i’ll believe it when i see it
from today’s new york times …
SHANGHAI — For many tourists, one of the indelible images of China is that of the cutie-pie baby wearing the pants with the giant hole on the bottom. If their timing is right, the tourists might even catch a toddler relieving himself, right on the street.Visitors may find this disgusting, or delightful, but they may not see such sights much longer, at least in the cities. China’s famous split pants may soon be eclipsed by the disposable diaper.
Urban consumers are embracing the diaper and turning China into one of the world’s fastest growing markets. Annual sales for some brands are climbing by 50 percent or more. Upscale stores are no longer carrying split-pants outfits, but rather shelf after shelf of diapers. Just about all of the babies who grace China’s sleek parenting magazines are wearing diapers.
click here for the entire story.
08.05.2003, 1:12 PM · News
6 Comments
the baby is so lovely,but i never thought of the split pants are one of the indelible image to many tourists.
about bloody time! I don’t know many other “international cities” that still let people shit in the street.
Split pants on babies was one of the things that intrigued me on my arrival in Shanghai 3 months back.. I got the concept of the split in the crotch but I refused to believe that it’s meant for the baby to relieve him/herself litterally anywhere. Then, at that funfair in Pudong I was lucky enough to have a live demonstration.. It didn’t involve a baby with split pants though.. A mom was actually holding her son over the garbage bin smack in the middle of the fair so that he could take a dump in it.. the worst thing about it is that the public toilets (unoccupied, I must add) were just about 10 meters away. Someone from the organizers (from the UK I believe)happened to walk by just then and went ballistics! The mom just smiled, embarrassed, but continued to let her son do his business. That was the highlight of my day at the Pudong World Carnival.
I believe the split pants are for the convenience of nappy (traditional washable ones) changing. For older babies, who don¡¯t need nappies, to go toilet without the hassle and trouble of taking them off, in case of emergencies. They are certainly not designed for babies to do the business on streets! Hopefully it solves the mystery.
I’m so sorry to see what foreigners think about Shanghai and Shanghaineses. Things like shitting and wearing pujamas in streets are surely disapproved by us, Shanghaineses. But we are really doing our best to improve it though in fact, the bad habbit still exists. As a peson born in Shanghai, growing up in Shanghai,I have been seeing the development both in hardware and software in Shanghai with my own eyes. Lots of foreigners cannot understand why Chinese doing this or that. I think that’s why you are called “foreigners” and we are called “Chinese”. We have different cultures, different customs,so we have different ways of thinking and doing things. Now that you come to Shanghai, to China, you must be interested in knowing it and understanding it. So I think you should accept what you have seen though maybe you don’t agree with it. I should say Shanghai was, is and will spare no effort to become an international city. And I really hope that Shanghai will leave all the foreigners having been here a good impression.
‘Iris’s’ statement vexes me. While there is merit to a number of the points she makes, there is still the strong overarching attachment to ‘defending the Chinese culture against the foreigners’s criticisms’. In the example of children defecating in the street, ‘Iris’ had an opportunity to introduce the concern for public health, or at least reply to it, as had been raised by Deedee.Instead, ‘Iris’ goes for the ‘defence’ argument. Coming as it does from a local media commentator perhaps should not be so surprising.
However, the thing that has not been mentioned here by anyone is now the question of environmental protection vs. disposable nappies.