immense cost of processing combined sewage to make it safer (not safe) to dump into seas and rivers. I consider this arrogant because the technology is usually promoted by people who only dimly understand its wider consequences - or perhaps just don’t care about them.
The article-writer is simply repeating received wisdom about hygiene.
A Westerner would probably say: “You guys need more sewage treatment plants.” That’s not arrogant, it’s true.
Plus these Taiwanese planning johnnies aren’t dim. They know what they are doing.
But I appreciate your clarification! 