11 ms·

This really hits home. As a person with IBS I basically cannot peacefully go outside in EU. I lived for many years in China and Thailand, and toilets are free,

by mstaoru 23d ago

This really hits home. As a person with IBS I basically cannot peacefully go outside in EU. I lived for many years in China and Thailand, and toilets are free, clean, and plentiful there, and you can easily ask any place to use their toilet - there's no stigma. I even had to run into a police station in rural China once. They were 100% chill about it, though they had to unlock a gate for me. Xi Jinping really will be remembered as the Toilet King, he did issue a few decrees early on, and now in every Tier-88 rural Chinese village road you can find a modern toilet (yes, squat), clean, with water. Paper is hit and miss still though. Cross to Hong Kong and it's the same, but paper is reliable. Hong Kong is definitely richer. Then take any shopping mall in Bangkok, that's an absolutely next level experience, clean, smells good, relaxing music. Mmm... And EU is a freaking horror show. In many public toilets there's a used syringe compartment as well. Truly a 5-star service.

deepsun 23d ago
What's wrong about syringe disposal? A significant portion of population has diabetes. And even if a drug addict uses it, still better than throwing to the trash, similar to how cigarette disposals are mandatory in typical airplanes.
- xienze 23d ago
  > What's wrong about syringe disposal? A significant portion of population has diabetes. Ask yourself if that's truly what motivated those being installed... > And even if a drug addict uses it, still better than throwing to the trash The problem is they still throw their needles all over the ground. As is typical, the intentions are noble, but what ends up happening is people who can't even be bothered to not shoot up their gutter heroin in public are given society's tacit approval to do what they're doing, thus accelerating the societal rot.
  - deepsun 23d ago
    oook, so if according to your message, the disposals are mostly used by diabetics, then again, what's wrong with them?
    - Nifty3929 23d ago
      They weren't saying there is anything wrong with the syringe disposal per se, but instead that it's indicative of the people who use those facilities and the priorities of the authorities that manage them. It is observed that you have junkies shooting up in bathrooms, evidenced by needles strewn on the ground. So the solution from the authorities is to install syringe disposal containers.
      - _carbyau_ 23d ago
        > So the solution from the authorities is to install syringe disposal containers. Given the cost vs the benefits, why not? A box mounted to a wall is a pittance. Feel free to elaborate your plan for the junkies that would be cost effective, practical and ethical.
    - __MatrixMan__ 23d ago
      [flagged]
  - alexjplant 23d ago
    I looked into this a while back (~6 years ago) and it basically broke down like this: diabetics outnumber injectable drug users two to one but not all diabetics use injectable insulin and the ones that do are more likely to do so at home. Drug users, however, have less compunction about sticking themselves in a public space, particular the homeless. Best guess based on these numbers is that it's a 50-50 split between these populations as to who's using public sharps containers. > society's tacit approval to do what they're doing, thus accelerating the societal rot. This argument could be made about providing drugs themselves but fails under the faintest scrutiny for sharps containers because said containers have wide uses beyond shooting up heroin.
    - freehorse 23d ago
      Homeless heroin addicts who inject themselves in public are not uniformly distributed. Thus while in some places you would expect some such injectable drug use in a public toilet (though I doubt most would bother to go find a toilet for that anyway), that is unlikely for the majority of toilets in a country that contain syringe disposers. On the other hand, one would expect that diabetics who inject insulin would be closer to be uniformly distributed (conditional to the population distribution). If one could find syringe disposers only in areas where public heroin use commonly takes place that would be believable, but it is not the case. In contrast, there are actual, real programs and places in many countries to manage issues arising with syringe use, trying to reduce syringe sharing to reduce blood-transmissible diseases etc.
    - oasisbob 23d ago
      > not all diabetics use injectable insulin and the ones that do are more likely to do so at home. I'd love to hear the citation for this one, as people using injectable insulin generally need to do in conjunction with eating, and I can't think of where you'd get the idea that T1 diabetics who use injectable insulin avoid eating outside the home as a general rule. Granted, nowadays plenty of people are using insulin pumps which decimates disposable syringe use, but I'm really puzzled where you picked up that in-home/away-from-home impression from.
      - 23d ago
  - oasisbob 23d ago
    > Ask yourself if that's truly what motivated those being installed... What motivates this infrastructure is the danger to workers if syringes are just thrown into the trash. My dad had type one diabetes with a type A personality, and was very particular about making sure that syringes were disposed of properly. Not everyone is this careful, and they put others at risk.
  - cryptolobster 23d ago
    > The problem is they still throw their needles all over the ground But it's better if at least some of them are in the trash and not scattered around, isn't it? I may be wrong but it seems to me that public opinion doesn't matter to these people anyway, so there's no point in getting rid of such garbage bins
  - Dylan16807 23d ago
    Nobody's choosing to use heroin because it's slightly easier to not litter needles. The tiny harm reduction measure is good.
  - defrost 23d ago
    > The problem is they still throw their needles all over the ground. Yeah, well, that's your culture and a direct end result of how people are treated and made to feel part of or outside of it. In Australia there are diabetics and drug addicts as much as anywhere, but rarely problems with sharps on the ground or littering in general- go figure <shrug>. Drug use: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-15/australian-drug-use-wastewater-testing/105656360 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-15/australian-drug-use-w... Australians have consumed 22.2 tonnes of methylamphetamine (meth), cocaine, heroin and MDMA in a year, according to the latest wastewater survey. That's about a gram each over the year, or rather many people don't use, a few use a lot. Diabetics, sharp disposal: https://www.diabetesaustralia.com.au/resources/safe-sharps/ https://www.diabetesaustralia.com.au/resources/safe-sharps/ Drug users, sharps: https://www.healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/U_Z/Where-to-find-needle-and-syringe-programs-in-WA https://www.healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/U_Z/Where-to-find-n... At the suburban council level: https://cosp.t1cloud.com/apps/KnowledgeBase/mySouthPerth/article/Report_Syringes https://cosp.t1cloud.com/apps/KnowledgeBase/mySouthPerth/art...
- michaelt 23d ago
  Some measures that mitigate a problem are associated with places where said problem is a frequent occurrence. If a place has tornado drills and tornado shelters, it's a safe bet that tornados are at least somewhat likely. Some safety and security measures have the effect of making a place feel unsafe and insecure, for this reason.
- kevin_thibedeau 23d ago
  Diabetics use short needle subcutaneous syringes that can be recapped and disposed of later. They have to have their insulin stored somewhere, which is just as suitable for a used syringe.
  - linkregister 23d ago
    [flagged]
    - deepsun 23d ago
      Why? Who's that?
      - palunon 23d ago
        The GP.
talon8635 23d ago
I guess if you don’t have a massive population of antisocial people who destroy the public facility, you can provide them. It’s a shame we in the west surrendered that. Not the worst thing in the world, but I do find it frustrating often to not have a bathroom available nearby (small bladder) But, while the toilets aren’t the worst sacrifice, the cumulative sacrifices made on the alter of our huge antisocial populations are profound
- moduspol 23d ago
  Yet another consequence of no longer living in a high-trust society.
  - Avicebron 23d ago
    What I want to know is if anyone can identify when exactly the homeless issue became so bad. It was already a problem when I lived in the Bay, and when I moved back to the East Coast it had been 10 years in the making (conveniently when I was away). Clearly there a some sharp lines that can be drawn somewhere. But it's hard to get some actual answers. Edit: rough clauding indicates it was when fentanyl took off, but idk, that doesn't seem wholly accurate.
    - liveoneggs 23d ago
      California is a garden of eden, a paradise to live in or see.. but believe it or not you won't find it so hot if you ain't got that do(ough)-re-mi. https://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Do_Re_Mi.htm https://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Do_Re_Mi.htm
    - throwawayffffas 23d ago
      When it became unfashionable to put mentally ill people in asylums. The additional fashion of "giving local people a voice" in construction projects planning did not help either.
      - slg 23d ago
chrisfosterelli 23d ago
> I lived for many years in China and Thailand, and toilets are free, clean, and plentiful there I don't know about China but this was the opposite of my experience in Thailand. The majority of public toilets I encountered had an attendant you had to pay for access. Shopping malls / hotels / other places were you were already paying to be there were the exception of course.
- ghaff 23d ago
  In Japan, I've seen attendants looking for some payment to use bathrooms in hotels.
  - bschwindHN 23d ago
    Where? 11 years living in Japan and I've never seen this once, and never heard it from friends or family.
    - ghaff 23d ago
      It was in Tokyo. Couldn't tell you the specific hotel. But it had our event coordinator livid and she simply ignored them.
      - bschwindHN 23d ago
        Not that I don't believe you, but don't take that to be a common occurrence in Japan at all. By and large, Japan is a safe haven of clean and comfortable public restrooms. There are always exceptions, of course.
        ghaff 23d ago
        Oh, I don't think it is--haven't lived there but have spent some time for conferences and surrounding time. However, just pointing out, it's not unheard of.
    - freetime2 23d ago
pyreko 23d ago
> China > toilets are... clean Okay I'm going to have to say that this _really_ depends on where you are. Sometimes, yes, especially newer buildings, but man I have seen some horrors there in the past few years when it comes to bathrooms in terms of cleanliness and smell (the frequent smoking in a lot of bathrooms doesn't help). This is coming from someone primarily experiencing Canadian and American bathrooms, for reference, and a lot of those are pretty nasty. I think it's getting better at least... Just to be clear though I agree generally, at least from my experience with East Asia. Hong Kong often has really good bathrooms now IMO (I feel like it improved a lot between 2018 to 2023?). Japan is also really good from my experience (fancy-ass bidets). Taiwan was fine too from my recollection.
- qurren 23d ago
  > _really_ depends on where you are That kinda applies to anywhere in the world. On the average, I've seen much cleaner toilets in first-tier China cities than first-tier US cities. And much more accessible as well. Free public toilets literally everywhere. All over the city, in every shopping center, in every coffee shop. And you don't need to buy a coffee and trash it to use them.
  - ux266478 23d ago
    > I've seen much cleaner toilets in first-tier China cities than first-tier US cities. That definitely tracks. LA has a massive unhoused person issue, many of whom with severe mental disorders. You feel a lot that in the commons, especially as you get near DTLA. New York is shabby and dirty in general. More so than a big city usually is. And it's not really a charming shabbiness from an extreme subtropical climate as you get in Taiwan. The relationship China has with its tier 1 cities is more similar to other Asian countries, like Japan and Korea, than it is to the US.
  - boelboel 23d ago
    Chinese first tier cities aren't accessible, you can't even live there as a country bumpkin.
    - 23d ago
seanmcdirmid 23d ago
Weird. When I was living in Beijing, I made a mental map of all my bathroom choices when I wasn't at a luxury shopping mall, because they just weren't that convenient and available. This includes squats, which I included since sit down toilets were often hogged by some guy on the phone doing a long smoking session (squats never were, which is great when you absolutely need to go!). But this was in the time when Xi had just taken office, so it is probably better now. I didn't see any issues on my trip to Chengdu this summer. I have a lot bigger problems in downtown Seattle today, which is just really bad (either the toilets don't exist, or there is some homeless guy doing drugs in the only stall they have). Sigh.
freehorse 23d ago
"EU" is too broad of a term to describe cultural/social/political norms such as public toilets. There are places in the EU with fairly decent toilets, and others with almost none. In some you have to pay in many public toilets, in others they are free. The best bet in most places are public buildings such as libraries. And very often cafes etc allow you use a toilet, esp if you have health reasons and ask them nicely, though ymmv. The biggest issue as others said is vandalism, so in (richer) countries where public toilets are cleaned more often the toilets are much better.
- B1FF_PSUVM 23d ago
  Cafes/restaurants are required by law to provide toilets to customers, afaik
  - ericmay 23d ago
    Is the keyword customers though? In other words you’ve got to spend money to use the toilet? In America I can walk in to a restaurant, even a nicer one and ask to use the bathroom and very likely would be shown strait to it. It’s not 100% of the time everywhere, especially places like Times Square, but I’d say that the norm is no spend required.
    - ajmurmann 23d ago
      Huh. I encounter "customers only" signs quite frequently in the US, as well as bathrooms that require codes or keys.
      - ericmay 23d ago
        They’re not uncommon but in my experience you tend to find them more in tourist areas with high foot traffic or if there are a lot of homeless people or something along those lines.
        JeremyNT 23d ago
lovich 23d ago
> Then take any shopping mall in Bangkok That is an extremely small subset of Thailand. I wouldn’t surprised if high end malls in any western capital city also had good toilets. Most toilets outside of malls in Thailand were bring your own soap and toilet paper and covered in water from the bum guns.
- mstaoru 23d ago
  Where I live in EU, the biggest mall's toilet (single) is paid and not great. Toilet (also single) at the train station (that sees 500k+ volume per day) is 1.5€, and also not great. At least it takes a card.
  - mstaoru 23d ago
    Also to add, Thailand is rather unique in that almost 50% of the country population lives in or around Bangkok - https://reliefweb.int/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/previews/c9/57/c957a9eb-2448-38c8-b715-6353678e53ce.png https://reliefweb.int/sites/default/files/styles/large/publi...
jambalaya8 23d ago
Yes it sucks. Much worse in Central America than Asia, apparently (many places will let you use the bathroom but they aren't very clean and many lack toilet paper or soap). Most of (non-EU, anyway) Europe is more kind about using facilities than the USA (when the businesses that have them are open, anyway). There are apps and websites to find restrooms but the free restroom in America is indeed dying. Experiments with things like self-sanitizing enclosed all-inclusive pay toilet stations in outdoor areas in large cities in America almost all ended in them being carted away, broken, since people just seem to break them (for fun or sport, who knows). I guess people expected more for their quarter or fifty cents or a dollar than just emergency facility usage. Pity.
qurren 23d ago
Yeah I have IBS too. In Iceland once I ran into a gas station to use the toilet. The idiot owner tried to charge me about USD 3 as I came out. I just said I'll fill up gas and be a customer and he backed off. I filled about $0.10 of gas and left.
scotty79 23d ago
> As a person with IBS I basically cannot peacefully go outside in EU. Try Poland. Basically every restaurant needs to have a toilet and every one of those must be made available to passers by, not just customers. They are clean and plentiful. It's mandated by law. Your country is just one political decision from this luxury.
beebmam 23d ago
This has very little to do with public amenities. It has everything to do with toleration of homelessness and drug use. I don't understand why the west tolerates it at all.
- Someone1234 23d ago
  I'm genuinely concerned to ask what you're proposing? Drug use is already unlawful, and the homeless are routinely criminalized for existing - so if that is "tolerate" then what proposals are you trying to promote?
  - jackb4040 23d ago
    I'm sure he meant removing the profit incentives from the pharmaceutical and housing industries, disentangling cartels like the Sacklers from the politicians they own, in general tolerating the Epstein class
  - bellowsgulch 23d ago
    You think we don't tolerate the homeless in the West? Man oh man, some traveling would do you good.
  - deleted 23d ago
    [deleted]
  - selfmodruntime 23d ago
    Asylums.
bamboozled 23d ago
I took my son to Sydney, Australia and we used a public toilet at the main train station and I turned around for 10 seconds and my son had located a syringe and was about to grab it. Some scumbag just left it on top of the syringe bin, probably too stoned to put it in. It was truly horrifying. The only place I’ve seen worse toilets is USA and Europe. Toilets in Japan are a dream.
chrischen 23d ago
China, clean?? Some of the worst toilets, public or private, I've encountered in China. Can't say how Europe compares but I'd rank China a distant last amongst Australia, Vietnam, Japan, America, Canada, and South Korea (there's more countries to fit in there but I'm not going to list them all).
- mstaoru 23d ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_Revolution_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_Revolution_in_China
  - chrischen 18d ago
    Yea i've been frequently, and maybe last year being the most recent. There's definitely been a revolution in development but in my opinion public toilets are probably the least revolutionized out of everything in China.
giardini 23d ago
I've been to many of the major cities in China and hubs in-between and I have not seen a single public toilet that is clean. Humid, stinky, wet, stained with shite and urine yes but "clean", no way!8-((
podocarp 23d ago
Sorry I've been to China plenty and the toilets aren't clean. I mean it's better than nothing but some of them are nightmare fuel. But, the "privately" owned public toilets are decent, i.e. those in malls and hotels etc. Quite the same story for many Asian countries too. I was also shocked by the cost incurred if you get out of home diarrhoea in Europe. Might as well buy adult diapers.
- ajmurmann 23d ago
  I'll never forget my visit to a bathroom at a huge hotpot restaurant in Chongqing. Open stalls with squatty toilets, feces everywhere and a single towel.
- mstaoru 23d ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_Revolution_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_Revolution_in_China
DarkNova6 23d ago
Which EU countries do you talk about? Because I've never seen anything like this
deleted 23d ago
[deleted]
mns 23d ago
Is this some sort of psy-op here against EU, this isn't the first message like this where someone is praising China and accusing EU, as if it's a unitary entity, about being a "horror show". If only we would have some dictators or extremist parties back in power to break up the EU and take our countries back to the good old days. I'm finding it harder and harder to come back to Hn with all of this stuff.
- embedding-shape 23d ago
  > Is this some sort of psy-op here against EU No, commonly here on HN it is American commentators who've visited like Italy or Greece or France once, then they extrapolate their experience in a tourist-heavy city, looking/behaving as an American, over the entire continent. Happens almost every day here. Any comment mentioning EU/Europe here has to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Usually it turns out they've visited some countries and the experience is unique for where they visit. To be fair, the same happens towards the US too, someone visits Montana then assumes a bunch about the entire country. I guess "American visiting country in Europe" is just more common here, given the US bias on this forum usually.
  - neuronic 23d ago
    This is a passion topic of mine and I am a German citizen living in Germany. I am absolutely furious ever since I visited Asia. Public restrooms here are rare, mostly broken, disgusting and health hazards in all of Germany no matter where you go. I'd guess that about 15% of accessible toilets outside your home are OK experiences. Every non-EU citizen should be aware of what to expect in Germany, and even worse in France, Italy or Greece. Shithole is a perfect description - it is just unbelievable how barbarically bad we are at public restrooms in comparison to anything you find across developed Asian countries. Even beyond just cleanliness, you always have harassing bathroom bouncers in private AND public facilities in Germany, basically acting as highway robbers to steal your money without ever actually cleaning anything. At best they look up from a phone and nod when you pay your urine toll. The only half usable bathrooms are from corporations like Sanifair which are making a business out of uncontrollable, basic human bodily functions. China doesn't need to invest in psyops against Germany or the EU at all if we are perfectly able to make ourselves look bad in comparison. Just use Occams razor. And of course the major issue is vandalism and destruction by a huge population of junkies, homeless, aggressive (male) youths etc. on top of anti-social behavior, hegemonially pushed by American individualism ever since WW2. I guess this is the point where you can accuse me of injecting ideas that could originate from Chinese psyops? In the end I want a society that cares for its fellow citizens.
pjerem 23d ago
> And EU is a freaking horror show. In many public toilets there's a used syringe compartment as well. Truly a 5-star service. What does that mean ? There are massive differences in EU between not only countries but even also regions of one country. How can you say that toilets are horrendous in 27 different countries with 27 different cultures ? edit : and disclaimer, I live in France and I'm not proud of our public toilets because we are clearly amongst the bad ones (even if again it really depends on where you go, that's still too random to be acceptable) but my experience have been pretty positive in most other EU countries I visited.
- carlosjobim 23d ago
  He meant Brussels, that's where he visited.
- LaGrange 23d ago
  I mean NL is like, there are only really present at train stations, cost money to use, and they look pretty bad. I will say though that “used syringes compartment” is good, actually. Warsaw and Posen were quite similar to NL by the time I left — paid toilets that weren’t all that great and sometimes outright gross. I’ve also been to Berlin and I wouldn’t call the experience amazing either. I don’t remember using public toilets in Serbia, Switzerland or Spain when I was there. But so far European track record is not great. To the point where I’m a bit pleasantly surprised other places actually do this well.
- stasomatic 23d ago
  edit : and disclaimer, I live in France and I'm not proud of our public toilets because we are clearly amongst the bad ones (even if again it really depends on where you go, that's still too random to be acceptable) but my experience have been pretty positive in most other EU countries I visited. At least you have some. I've seen them. Public restrooms aren't a thing in the US, except for some beaches and parks. We don't even have trashcans at intersections besides bus stops. Speaking for LA, Miami, Charlotte and Las Vegas. Perhaps other municipalities do.
nasaeclipse 23d ago
Clean toilets? In China?! You must've been to a different China than me. I've been there several times and the toilets are always atrocious. Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan always had the cleanest ones.
- mstaoru 23d ago
  Well I lived there for 12 years, so yeah, might've been a "different China".
NalNezumi 23d ago
EU(or US) can't have public toilets because it's gonna get vandalized. For fun. One thing that perplexed me endlessly during my youth living in Sweden was seeing drunk teenagers go around vandalize things for... Fun. Breaking the glass at the buss station (designed to shatter in to million pieces so you don't hurt yourself), friends enjoying graffiti, littering, throwing beer bottles on the street for fun.... During public school lunch (I only heard my friends doing it) they had "meatball war" throwing meatball at each other for fun. Justification was that school lunch taste shit so it's ok to throw food. Mind you all this was in the district with highest median earning in the entire country, not a ghetto. Same for toilet. Just why did you need to rip off that toilet lid? Collective ownership and responsibility is taught. In most Asian countries kids are often tasked to clean their own classroom. If someone then just destroys things for fun everyone suffers. EU/US just think that's dumb thing to teach because "eww collectivism" and even the weird conservative people going on about rules usually don't even want that. So you have a society where race to the bottom is inevitable when it comes to caring for public utilities. "privatized profit(fun) , socialized loss" teaching starts even before economics class
- mancerayder 23d ago
  How is that not connected to police enforcement, though? In Europe and now the US the new generations are anti-police, anti-enforcement and generally consider authority and rules to be proof of an unjust society (X group is N percent more likely to receive a criminal summons when ..). In the US in slow motion we could see a world in which you could go to a big chain pharmacy and retrieve your own toothpaste and shampoo. Now it's considered entirely normal to put these behind plexiglass, and to hire a security guard to stand by the door, but the guard isn't legally allowed to stop anyone or engage in any physical altercation. Because homelessness, because mental illness, because drug addiction, etc are not to be 'criminalized.' In NYC a decree stopped the police from issuing summonses for not paying the subway fare. Because it was said to be racist. Today, tons of people, especially normal professionals - happily do not pay the fare, while the system is said to be in financial deficit. Yet here we're discussing comparisons with Asian cultures and how they are more respectful of public space. So, my friends, is it a cultural difference, a legal enforcement difference, or an inevitable consequence of injustice? I'm dying to understand because it's at the crux of the political divide, and I'm seeing cities getting worse in front of my eyes.
0xmattf 23d ago
> Then take any shopping mall in Bangkok, that's an absolutely next level experience, clean, smells good, relaxing music. Mmm... When I traveled to Thailand, I first stopped in Abu Dhabi. The bathrooms in the airport were amazing. I couldn't believe they had stalls that were basically personal bathrooms (whereas in the US, your feet are exposed, and anyone who wants to see you can simply peak through the many cracks, or even throw something on you from above). The bidet thing was a little weird at first, but had no choice but to use it. Likewise, when I got to Thailand (Bangkok), I could not believe how clean the bathrooms were (with the personal room-style stall as well). These bathrooms were as clean as you'd find them in a clean-freaks home. When I arrived back in the States (JFK NY), I needed to use the bathroom really bad, but upon entering the restroom... I just couldn't do it. Urine all over the floors and toilets. Even at the entrance. Graffiti everywhere. Absolutely disgusting. It really changed my perspective. And let's not forget bidets... I'm mind-blown that people in the US use tissue paper to wipe their a*es. Yeah, I've done it for most of my life as well, but after using a bidet in multiple countries, you realize how tissue paper alone isn't effective. It honestly makes me angry that they're not in every public/private bathroom.
yipinwong 23d ago
Sounds like you live in top 1% area in China. That's def not true that toilets are readily available in China. As non-chinese citizen, I veered off place I cannot go without the passport, I see crappy areas without toilets everywhere (though I was stopped by police from wondering around). You only see where you are allowed to see. Rest of those area has no toilet, and people crap/pee everywhere.
- rykelchen 23d ago
  In China, you rarely see people defecating or urinating anywhere without proper sanitation facilities, except in the wild.
  - yipinwong 23d ago
    The "wild" makes up for the 99% of China. Even in cities, why do I have to take a dump without doors? Why do I see mom's letting kids take a dump and pee in the streets whiloe they are wearing pants that have no coverage in the bottom area? wtf is that. --- And out of 100s of comments, how did you spot my comment so quick? and it is the first comment right after you joined? You replied within minutes of my posting, @TRACK: rykelchen
    - mstaoru 22d ago
      The "wild" doesn't make 99% of China. I mean, not demographically. Of course you don't have a toilet 100km deep in Himalayas forest, don't be ridiculous. Otherwise, 70% of Chinese people live in urban areas. Little kids peeing is a bit of a special case.
- mstaoru 22d ago
  I dunno, I lived there for 12 years and we still visit often, my extended family is in the "rural" area (which by now also has better infra and roads than half of EU), and they have free public toilet "buildings" every 4-6 blocks. I mean, sure, if you get into some weird factory blocks or developing area where nobody lives, they don't have it there. Any established residential or commercial area usually will.
trllc 23d ago
Xi Jinping being the Toilet King is funny. Love the idea of toilet empowering decrees. Is it true that there are a ton of paid toilets in the EU? And are those generally nicer than free ones? If this could be useful, I've been working on a tool to map public restrooms: throneroom.app. Hope is for parents, blue collar folk, but most importantly the IBS community to have a resource where they can vet bathrooms before visiting. Open to any input if this could be helpful to you!
palmotea 23d ago
> And EU is a freaking horror show. In many public toilets there's a used syringe compartment as well. Truly a 5-star service. There are sharps containers in the bathrooms in my office in the US. It's to support people who have to inject insulin and the like, not injectable narcotics. But I think they'd be a good idea in places that have drug use problems. I do not want to deal with an accidental needle-stick from some homeless drug-users syringe.

