Toilet Revolution!!
languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu - Victor Mair« previous post |
Wunderbar!
China had a toilet reform movement already a decade or two ago. I remember reading a whole, serious book about how to improve toilet construction and behavior. In fact, I bought a copy and studied it assiduously, but can't put my hands on the volume at this moment.
Apparently the toilet improvement campaign is still going on. In this "Dictionary of Xi Jinping's new terms", it is number 9 out of 20 key items in the imperial lexicon extracted from President Xi's "Important speeches he made in conferences, inspections and state visits [that] set the tone for China's reform, development agenda and diplomacy." This "dictionary" was issued by The State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China. Here's the entry for "Toilet revolution":
Along with agricultural modernization and new rural construction, local governments will ensure that villagers have access to hygienic toilets.
Chinese toilets can indeed be truly awful. Much as my wife loved her homeland, she often had nightmares about Chinese toilets and was terrified of going in them when she travelled there.
The Chinese term for "toilet revolution" is "cèsuǒ gémìng 厕所革命". Syllable by syllable, that means "lavatory-place remove-mandate [of heaven]".
To show how seriously China is taking this, here is a scientific paper on the subject:
"Research article: Toilet revolution in China", by Shikun Cheng, Zifu Li, Sayed Mohammad Nazim Uddin, Heinz-Peter Man, Xiaoqin Zhou, Jian Zhang, Lei Zheng, Lingling Zhang, in Journal of Environmental Management, available online 21 September 2017:
Abstract
The wide-spread prevalence of unimproved sanitation technologies has been a major cause of concern for the environment and public health, and China is no exception to this. Towards the sanitation issue, toilet revolution has become a buzzword in China recently. This paper elaborates the backgrounds, connotations, and actions of the toilet revolution in China. The toilet revolution aims to create sanitation infrastructure and public services that work for everyone and that turn waste into value. Opportunities for implementing the toilet revolution include: fulfilling Millennium Development Goals and new Sustainable Development Goals; government support at all levels for popularizing sanitary toilet; environmental protection to alleviate wastewater pollution; resource recovery from human waste and disease prevention for health and wellbeing improvement. Meanwhile, the challenges faced are: insufficient funding and policy support, regional imbalance and lagging approval processes, weak sanitary awareness and low acceptance of new toilets, lack of R&D and service system. The toilet revolution requires a concerted effort from many governmental departments. It needs to address not only technology implementation, but also social acceptance, economic affordability, maintenance issues and, increasingly, gender considerations. Aligned with the ecological sanitation principles, it calls for understanding issues across the entire sanitation service chain. Public-private partnership is also recommended to absorb private capital to make up the lack of funds, as well as arouse the enthusiasm of the public.
And here are some photographs of Party apparatchiks (including Chairman Xi) holding discussion meetings and promotional events to determine how best to carry out the toilet revolution:
[Thanks to Jichang Lulu]
Source languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu