another silly question about toilet paper.

[holdfast]

i know this question might be ridiculous, but nobody else has brought it up yet....

o.k. so almost every korean restaurant/store/other type of korean place i've been to has had a sign in the bathroom asking you not to flush toilet paper, but to put it in the trash can.

has anyone else noticed this? is this a common thing to do in korea?

again, this question might be a little silly, but i just had to ask. i have no shame. haha..

[Keith]

As for bathrooms that's usually because if you flush toliet paper down the drain, it'll clog the drain. And that's for the older toliets.

I don't know where in New York you would find that... But in Korea, there are lots of places that still ask that.

And my friends have said that most of the places the went in Mexico did the same. So I'm guessing this is world wide

[SiEd]

This is common in Indonesia as well.

And most places have a big basin of water with a dipper, so if you can manage with dippers full of water, then you'll be fine. And remember to only use your left hand.

Does Korea have the left-hand taboo as well, btw?

[holdfast]

i've seen that other places as well, even random places in the u.s. that have bad plumbing, but i don't know why it would happen so often in new york either.

perhaps it is just habit? people have always asked people not to flush the toilet paper, so they ask them not to flush toilet paper here either?

anyway, interesting topic i've brought up, huh? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[javiskefka]

I suppose the restaurant managers are recent immigrants who don't know that plumbing is held to a higher standard in New York City . I suppose it's no longer necessary to separate toilet paper in many newly constructed buildings in Seoul either...

[syn70]

My parents home was built last century (in Georgia, USA) and they do not flush paper down the drain. The home has a septic system that relies on natural means of breaking down the waster and returning the nutrients back to the soil... incidentally, you can see the results of the system by the greenest grass that grows out from that part of the property. lol!

[kyuree]

It was/is very common in Portugal, too, if they have old toilets.
I never saw it in Korea, though, that I can remember... (in 2008)