by mstaoru 23d ago

deepsun 23d ago

What's wrong about syringe disposal? A significant portion of population has diabetes. And even if a drug addict uses it, still better than throwing to the trash, similar to how cigarette disposals are mandatory in typical airplanes.

xienze 23d ago
> What's wrong about syringe disposal? A significant portion of population has diabetes. Ask yourself if that's truly what motivated those being installed... > And even if a drug addict uses it, still better than throwing to the trash The problem is they still throw their needles all over the ground. As is typical, the intentions are noble, but what ends up happening is people who can't even be bothered to not shoot up their gutter heroin in public are given society's tacit approval to do what they're doing, thus accelerating the societal rot.
- deepsun 23d ago
  oook, so if according to your message, the disposals are mostly used by diabetics, then again, what's wrong with them?
  - Nifty3929 23d ago
    They weren't saying there is anything wrong with the syringe disposal per se, but instead that it's indicative of the people who use those facilities and the priorities of the authorities that manage them. It is observed that you have junkies shooting up in bathrooms, evidenced by needles strewn on the ground. So the solution from the authorities is to install syringe disposal containers.
    - _carbyau_ 23d ago
      > So the solution from the authorities is to install syringe disposal containers. Given the cost vs the benefits, why not? A box mounted to a wall is a pittance. Feel free to elaborate your plan for the junkies that would be cost effective, practical and ethical.
  - __MatrixMan__ 23d ago
    [flagged]
- alexjplant 23d ago
  I looked into this a while back (~6 years ago) and it basically broke down like this: diabetics outnumber injectable drug users two to one but not all diabetics use injectable insulin and the ones that do are more likely to do so at home. Drug users, however, have less compunction about sticking themselves in a public space, particular the homeless. Best guess based on these numbers is that it's a 50-50 split between these populations as to who's using public sharps containers. > society's tacit approval to do what they're doing, thus accelerating the societal rot. This argument could be made about providing drugs themselves but fails under the faintest scrutiny for sharps containers because said containers have wide uses beyond shooting up heroin.
  - freehorse 23d ago
    Homeless heroin addicts who inject themselves in public are not uniformly distributed. Thus while in some places you would expect some such injectable drug use in a public toilet (though I doubt most would bother to go find a toilet for that anyway), that is unlikely for the majority of toilets in a country that contain syringe disposers. On the other hand, one would expect that diabetics who inject insulin would be closer to be uniformly distributed (conditional to the population distribution). If one could find syringe disposers only in areas where public heroin use commonly takes place that would be believable, but it is not the case. In contrast, there are actual, real programs and places in many countries to manage issues arising with syringe use, trying to reduce syringe sharing to reduce blood-transmissible diseases etc.
  - oasisbob 23d ago
    > not all diabetics use injectable insulin and the ones that do are more likely to do so at home. I'd love to hear the citation for this one, as people using injectable insulin generally need to do in conjunction with eating, and I can't think of where you'd get the idea that T1 diabetics who use injectable insulin avoid eating outside the home as a general rule. Granted, nowadays plenty of people are using insulin pumps which decimates disposable syringe use, but I'm really puzzled where you picked up that in-home/away-from-home impression from.
    - 23d ago
- oasisbob 23d ago
  > Ask yourself if that's truly what motivated those being installed... What motivates this infrastructure is the danger to workers if syringes are just thrown into the trash. My dad had type one diabetes with a type A personality, and was very particular about making sure that syringes were disposed of properly. Not everyone is this careful, and they put others at risk.
- cryptolobster 23d ago
  > The problem is they still throw their needles all over the ground But it's better if at least some of them are in the trash and not scattered around, isn't it? I may be wrong but it seems to me that public opinion doesn't matter to these people anyway, so there's no point in getting rid of such garbage bins
- Dylan16807 23d ago
  Nobody's choosing to use heroin because it's slightly easier to not litter needles. The tiny harm reduction measure is good.
- defrost 23d ago
  > The problem is they still throw their needles all over the ground. Yeah, well, that's your culture and a direct end result of how people are treated and made to feel part of or outside of it. In Australia there are diabetics and drug addicts as much as anywhere, but rarely problems with sharps on the ground or littering in general- go figure <shrug>. Drug use: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-15/australian-drug-use-wastewater-testing/105656360 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-15/australian-drug-use-w... Australians have consumed 22.2 tonnes of methylamphetamine (meth), cocaine, heroin and MDMA in a year, according to the latest wastewater survey. That's about a gram each over the year, or rather many people don't use, a few use a lot. Diabetics, sharp disposal: https://www.diabetesaustralia.com.au/resources/safe-sharps/ https://www.diabetesaustralia.com.au/resources/safe-sharps/ Drug users, sharps: https://www.healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/U_Z/Where-to-find-needle-and-syringe-programs-in-WA https://www.healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/U_Z/Where-to-find-n... At the suburban council level: https://cosp.t1cloud.com/apps/KnowledgeBase/mySouthPerth/article/Report_Syringes https://cosp.t1cloud.com/apps/KnowledgeBase/mySouthPerth/art...
michaelt 23d ago
Some measures that mitigate a problem are associated with places where said problem is a frequent occurrence. If a place has tornado drills and tornado shelters, it's a safe bet that tornados are at least somewhat likely. Some safety and security measures have the effect of making a place feel unsafe and insecure, for this reason.
kevin_thibedeau 23d ago
Diabetics use short needle subcutaneous syringes that can be recapped and disposed of later. They have to have their insulin stored somewhere, which is just as suitable for a used syringe.
- linkregister 23d ago
  [flagged]
  - deepsun 23d ago
    Why? Who's that?
    - palunon 23d ago
      The GP.

