7 ms·

Agreed, this is quite baffling. The only answer I can think of is that India hasn't been prioritizing education in rural communities. Population is not a valid

by Cyph0n 10y ago

Agreed, this is quite baffling. The only answer I can think of is that India hasn't been prioritizing education in rural communities. Population is not a valid excuse: do people still shit where they drink in China? I'm more understanding when it comes to the lack of basic sanitation facilities, but lack of education is inexcusable in this day and age!

clock_tower 10y ago
China used night soil as fertilizer historically; they don't anymore (when was the practice abandoned, I wonder? And is there any Chinese interest in terra preta?), but it got them into great habits. The same is true for at least Korea and Japan; I don't know as much about Southeast Asia. Only drinking hot drinks also helped China's health. Fernand Braudel, in The Structures of Everyday Life, discusses this in passing; even 17th-century observers felt that it would be better for the Spanish colonials to adopt Chinese practice in the Philippines rather than keeping their custom of drinking everything iced. (Where did they get the ice?) Braudel also mentions a case where St. Francis Xavier drank a cup of cold water, to the horror of his Chinese entourage, who warned him not to keep up such a dangerous practice...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- rsync 10y ago
  "(Where did they get the ice?)" That is a fantastic question ... Many different cities around the world have an "icehouse" street - the origin of the name being obvious. However, I know of an "icehouse" street in Hong Kong and I always wonder "when the icehouse was here, and this street was named for it, where in the world were they getting ice?" I know you can pack ice in sawdust and straw, etc., and keep it for the summer, but Hong Kong is a very, very long journey from anywhere that freezes in the winter ... where were they bringing ice from ?
  - sorenjan 10y ago
    They got the ice from the east coast of the US and from Norway. Ice used to be big business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade
    - clock_tower 10y ago
      The trouble is that the ice trade is 19th-century, but Braudel quoted a source from the 17th century about taking everything iced. Can any Filipino reader comment on whether snow ever falls there? I didn't see any snowcaps on Google Satellite View, but that's not the best of sources...
- lacampbell 10y ago
  The hot water thing was nothing more than a method to kill bacteria AFAIK. In much of Europe the preferred way of doing that was to produce beer. Many East Asians to this day still believe that hot water is better for your health, even when filtered water is cheap and plentiful. If you ask for water at a restaurant it will inevitably be warm. I've had people express concern when drinking cold water during the winter, or when I'm sick.
  - restalis 10y ago
    "In much of Europe the preferred way of doing that was to produce beer." In much of Europe the preferred way of doing that was indeed to use alcohol, but in more than one form. Beer's usage, compared to other alcoholic beverages, was higher only in germanic and western slavic regions (like Czech). The french, the spanish, greeks, romanians, and maybe others in the Balkan Peninsula, preferred wine. Eastern slavic and northern Europe had their vodka-like beverages. Europe is not only Germany, mind you!
hinkley 10y ago
I'm currently reading a reprint of a 110 year old book about how China and Japan have kept their farms fertile for 4000 years. The basics are lots of elbow grease, and continuous application of river silt and (aged?) animal and human sewage. It occurs to me that this book predates both industrialization (factory effluent) and the last cholera outbreaks. Which makes me wonder what sort of sweeping agricultural practice changes came in subsequent decades.
- yourapostasy 10y ago
  Would appreciate a title if you run across it again and remember this request. The term of art in the West is "anthroponics". A related subreddit [1] seems to currently focus upon using human urine in agriculture (with some really fascinating results of using watermelon seeds to sterilize the urine). Human feces given to black soldier flies and feeding their larvae to chickens and tilapia as a high-protein supplement might be more workable and timely than turning then feces into compost, and if scalable it could add a lot of new capacity to developed world sewer systems. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Anthroponics/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Anthroponics/
  - hinkley 10y ago
    Farmers of Forty Centuries by F. H. King Reprinted by Dover in 2004
gurkendoktor 10y ago
I've heard plenty of anecdotes from this decade that toddlers in rural China commonly poop onto the street, and that public toilets on e.g. buses are too messy to be hygienic. It seems to be common enough: https://www.quora.com/Chinese-Etiquette-and-Behavior-Is-pooping-in-public-a-common-occurrence-in-China https://www.quora.com/Chinese-Etiquette-and-Behavior-Is-poop... Better than doing it in one's own drinking water, but I think what saves the Chinese is not education, but a tradition of cooking absolutely everything (see sibling posts).
- Banthum 10y ago
  It's far beyond "toddlers in rural China commonly poop in the street". In downtown Shanghai I got to watch a mother walk out of her business holding her child, have the child crap on the sidewalk (while being held in the mothers' arms), and then brought back inside. This was not a baby. The kid looked about 3-4 years old. This goes on in subway stations as well. The parent has the kid sit on the edge of a garbage can and crap into it. If you go you'll see the children commonly wear these lower garments with the whole groin area open. It's so the child can squat and pee or poo anywhere without needing adult attention. The child is taken to public parts in the city and around downtown like this. Chinese public conscientiousness is far below anything you can imagine until you experience it.
  - politiyvr 10y ago
    Meanwhile, over in Richmond (a suburb of Vancouver, Canada where the census shows approx 50% of residents are of Chinese origin): http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2013/08/meanwhile-in-richmond/ http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2013/08/meanwhile-in-richmond/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/the-boy-that-peed-in-a-garbage-can-at-a-bc-mall-why-did-it-happen/article14048692/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/the-boy-t... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/boy-peeing-in-b-c-mall-trash-bin-photo-sparks-online-debate-1.1337883 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/boy-peeing-in... http://www.straight.com/news/417596/culture-clash-over-kid-peeing-garbage-can-richmond-shopping-mall http://www.straight.com/news/417596/culture-clash-over-kid-p...
  - 10y ago
hangonhn 10y ago
No. China has historically used toilets. In fact, the earliest documented case of a flushing toilet date from the Han dynasty ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/851957.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/851957.stm ) , which is more than 2000 years old, but that's rare. Most Chinese toilets were buckets in a separate room. China historically used night soil as fertilizers. These bucket toilets were carried out of the house and later used to fertilize crops. This is the reason why the Chinese never had salad or any uncooked vegetables as part of their cuisine. They might not have known about germs but they did draw the correlation between uncooked vegetables and being ill.
- tropo 10y ago
  China, India, Korea, and Japan all used pig toilets. In some places, usage was 22.7% as of 2003. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_toilet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_toilet
  - Cyph0n 10y ago
    That's disgusting honestly. Doesn't that pose a health hazard to the people who consume that meat? I don't eat pork so I never knew how filthy pigs can be!
    - Maken 10y ago
      Feeding shit and trash to pigs, and other animals like chickens or rabbits, used to be a common custom in European countries as well. It's not as terrible as it sounds, since for the most time these animals don't get infected by human germs, effectively acting as a kind of walking antibiotic bag, and therefore it's an acceptable way of disposing of residues and getting some extra food at the same time.
    - hangonhn 10y ago
      A Jewish friend once commented that it's the reason for kosher laws. I'm not sure if he was trying to justify an ancient custom with modern insights.

