Yes, the toilets in Taiwan are great —- and free. They have masses of public toilets in park, along with cleaning attendants. But here is the rub —- in the US, they would be overrun with homeless (I’m not saying this is bad; just that it would be the reality) while in TW the people who are attending to them would likely be homeless were they in the US. Is part of this cultural? Yep, probably. Is part of it structural? I think so —- because there are roles for people in TW, the “lowest rung” of society, while the only role stateside is along the side of the road or perhaps a MCD worker.

America has extreme homelessness not as a cause of problems but as a symptom of neglect, exploitation, and a widespread lack of concern for fellow human beings. Fix homelessness and there will be fewer encampments and less nasty situations involving public and private infrastructure. It's cheaper to solve it at the core (housing) than prolong it and treat just some of the symptoms by throwing heaps of money at pernicious fallout areas like emergency rooms.

I don't understand this argument in American politics ("If we build something nice, those no good poor people will just ruin it!") and I especially don't understand it in this context. Unless my memory is far worse than I imagined, there are free toilets everywhere in the US (not so much now with COVID restrictions) and they're not all overrun with homeless. Have you never been to a public beach?

> there are free toilets everywhere in the US

Really? I mean, if you're at an indoor venue like a Walmart or a museum, sure, but I can vouch for California being an extremely painful place to take a long walk across town. In SF every goddamn toilet in the Richmond district, Sunset district, Noe valley, Daly City, and everywhere outside the tourist hotspots are "customers only".

In LA it's even worse. Miles of streets even in the poshest neighborhoods with zero toilets. Once had to ask my GF to get access to a restaurant toilet and secretly let me in because if you're male they're usually for "customers only" but if you're female you get to use them.

Many public toilets in the US close at night, especially in big cities.

I believe public toilets that are "overrun by homeless" would be an improvement over pavements used by homeless because they don't have access to toilets. Perhaps we should add some showers to public toilets as well?

Totally agree with this. Everyone has to poop, if you don't give them a place to do it, it's still going to come out, and it seems people don't get this basic logic when they complain about poo on the streets of SF.

Have you been to Taiwan outside of Taipei? The toilet situation is pretty dreadful, with most being squat toilets in really gross conditions. Thank God for 7-11 because most of the time they have decent toilets, but if there's no convenience stores nearby you better be willing to squat. Granted, they do exist, which is obviously better than them not existing, but I think your comment reflects Taipei more than most of the island.

What are those roles in in TW? McD employees, for all their troubles, are well above "pooping in the park" in economic comfort.

The lowest rung there are the recyclers. They pick up recyclable trash (kind of like the trash bin ladies do in SF but unlike SF don't leave a strewn mess). They rummage through dumpsters looking for recyclable items, take them to places which can recycle them for pennies, but it's enough to survive.

It's kind of like if you had people redeeming bottles and cans and lived in section-8 housing.

But these people are going around in third hand bikes pulling hand fashioned carts, sometimes the carts are human driven if they don't have a bike.

The big difference is there is no shame in being a recycling collector, but there is shame in being a burden to society.

There are recyclable miners in the US anywhere container redemption value is charged and reclaimable.

The rich in the US don't have any shame paying little if any taxes, buying tax loopholes, and corrupting government to get more socialism for themselves and removing it and economic fairness from everyone else.

In terms of homeless folks I’ve met in the US, they do the same.

They just use the money to buy drugs / alcohol and sleep outside because the recycling money isn’t enough for rent, but it’ll get you fucked up enough you won’t care.

This is about the same as I felt after reading this-- and his comment explaining Tokyo's free public toilets, "No homeless, no drugs, no crime, 100% politeness rate?", all but confirmed those suspicions for me. It reads more like an ideological rant than a considered treatise on potty economics.

I don't think I've ever seen a public toilet in China that flushes properly. Only those in malls in richer areas.

One time, I went into a train station cubicle, looked down and saw that all the cubicles shared one channel to do your business in, and as expected, no water was passing through to wash anything away.

China does not do decently in regards to toilets.