talon8635 23d ago

I guess if you don’t have a massive population of antisocial people who destroy the public facility, you can provide them. It’s a shame we in the west surrendered that. Not the worst thing in the world, but I do find it frustrating often to not have a bathroom available nearby (small bladder) But, while the toilets aren’t the worst sacrifice, the cumulative sacrifices made on the alter of our huge antisocial populations are profound

moduspol 23d ago
Yet another consequence of no longer living in a high-trust society.
- Avicebron 23d ago
  What I want to know is if anyone can identify when exactly the homeless issue became so bad. It was already a problem when I lived in the Bay, and when I moved back to the East Coast it had been 10 years in the making (conveniently when I was away). Clearly there a some sharp lines that can be drawn somewhere. But it's hard to get some actual answers. Edit: rough clauding indicates it was when fentanyl took off, but idk, that doesn't seem wholly accurate.
  - liveoneggs 23d ago
    California is a garden of eden, a paradise to live in or see.. but believe it or not you won't find it so hot if you ain't got that do(ough)-re-mi. https://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Do_Re_Mi.htm https://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Do_Re_Mi.htm
  - throwawayffffas 23d ago
    When it became unfashionable to put mentally ill people in asylums. The additional fashion of "giving local people a voice" in construction projects planning did not help either.
    - slg 23d ago

chrisfosterelli 23d ago

> I lived for many years in China and Thailand, and toilets are free, clean, and plentiful there I don't know about China but this was the opposite of my experience in Thailand. The majority of public toilets I encountered had an attendant you had to pay for access. Shopping malls / hotels / other places were you were already paying to be there were the exception of course.

ghaff 23d ago
In Japan, I've seen attendants looking for some payment to use bathrooms in hotels.
- bschwindHN 23d ago
  Where? 11 years living in Japan and I've never seen this once, and never heard it from friends or family.
  - ghaff 23d ago
    It was in Tokyo. Couldn't tell you the specific hotel. But it had our event coordinator livid and she simply ignored them.
    - bschwindHN 23d ago
      Not that I don't believe you, but don't take that to be a common occurrence in Japan at all. By and large, Japan is a safe haven of clean and comfortable public restrooms. There are always exceptions, of course.
      - ghaff 23d ago
        Oh, I don't think it is--haven't lived there but have spent some time for conferences and surrounding time. However, just pointing out, it's not unheard of.
  - freetime2 23d ago

pyreko 23d ago

> China > toilets are... clean Okay I'm going to have to say that this _really_ depends on where you are. Sometimes, yes, especially newer buildings, but man I have seen some horrors there in the past few years when it comes to bathrooms in terms of cleanliness and smell (the frequent smoking in a lot of bathrooms doesn't help). This is coming from someone primarily experiencing Canadian and American bathrooms, for reference, and a lot of those are pretty nasty. I think it's getting better at least... Just to be clear though I agree generally, at least from my experience with East Asia. Hong Kong often has really good bathrooms now IMO (I feel like it improved a lot between 2018 to 2023?). Japan is also really good from my experience (fancy-ass bidets). Taiwan was fine too from my recollection.

qurren 23d ago
> _really_ depends on where you are That kinda applies to anywhere in the world. On the average, I've seen much cleaner toilets in first-tier China cities than first-tier US cities. And much more accessible as well. Free public toilets literally everywhere. All over the city, in every shopping center, in every coffee shop. And you don't need to buy a coffee and trash it to use them.
- ux266478 23d ago
  > I've seen much cleaner toilets in first-tier China cities than first-tier US cities. That definitely tracks. LA has a massive unhoused person issue, many of whom with severe mental disorders. You feel a lot that in the commons, especially as you get near DTLA. New York is shabby and dirty in general. More so than a big city usually is. And it's not really a charming shabbiness from an extreme subtropical climate as you get in Taiwan. The relationship China has with its tier 1 cities is more similar to other Asian countries, like Japan and Korea, than it is to the US.
- boelboel 23d ago
  Chinese first tier cities aren't accessible, you can't even live there as a country bumpkin.
  - 23d ago

seanmcdirmid 23d ago

Weird. When I was living in Beijing, I made a mental map of all my bathroom choices when I wasn't at a luxury shopping mall, because they just weren't that convenient and available. This includes squats, which I included since sit down toilets were often hogged by some guy on the phone doing a long smoking session (squats never were, which is great when you absolutely need to go!). But this was in the time when Xi had just taken office, so it is probably better now. I didn't see any issues on my trip to Chengdu this summer. I have a lot bigger problems in downtown Seattle today, which is just really bad (either the toilets don't exist, or there is some homeless guy doing drugs in the only stall they have). Sigh.

freehorse 23d ago

"EU" is too broad of a term to describe cultural/social/political norms such as public toilets. There are places in the EU with fairly decent toilets, and others with almost none. In some you have to pay in many public toilets, in others they are free. The best bet in most places are public buildings such as libraries. And very often cafes etc allow you use a toilet, esp if you have health reasons and ask them nicely, though ymmv. The biggest issue as others said is vandalism, so in (richer) countries where public toilets are cleaned more often the toilets are much better.

B1FF_PSUVM 23d ago
Cafes/restaurants are required by law to provide toilets to customers, afaik
- ericmay 23d ago
  Is the keyword customers though? In other words you’ve got to spend money to use the toilet? In America I can walk in to a restaurant, even a nicer one and ask to use the bathroom and very likely would be shown strait to it. It’s not 100% of the time everywhere, especially places like Times Square, but I’d say that the norm is no spend required.
  - ajmurmann 23d ago
    Huh. I encounter "customers only" signs quite frequently in the US, as well as bathrooms that require codes or keys.
    - ericmay 23d ago
      They’re not uncommon but in my experience you tend to find them more in tourist areas with high foot traffic or if there are a lot of homeless people or something along those lines.
      - JeremyNT 23d ago

lovich 23d ago

> Then take any shopping mall in Bangkok That is an extremely small subset of Thailand. I wouldn’t surprised if high end malls in any western capital city also had good toilets. Most toilets outside of malls in Thailand were bring your own soap and toilet paper and covered in water from the bum guns.

mstaoru 23d ago
Where I live in EU, the biggest mall's toilet (single) is paid and not great. Toilet (also single) at the train station (that sees 500k+ volume per day) is 1.5€, and also not great. At least it takes a card.
- mstaoru 23d ago
  Also to add, Thailand is rather unique in that almost 50% of the country population lives in or around Bangkok - https://reliefweb.int/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/previews/c9/57/c957a9eb-2448-38c8-b715-6353678e53ce.png https://reliefweb.int/sites/default/files/styles/large/publi...

jambalaya8 23d ago

Yes it sucks. Much worse in Central America than Asia, apparently (many places will let you use the bathroom but they aren't very clean and many lack toilet paper or soap). Most of (non-EU, anyway) Europe is more kind about using facilities than the USA (when the businesses that have them are open, anyway). There are apps and websites to find restrooms but the free restroom in America is indeed dying. Experiments with things like self-sanitizing enclosed all-inclusive pay toilet stations in outdoor areas in large cities in America almost all ended in them being carted away, broken, since people just seem to break them (for fun or sport, who knows). I guess people expected more for their quarter or fifty cents or a dollar than just emergency facility usage. Pity.

qurren 23d ago

Yeah I have IBS too. In Iceland once I ran into a gas station to use the toilet. The idiot owner tried to charge me about USD 3 as I came out. I just said I'll fill up gas and be a customer and he backed off. I filled about $0.10 of gas and left.

scotty79 23d ago

> As a person with IBS I basically cannot peacefully go outside in EU. Try Poland. Basically every restaurant needs to have a toilet and every one of those must be made available to passers by, not just customers. They are clean and plentiful. It's mandated by law. Your country is just one political decision from this luxury.

beebmam 23d ago

This has very little to do with public amenities. It has everything to do with toleration of homelessness and drug use. I don't understand why the west tolerates it at all.

Someone1234 23d ago
I'm genuinely concerned to ask what you're proposing? Drug use is already unlawful, and the homeless are routinely criminalized for existing - so if that is "tolerate" then what proposals are you trying to promote?
- jackb4040 23d ago
  I'm sure he meant removing the profit incentives from the pharmaceutical and housing industries, disentangling cartels like the Sacklers from the politicians they own, in general tolerating the Epstein class
- bellowsgulch 23d ago
  You think we don't tolerate the homeless in the West? Man oh man, some traveling would do you good.
- deleted 23d ago
  [deleted]
- selfmodruntime 23d ago
  Asylums.

bamboozled 23d ago

I took my son to Sydney, Australia and we used a public toilet at the main train station and I turned around for 10 seconds and my son had located a syringe and was about to grab it. Some scumbag just left it on top of the syringe bin, probably too stoned to put it in. It was truly horrifying. The only place I’ve seen worse toilets is USA and Europe. Toilets in Japan are a dream.

chrischen 23d ago

China, clean?? Some of the worst toilets, public or private, I've encountered in China. Can't say how Europe compares but I'd rank China a distant last amongst Australia, Vietnam, Japan, America, Canada, and South Korea (there's more countries to fit in there but I'm not going to list them all).

mstaoru 23d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_Revolution_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_Revolution_in_China
- chrischen 18d ago
  Yea i've been frequently, and maybe last year being the most recent. There's definitely been a revolution in development but in my opinion public toilets are probably the least revolutionized out of everything in China.

giardini 23d ago

I've been to many of the major cities in China and hubs in-between and I have not seen a single public toilet that is clean. Humid, stinky, wet, stained with shite and urine yes but "clean", no way!8-((

podocarp 23d ago

Sorry I've been to China plenty and the toilets aren't clean. I mean it's better than nothing but some of them are nightmare fuel. But, the "privately" owned public toilets are decent, i.e. those in malls and hotels etc. Quite the same story for many Asian countries too. I was also shocked by the cost incurred if you get out of home diarrhoea in Europe. Might as well buy adult diapers.

ajmurmann 23d ago
I'll never forget my visit to a bathroom at a huge hotpot restaurant in Chongqing. Open stalls with squatty toilets, feces everywhere and a single towel.
mstaoru 23d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_Revolution_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_Revolution_in_China

DarkNova6 23d ago

Which EU countries do you talk about? Because I've never seen anything like this

deleted 23d ago

[deleted]

mns 23d ago

Is this some sort of psy-op here against EU, this isn't the first message like this where someone is praising China and accusing EU, as if it's a unitary entity, about being a "horror show". If only we would have some dictators or extremist parties back in power to break up the EU and take our countries back to the good old days. I'm finding it harder and harder to come back to Hn with all of this stuff.

embedding-shape 23d ago
> Is this some sort of psy-op here against EU No, commonly here on HN it is American commentators who've visited like Italy or Greece or France once, then they extrapolate their experience in a tourist-heavy city, looking/behaving as an American, over the entire continent. Happens almost every day here. Any comment mentioning EU/Europe here has to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Usually it turns out they've visited some countries and the experience is unique for where they visit. To be fair, the same happens towards the US too, someone visits Montana then assumes a bunch about the entire country. I guess "American visiting country in Europe" is just more common here, given the US bias on this forum usually.
- neuronic 23d ago
  This is a passion topic of mine and I am a German citizen living in Germany. I am absolutely furious ever since I visited Asia. Public restrooms here are rare, mostly broken, disgusting and health hazards in all of Germany no matter where you go. I'd guess that about 15% of accessible toilets outside your home are OK experiences. Every non-EU citizen should be aware of what to expect in Germany, and even worse in France, Italy or Greece. Shithole is a perfect description - it is just unbelievable how barbarically bad we are at public restrooms in comparison to anything you find across developed Asian countries. Even beyond just cleanliness, you always have harassing bathroom bouncers in private AND public facilities in Germany, basically acting as highway robbers to steal your money without ever actually cleaning anything. At best they look up from a phone and nod when you pay your urine toll. The only half usable bathrooms are from corporations like Sanifair which are making a business out of uncontrollable, basic human bodily functions. China doesn't need to invest in psyops against Germany or the EU at all if we are perfectly able to make ourselves look bad in comparison. Just use Occams razor. And of course the major issue is vandalism and destruction by a huge population of junkies, homeless, aggressive (male) youths etc. on top of anti-social behavior, hegemonially pushed by American individualism ever since WW2. I guess this is the point where you can accuse me of injecting ideas that could originate from Chinese psyops? In the end I want a society that cares for its fellow citizens.

pjerem 23d ago

> And EU is a freaking horror show. In many public toilets there's a used syringe compartment as well. Truly a 5-star service. What does that mean ? There are massive differences in EU between not only countries but even also regions of one country. How can you say that toilets are horrendous in 27 different countries with 27 different cultures ? edit : and disclaimer, I live in France and I'm not proud of our public toilets because we are clearly amongst the bad ones (even if again it really depends on where you go, that's still too random to be acceptable) but my experience have been pretty positive in most other EU countries I visited.

carlosjobim 23d ago
He meant Brussels, that's where he visited.
LaGrange 23d ago
I mean NL is like, there are only really present at train stations, cost money to use, and they look pretty bad. I will say though that “used syringes compartment” is good, actually. Warsaw and Posen were quite similar to NL by the time I left — paid toilets that weren’t all that great and sometimes outright gross. I’ve also been to Berlin and I wouldn’t call the experience amazing either. I don’t remember using public toilets in Serbia, Switzerland or Spain when I was there. But so far European track record is not great. To the point where I’m a bit pleasantly surprised other places actually do this well.
stasomatic 23d ago
edit : and disclaimer, I live in France and I'm not proud of our public toilets because we are clearly amongst the bad ones (even if again it really depends on where you go, that's still too random to be acceptable) but my experience have been pretty positive in most other EU countries I visited. At least you have some. I've seen them. Public restrooms aren't a thing in the US, except for some beaches and parks. We don't even have trashcans at intersections besides bus stops. Speaking for LA, Miami, Charlotte and Las Vegas. Perhaps other municipalities do.

nasaeclipse 23d ago

Clean toilets? In China?! You must've been to a different China than me. I've been there several times and the toilets are always atrocious. Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan always had the cleanest ones.

mstaoru 23d ago
Well I lived there for 12 years, so yeah, might've been a "different China".