by Cyph0n 10y ago

clock_tower 10y ago

China used night soil as fertilizer historically; they don't anymore (when was the practice abandoned, I wonder? And is there any Chinese interest in terra preta?), but it got them into great habits. The same is true for at least Korea and Japan; I don't know as much about Southeast Asia. Only drinking hot drinks also helped China's health. Fernand Braudel, in The Structures of Everyday Life, discusses this in passing; even 17th-century observers felt that it would be better for the Spanish colonials to adopt Chinese practice in the Philippines rather than keeping their custom of drinking everything iced. (Where did they get the ice?) Braudel also mentions a case where St. Francis Xavier drank a cup of cold water, to the horror of his Chinese entourage, who warned him not to keep up such a dangerous practice...

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
rsync 10y ago
"(Where did they get the ice?)" That is a fantastic question ... Many different cities around the world have an "icehouse" street - the origin of the name being obvious. However, I know of an "icehouse" street in Hong Kong and I always wonder "when the icehouse was here, and this street was named for it, where in the world were they getting ice?" I know you can pack ice in sawdust and straw, etc., and keep it for the summer, but Hong Kong is a very, very long journey from anywhere that freezes in the winter ... where were they bringing ice from ?
- sorenjan 10y ago
  They got the ice from the east coast of the US and from Norway. Ice used to be big business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade
  - clock_tower 10y ago
    The trouble is that the ice trade is 19th-century, but Braudel quoted a source from the 17th century about taking everything iced. Can any Filipino reader comment on whether snow ever falls there? I didn't see any snowcaps on Google Satellite View, but that's not the best of sources...
lacampbell 10y ago
The hot water thing was nothing more than a method to kill bacteria AFAIK. In much of Europe the preferred way of doing that was to produce beer. Many East Asians to this day still believe that hot water is better for your health, even when filtered water is cheap and plentiful. If you ask for water at a restaurant it will inevitably be warm. I've had people express concern when drinking cold water during the winter, or when I'm sick.
- restalis 10y ago
  "In much of Europe the preferred way of doing that was to produce beer." In much of Europe the preferred way of doing that was indeed to use alcohol, but in more than one form. Beer's usage, compared to other alcoholic beverages, was higher only in germanic and western slavic regions (like Czech). The french, the spanish, greeks, romanians, and maybe others in the Balkan Peninsula, preferred wine. Eastern slavic and northern Europe had their vodka-like beverages. Europe is not only Germany, mind you!

