I’ve always been curious about bidets. I had a Taiwanese friend with a toilet that had a bidet function. I tried it and haven’t felt as clean after a dump since. I highly recommend it!!
However, I’ve always been curious. Do people in bidet countries wipe with toilet paper afterwards though? If you use toilet paper on such a totally wet surface, doesn’t the paper stick to your tush? That could create more of a mess than existed originally. But if you don’t use toilet paper, it’s still sopping wet. How do the Frenchies get around this one.
personally i firmly believe that the reason that chinese culture was the first to discover/make almost every key technological advance made by mankind since pre-stoneage time, often hundreds of years before any gormless westerner clapped eyes on it, and yet still manages to remain a sprawling, poverty ridden, 3rd world semi-slum can be wholely attributed to this rediculously unhygienic attachment to used toilet paper, and the refusal to in the name of all that is true and just… flush!!!
slightly off the topic geographically, the ancient greeks and romans had a similar penchant for keeping post wipe paper close at hand, and just look at them… heard of any sporting events being held at the colluseum recently?.. any conferences scheduled for the parthenon this year?.. why not, because it lies in ruin!.. ruin, i tell you!!..
Unless Taiwan wants to laugh in the face of history and follow blindly this path of inevitable degeneration and ruin, they had best, regardless of the underlying causes, rectify this pityful disregardfor the values of flushing…
We had a bidet in our house in Colombia when I was a kid. I never figured out how to use it then. The water would go spurting up in the air like a fountain. I didn’t know I was supposed to put my asshole over it. My parents were as unbidet-savvy as I was. It was a farce.
I can’t wait to give it another go (sprinkle) in a few weeks from now when i’m in Italy.
At least if you believe the hype. Note that I didn’t say “landfill” of which as you say, there are few. I said “illegal landfill” of which there are hundreds if not thousands.
The Romans didn’t use paper. They used their hands and water. Then they wiped their butts dry with a little towel that was carried around expressly for this purpose and tucked into the belts on their togas. (Strange but true).
Perhaps the fact that these papers sit in cans festering and being the perfect breeding grounds for disease are the reason why enterovirus is so prominent here.
I’ve heard they don’t use paper in India at all. I think the custom there is to only shake hands or serve food with the right hand. Because the left is used for washing the bum in combination with water.
lol… making a topic out of toilet paper??? - seriously… europeans flush the toilet paper… we dont collect em in bags… =) ur bf is right by flushing it…
I’ve heard they don’t use paper in India at all. I think the custom there is to only shake hands or serve food with the right hand. Because the left is used for washing the bum in combination with water.[/quote]
The “right hand is for shaking, left is for wiping” bit is an Arab custom. The Sharia (Islamic legal system) practice of cutting off a thief’s right hand is descended from that. I’m not sure whether the custom was promulgated throughout the Islamic world or whether it remained solely with the Arabs (although the Sharia maiming practice is universal, of course).
Maybe the custom spread to India too; there’s a large Muslim minority in India, after all. I haven’t heard of that, though.
I’ve heard they don’t use paper in India at all. I think the custom there is to only shake hands or serve food with the right hand. Because the left is used for washing the bum in combination with water.[/quote]
The “right hand is for shaking, left is for wiping” bit is an Arab custom. The Sharia (Islamic legal system) practice of cutting off a thief’s right hand is descended from that. I’m not sure whether the custom was promulgated throughout the Islamic world or whether it remained solely with the Arabs (although the Sharia maiming practice is universal, of course).
Maybe the custom spread to India too; there’s a large Muslim minority in India, after all. I haven’t heard of that, though.[/quote]
The reason why people have to throw away the “toilet paper” in the trash cans is because what they use are actually “tissues”, NOT “toilet paper”. There’s a big difference because toilet paper (either the rolled kind or the kind that’s in flat square sheets) dissolves in water, but tissues do NOT dissolve in water.
I found out about this the hard way. I used to think that it would be okay to throw tissues in the toilets as long as it’s in a building or house that didn’t have an antiquated septic tank. In the summer of 1999, my wife and I moved into a brand new townhouse in Jiayi County (where we still live), so since the house was brand new, I threw tissues in the toilet every day. Then just two months later, the septic tank got clogged up! Nothing went down at all when you tried to flush any of the three toilets! (But the sinks and bathtubs were fine because they drain into the gutter on the side of the road.)