NalNezumi 23d ago

EU(or US) can't have public toilets because it's gonna get vandalized. For fun. One thing that perplexed me endlessly during my youth living in Sweden was seeing drunk teenagers go around vandalize things for... Fun. Breaking the glass at the buss station (designed to shatter in to million pieces so you don't hurt yourself), friends enjoying graffiti, littering, throwing beer bottles on the street for fun.... During public school lunch (I only heard my friends doing it) they had "meatball war" throwing meatball at each other for fun. Justification was that school lunch taste shit so it's ok to throw food. Mind you all this was in the district with highest median earning in the entire country, not a ghetto. Same for toilet. Just why did you need to rip off that toilet lid? Collective ownership and responsibility is taught. In most Asian countries kids are often tasked to clean their own classroom. If someone then just destroys things for fun everyone suffers. EU/US just think that's dumb thing to teach because "eww collectivism" and even the weird conservative people going on about rules usually don't even want that. So you have a society where race to the bottom is inevitable when it comes to caring for public utilities. "privatized profit(fun) , socialized loss" teaching starts even before economics class

mancerayder 23d ago
How is that not connected to police enforcement, though? In Europe and now the US the new generations are anti-police, anti-enforcement and generally consider authority and rules to be proof of an unjust society (X group is N percent more likely to receive a criminal summons when ..). In the US in slow motion we could see a world in which you could go to a big chain pharmacy and retrieve your own toothpaste and shampoo. Now it's considered entirely normal to put these behind plexiglass, and to hire a security guard to stand by the door, but the guard isn't legally allowed to stop anyone or engage in any physical altercation. Because homelessness, because mental illness, because drug addiction, etc are not to be 'criminalized.' In NYC a decree stopped the police from issuing summonses for not paying the subway fare. Because it was said to be racist. Today, tons of people, especially normal professionals - happily do not pay the fare, while the system is said to be in financial deficit. Yet here we're discussing comparisons with Asian cultures and how they are more respectful of public space. So, my friends, is it a cultural difference, a legal enforcement difference, or an inevitable consequence of injustice? I'm dying to understand because it's at the crux of the political divide, and I'm seeing cities getting worse in front of my eyes.

0xmattf 23d ago

> Then take any shopping mall in Bangkok, that's an absolutely next level experience, clean, smells good, relaxing music. Mmm... When I traveled to Thailand, I first stopped in Abu Dhabi. The bathrooms in the airport were amazing. I couldn't believe they had stalls that were basically personal bathrooms (whereas in the US, your feet are exposed, and anyone who wants to see you can simply peak through the many cracks, or even throw something on you from above). The bidet thing was a little weird at first, but had no choice but to use it. Likewise, when I got to Thailand (Bangkok), I could not believe how clean the bathrooms were (with the personal room-style stall as well). These bathrooms were as clean as you'd find them in a clean-freaks home. When I arrived back in the States (JFK NY), I needed to use the bathroom really bad, but upon entering the restroom... I just couldn't do it. Urine all over the floors and toilets. Even at the entrance. Graffiti everywhere. Absolutely disgusting. It really changed my perspective. And let's not forget bidets... I'm mind-blown that people in the US use tissue paper to wipe their a*es. Yeah, I've done it for most of my life as well, but after using a bidet in multiple countries, you realize how tissue paper alone isn't effective. It honestly makes me angry that they're not in every public/private bathroom.

yipinwong 23d ago

Sounds like you live in top 1% area in China. That's def not true that toilets are readily available in China. As non-chinese citizen, I veered off place I cannot go without the passport, I see crappy areas without toilets everywhere (though I was stopped by police from wondering around). You only see where you are allowed to see. Rest of those area has no toilet, and people crap/pee everywhere.

rykelchen 23d ago
In China, you rarely see people defecating or urinating anywhere without proper sanitation facilities, except in the wild.
- yipinwong 23d ago
  The "wild" makes up for the 99% of China. Even in cities, why do I have to take a dump without doors? Why do I see mom's letting kids take a dump and pee in the streets whiloe they are wearing pants that have no coverage in the bottom area? wtf is that. --- And out of 100s of comments, how did you spot my comment so quick? and it is the first comment right after you joined? You replied within minutes of my posting, @TRACK: rykelchen
  - mstaoru 22d ago
    The "wild" doesn't make 99% of China. I mean, not demographically. Of course you don't have a toilet 100km deep in Himalayas forest, don't be ridiculous. Otherwise, 70% of Chinese people live in urban areas. Little kids peeing is a bit of a special case.
mstaoru 22d ago
I dunno, I lived there for 12 years and we still visit often, my extended family is in the "rural" area (which by now also has better infra and roads than half of EU), and they have free public toilet "buildings" every 4-6 blocks. I mean, sure, if you get into some weird factory blocks or developing area where nobody lives, they don't have it there. Any established residential or commercial area usually will.

trllc 23d ago

Xi Jinping being the Toilet King is funny. Love the idea of toilet empowering decrees. Is it true that there are a ton of paid toilets in the EU? And are those generally nicer than free ones? If this could be useful, I've been working on a tool to map public restrooms: throneroom.app. Hope is for parents, blue collar folk, but most importantly the IBS community to have a resource where they can vet bathrooms before visiting. Open to any input if this could be helpful to you!

palmotea 23d ago

> And EU is a freaking horror show. In many public toilets there's a used syringe compartment as well. Truly a 5-star service. There are sharps containers in the bathrooms in my office in the US. It's to support people who have to inject insulin and the like, not injectable narcotics. But I think they'd be a good idea in places that have drug use problems. I do not want to deal with an accidental needle-stick from some homeless drug-users syringe.