Your pretty gross example covers all the toilets on several university campuses I've been to as well. Very common

They s shaped pipe hasn't been invented there yet (things may have changed in the past ten years though, but certainly not all bathrooms have been remodeled that quickly) and so the sewage pipes regularly blast out burps of stinky poo smells into the restrooms. This happens in student dorm rooms too if you have the top tier ones that have a private toilet for the room as opposed to a huge communal one.

It depends on region (and date of visit), I guess. I was in Beijing 2 years ago (so slightly pre Covid) on a business trip and while there are negatives, the toilets there were great.

I guess that’s because Beijing is a rich region, I really don’t know, were not anywhere else

Beijing gets a lot of care because that's where the rulers live and where a lot of tourists go. It got cleaned up a lot before the 2008 olympics because it was showcasing China.

> gas station bathrooms in the US

Gas station bathrooms in the US are also not usually free. As a non-white male I've been told frequently they are for customers only, and have had to on many occasions point to a car actively filling up gas so they can see that I am a customer.

That said, I hate this culture though because when bathrooms aren't free, we end up with shit and urine on the sidewalks. Everyone has to poop and if you don't give them a place to do it that poop is still going to come out anyway.

I am culturally American, and I hold US|EU (Croatian) citizenship.

I experience something life-threatening if I have to hold my bladder, known as autonomic dysreflexia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_dysreflexia

Anyways, I can walk and I look completely normal. I live in Europe (Croatia) and I have to pay to use public toilets/restrooms. Sometimes I have to go 20-30 times per day. Anyways, for me, this is the worst part about living in Europe.

I believed you that you might be saying accurate things until you wrote ‘even China does pretty decently.’

I spent two weeks traveling around China and, when it comes to toilets, what you said couldn’t be more insanely inaccurate. I decline to go into details, but it’s is in every way the opposite of what you wrote.

China is huge and fast-developing, so generalizations are dangerous. The notorious partitionless poop trough is pretty much a thing of the past (although I have no doubt some survive), but these days at eg. major train stations or tourist sites, the average public toilet is just fine.

"Parks and urban areas across the country have toilets that are well maintained..." is referring to far more than just major train stations and tourist sites.

On my last trip before COVID happened, I crossed the country and the only truly gruesome toilet I ran into was at a Tibetan monastery. YMMV.

If that was a roadtrip, that's impressive.

Exactly. If you go to China (edit: I don't mean just staying in 5 star hotels), expect to see someone else's excrement at some point.

> I've been to a few places on this earth, and while I know there are some Europeans who'll proudly talk about how paying for toilets helps keep them clean, I haven't noticed them being any better than gas station bathrooms in the US. Some are okay, some are total disaster sites. The only difference is someone or a machine standing at the door taking your money.

As somebody who is disabled and who is a cultural American holding both US and EU (Croatian) citizenship, this is the worst part about living in Europe for me.

I have autonomic dysreflexia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_dysreflexia

This is life threatening and it means I cannot hold it. I also have to go to the bathroom several times per day. Obviously I take medications for it. But, I also have to get Botox injections to my bladder every 3 months, under general anesthesia (as in intubated).

So, seriously f*** everyone who thinks it is OK to charge people to use the bathroom. For me, it is life threatening to not use the bathroom right away.

"Meanwhile, in East Asia,"

I guess you've never been to Thailand, Malaysia or the Philippines but I would agree that nickel and diming does not == quality/experience in this stance.

But sometimes it is marginally cleaner.

And completely misses the fact that the US has LOTS of free toilets--gas stations, state run rest stops, McDonald's and other fast food joints, Walmart/Target and other big box stores, pharmacy/drugstores, etc.

What has actually been asserted through dogwhistling is that "There are few free public restrooms where there are lots of homeless and/or drugs". That probably is true.

That tends to be cause and effect: an increase in homeless and/or drug users generally causes free toilets to shut down so as not to be an attractive nuisance.

Maybe not the only way, but replacing The culture and Socio economic situation in the US with that of Japan seems like a fringe consideration

You must have stayed in a very nice part of China.