China Hopes to Flush Smelly Toilet Image

[Champ]

By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING - Beijing hopes the smelly reputation of its public restrooms will be, well, flushed down the toilet soon. City officials will use the 2004 World Toilet Summit, starting Nov. 17, to showcase efforts to transform the capital's lavatories from foul to fragrant, from crude to cultured.


"Toilets represent the level of development of a country, a region," Yu Debin, deputy director of Beijing's Municipal Bureau of Tourism, said Friday at a news conference. "They also represent a region's spiritual and material civilization."


The issue is especially pressing as Chinese leaders try to clean up their capital before the 2008 Olympics.


The three-day summit is expected to attract 150 academics, sanitation experts, toilet designers and environmentalists from 19 countries as far-flung as the United States, Finland, Germany, Japan and Nepal.


Organizers say topics will include the latest toilet technologies, management strategies and self-sustaining commodes. Beijing officials will take delegates on tours of newly built public restrooms and hold a photo exhibition of ongoing efforts.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=816&ncid=816&e=1&u=/ap/20041105/ap_on_fe_st/china_toilet_summit

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Cleaning them once in a while would be a start

They don't need a summit to tell them that. It was obvious to me after two days in China.

[DS1]

2. The world will have a tough time swallowing that one

:-)

[jdots]

3. How many Mc'donald's are there in China now ? n/t

[skygazer]

4. "Toilets represent the level of development of a country, a region,"

"They also represent a region's spiritual and material civilization."

They do? I had no idea toilets held such a deep cultural significance. What a Philistine I am!