So I had to call a guy who specialized in septic tank cleaning. He had a truck that was basically a huge vacuum cleaner, and it took about 20 minutes to suck out everything that was in the 1000-liter septic tank that was under our driveway, and he charged 1500 NT.
Then my wife put a trash can in each bathroom in the house and started to put her used tissues in the trash cans, but I stubbornly refused to do that because I thought it was disgusting, so I continued throwing my tissues in the toilet. Then just two months later, the septic tank got clogged up again! Another 1500 NT wasted!
So after the septic tank got clogged up the second time, I decided to do an experiment. I bought five different brands of tissues and five different brands of rolled toilet paper. Then I filled several glasses with water and put one tissue or one piece of toilet paper in each glass. The next day, I discovered that none of the tissues had dissolved or disintegrated in the water, but all of the toilet paper had disintegrated into very small pieces. In fact, even after a week, none of the tissues had disintegrated at all. They were still exactly the same as when I first put them in the water!
So then my wife and I started using rolled toilet paper instead of tissues, and we both throw it down the toilet every day, and the septic tank has never gotten stopped up since then! (Four years already!) And an added bonus is that we no longer need to have trash cans in the bathrooms so now I don’t have to look at any unpleasant sights when I’m sitting on the toilet.
[quote=“Mark Nagel”]The reason why people have to throw away the “toilet paper” in the trash cans is because what they use are actually “tissues”, NOT “toilet paper”. There’s a big difference because toilet paper (either the rolled kind or the kind that’s in flat square sheets) dissolves in water, but tissues do NOT dissolve in water.[/quote]Mark, that’s interesting. I never considered that there might be a difference in the makeup of rolled and ‘tissue’ toilet paper.
If I get round to it I’ll put some of each kind in a bowl of water for a while and report my results.
I don’t understand why the toilet paper/tissues would clog up the toilet when the… ah… shit doesn’t. Whether we want to or not, I’m sure many of us would have to admit (even deep down in our hearts) that at least once in a while our shit can be pretty big. Or, is it just me??? So, if the pipes are so small here, how does that work and not paper, which I’d imagine would be more… ah… flexible and… ah… squishy… unless you had laduzi.
The feces settle down to the bottom of the septic tank, the oils and fats rise to the top of the tank, and the middle of the tank is filled with water and urine. (In Taiwan, the drains from sinks and bathtubs and washing machines go to the gutters on the sides of the street, so the only things in the septic tank are things which have been flushed down the toilet.)
There is a lot of anaerobic bacteria at the bottom of the septic tank which digest the feces and turn it into methane gas and hydrogen sulfide gas. But there usually isn’t enough anaerobic bacteria to digest all of the feces, so there is always a layer of feces on the bottom of the septic tank, which is called “sludge”.
Tissues float in water, so if they are flushed down a toilet, they won’t be down at the bottom where the feces are. Instead, they will be suspended in the water (the middle layer of the tank) so then the water won’t be able to drain out of the septic tank and into the septic field.
I noticed this both times when I had my septic tank pumped out. The hose that the guy used to pump out the septic tank was about 10 cm in diameter and it was transparent so I could see what was inside. I was surprised that I didn’t see any feces at all! Instead I only saw wads and wads of tissues, all knotted together!
I read the article on the link that you posted, but I couldn’t find any reference to toilet tissue paper, did I miss it?
Also, would I be correct assuming that the septic tanks here in Taiwan would be the same (or very similar) to the septic tanks in other Countries?? My parents have a septic tank and we have no issue with flushing toilet paper (but we cannot flush other items such as tampons etc). So based on my assumption, perhaps the poster that suggested that if you use proper toilet paper verus using actual facial tissues could be a big difference between the paper disolving and floating in middle clogging up your system???
So, if the pipes are so small here, how does that work and not paper, which I’d imagine would be more… ah… flexible and… ah… squishy… unless you had laduzi.