Here’s the latest from the chronicles of bad places to relieve yourself. Last week, one Cao Liping spied about a dozen tourists peeing on a vine-covered wall near the 17 Arches Bridge in Beijing’s Summer Palace. Angered, he snapped the above photo and posted it to Sina Weibo, where it predictably triggered uproar. CCTV and People’s Daily are among the those who have run with this story.
Initial spectulation was that there weren’t enough toilets in the Summer Palace, but a park staffer quickly refuted that notion, pointing out that there are actually 150 public bathrooms in the park. In fact, there was one just a hundred steps away from where these fellas were peeing.
Worse, according to Cao, after these five were done, others stepped up — in groups — to do their business, even though they could plainly see that they were being photographed. An act of defiance against civility? We’ve seen it before.
Here’s one of the many news reports on the incident:
Doesn’t the video say it was a foreign tourist who photographed them? Cao Liping sounds kind of Chinese to me.
Is this really that surprising given how Chinese people in general tend to treat their public spaces like giant garbage cans….not much of a difference between littering all over the place and peeing in public….
Right. I’ve been to 故宫 and was baffled/apalled to see garbage EVERYWHERE. It’s not just ‘in public’… it’s in one of the most beloved cultural monuments in all of China. Doesn’t matter. Everywhere is just a 垃圾桶…
I actually remember a weird 3 month period in Shanghai where this kind of thing pissed me off to no end (no pun int), then I just accepted that Chinese people themselves don’t like this niggling aspect of Confucianism (eg. everything outside my front step is fair game for shit,piss, etc), and dream of leaving China to get away from stuff like this.
Hey Anthony -
Your last post [Outrage After Tourists Caught Publicly Peeing In Beijing’s Summer Palace] was freaking awesome. I have gone ahead and added your stuff to my Feedly account. Please keep me updated if you post anywhere else.
Keep rocking –
Jon
if it was foriengers peeing there would be mass protests for beheading.