Tag: toilets

Little Donkey Farm

February 28, 2012 / / 1 Comment

I’ve mentioned Beijing’s Little Donkey Farm a couple of times already.  I finally had the chance to visit.

Food safety has been a huge issue in China in recent years, and wealthy urban dwellers are starting to scramble for food that will not render them sterile or cancerous.  Little Donkey Farm capitalizes on this fear by giving Beijingers a few options for access to less-toxic food.  Insecure urbanites can subscribe to a weekly order of in-season vegetables, or they can rent a plot of land at the farm and either tend it themselves on the weekends or pay the farm to raise vegetables on it.

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Toilets

February 23, 2010 / / 6 Comments

Urination, defecation and flatulence are all favorite topics of mine.  They never get old.  If I live to be 90, I’ll still laugh when someone within earshot lets one rip.  Especially if it’s a shart.  So it’s fitting that my first substantive post is about toilets.

In the past, public toilets in China were notoriously bad – dirty, smelly, leaky, plugged up, and often filled with maggots.  They’re probably still not great in much of the country, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the quality of public toilets in Beijing.  Here’s a urinal I found on Gulou Dajie, in an old neighborhood with lots of hutongs (ancient alleyways) and siheyuan (ancient courtyard-style houses).

Notice anything odd about this urinal?

I’ll give you a hint: how do you flush it?
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