hinkley 10y ago

I'm currently reading a reprint of a 110 year old book about how China and Japan have kept their farms fertile for 4000 years. The basics are lots of elbow grease, and continuous application of river silt and (aged?) animal and human sewage. It occurs to me that this book predates both industrialization (factory effluent) and the last cholera outbreaks. Which makes me wonder what sort of sweeping agricultural practice changes came in subsequent decades.

yourapostasy 10y ago
Would appreciate a title if you run across it again and remember this request. The term of art in the West is "anthroponics". A related subreddit [1] seems to currently focus upon using human urine in agriculture (with some really fascinating results of using watermelon seeds to sterilize the urine). Human feces given to black soldier flies and feeding their larvae to chickens and tilapia as a high-protein supplement might be more workable and timely than turning then feces into compost, and if scalable it could add a lot of new capacity to developed world sewer systems. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Anthroponics/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Anthroponics/
- hinkley 10y ago
  Farmers of Forty Centuries by F. H. King Reprinted by Dover in 2004

gurkendoktor 10y ago

I've heard plenty of anecdotes from this decade that toddlers in rural China commonly poop onto the street, and that public toilets on e.g. buses are too messy to be hygienic. It seems to be common enough: https://www.quora.com/Chinese-Etiquette-and-Behavior-Is-pooping-in-public-a-common-occurrence-in-China https://www.quora.com/Chinese-Etiquette-and-Behavior-Is-poop... Better than doing it in one's own drinking water, but I think what saves the Chinese is not education, but a tradition of cooking absolutely everything (see sibling posts).

Banthum 10y ago
It's far beyond "toddlers in rural China commonly poop in the street". In downtown Shanghai I got to watch a mother walk out of her business holding her child, have the child crap on the sidewalk (while being held in the mothers' arms), and then brought back inside. This was not a baby. The kid looked about 3-4 years old. This goes on in subway stations as well. The parent has the kid sit on the edge of a garbage can and crap into it. If you go you'll see the children commonly wear these lower garments with the whole groin area open. It's so the child can squat and pee or poo anywhere without needing adult attention. The child is taken to public parts in the city and around downtown like this. Chinese public conscientiousness is far below anything you can imagine until you experience it.
- politiyvr 10y ago
  Meanwhile, over in Richmond (a suburb of Vancouver, Canada where the census shows approx 50% of residents are of Chinese origin): http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2013/08/meanwhile-in-richmond/ http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2013/08/meanwhile-in-richmond/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/the-boy-that-peed-in-a-garbage-can-at-a-bc-mall-why-did-it-happen/article14048692/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/the-boy-t... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/boy-peeing-in-b-c-mall-trash-bin-photo-sparks-online-debate-1.1337883 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/boy-peeing-in... http://www.straight.com/news/417596/culture-clash-over-kid-peeing-garbage-can-richmond-shopping-mall http://www.straight.com/news/417596/culture-clash-over-kid-p...
- 10y ago

hangonhn 10y ago

No. China has historically used toilets. In fact, the earliest documented case of a flushing toilet date from the Han dynasty ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/851957.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/851957.stm ) , which is more than 2000 years old, but that's rare. Most Chinese toilets were buckets in a separate room. China historically used night soil as fertilizers. These bucket toilets were carried out of the house and later used to fertilize crops. This is the reason why the Chinese never had salad or any uncooked vegetables as part of their cuisine. They might not have known about germs but they did draw the correlation between uncooked vegetables and being ill.

tropo 10y ago
China, India, Korea, and Japan all used pig toilets. In some places, usage was 22.7% as of 2003. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_toilet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_toilet
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  That's disgusting honestly. Doesn't that pose a health hazard to the people who consume that meat? I don't eat pork so I never knew how filthy pigs can be!
  - Maken 10y ago
    Feeding shit and trash to pigs, and other animals like chickens or rabbits, used to be a common custom in European countries as well. It's not as terrible as it sounds, since for the most time these animals don't get infected by human germs, effectively acting as a kind of walking antibiotic bag, and therefore it's an acceptable way of disposing of residues and getting some extra food at the same time.
  - hangonhn 10y ago
    A Jewish friend once commented that it's the reason for kosher laws. I'm not sure if he was trying to justify an ancient custom with modern insights.