Please use the toilet civilization
This public notice inside a cubicle at my office gives us a window into two parts of Chinese contemporary society:
1) Many signs in China make explicit reference to 文明（wénmíng）- ‘civilization’. The real meaning is closer to the idea of ‘civilized behavior’ in English, and is attempting to dissuade people from following undesirable but common habits, such as spitting, throwing trash on the street, and allowing children to defecate on the sidewalk.
2) Toilets in China have a lot of difficulty dealing with large amounts of toilet paper. Thus every cubicle contain a small trash can, into which people are told to dispose their used paper. It may seem disgusting to a visitor, but it is necessary for the maintenance of outdated water pipes.
This post was imported from my Tumblr, which I used for blogging between 2014 and 2015.
