Disgusting: Chinese babies moving away from open crotch diapers

Ananova / AP ^

[Elric@Melnibone]

Then they must have cleaned up their act since I used to live there.

[Revolting cat!]

What's the purpose of wearing slit diapers if they don't hold anything???

Is that one, or three (???) questions? Let's start by observing them things is not called 'diapers'!

[Mamzelle]

I was wondering, too. Why wouldn't they just go naked?

[Enterprise]

Now all the homeless in San Francisco will similarly alter their clothes.

[Fellow Traveler]

I use to go to China on business twice a year. You don't see many little kids doing that in Beijing or Shanghai. However, it is very common still in large cities in the interior like Xian, Chengdu, and Chungking.

[SamAdams76]

There was a book I read long ago from the library about how people dealt with bodily waste through the centuries. It was sort of like a history of sewage. I forget the title and author but it was a fascinating read. If anybody knows what book I'm talking about, please post the info here.

Anyway, I remember reading how as recently as the 1800s, it was considered "normal" for city dwellers to empty their chamber pots out their tenement windows, dousing whoever was unfortunate enough to be walking down the sidewalk at the time. Literal rivers of crap and piss would flow down the gutters of the streets of New York and Paris. Added to that, of course, was the prodigious output of the horses and other draft animals that routinely clopped up and down the streets of those days.

In fact, according to the book, one of the reasons the Prohibition movement gathered momentum at the turn of the last century was because men in saloons would often stagger out to the curb, relieve themselves, and stagger back in for another drink, oblivious to whoever might be walking by.

[dandelion]

Actually, Texas - OU weekend is kinda boring now. They have the police literally swarming the streets, and being drunk is not the same when that good-looking girl you're with is a cop.

Used to be, on Texas - OU weekend, I could hear the Cottonbowl from my house when I was a kid... now I just hear about the Cottonbowl from my spouse, and I have kids.

Yeah, Texas - OU weekend is WAY more boring now I'm a responsible adult...

[Conservomax]

I admit, he is cute. It's not his fault either. It doesn't make the tradition (when compared to those of the types of countries China aspires to be) any less nizasty.

[Conservomax]

I was an economics minor in college, which means outside of the intro stuff, I got to take the interesting economics history stuff and skip the more advanced theory classes.
In any event, I took a course on the history of economics development. In the 17 and 1800's, China was a very advanced society, their technolgical innovaton rivalled, and in some ways surpassed that of Europe. What held china back was the rampant debilitating illness many of its city dwellars had. They weren't illnesses that killed you outright, but rather long term chronic diseases that thinned productivity and greatly weakened the work force. These disease included paracitic infections like tapeworm and stuff like that. Anywho, I remeber some stat, that grossed me out, it seems that for all the people in any average Chinese city there was something like 20,000 tons of parasites living inside them, I don't know where they got that stat, but it is pretty disgusting. Sanitation has always been an issue in China.

[Calpernia]

I know I will regret this; but I have to ask.

What is the practice for women once a month?

[stylin19a]

I don't see "disgusting" in the original title.

[Solamente]

BON APETIT!

[Rate_Determining_Step]

These women would have been horrified to learn that we now let our children carry their own waste, smeared on their skin, covered by sacks of cloth or paper...

Malcom Gladwell's article points out that good ol Yankee technology is making our kids the most hygenic.

[dandelion]

I like the way they call it an "insult"... hmmm, I've seen some diedees that were VERY "insulting", come to think of it!!

I'm the natural earth mommy type, and I really, REALLY tried to use cloth diapers - but when my daughter got a skin rash, the doctor had me switch to paper (polymer? ceramic? space-age non-colloidal material?) diapers, I was flabbergasted by the beauty. Between them and the diaper genie, I am in love with baby technology.

I did find out that "paper" diapers won't burn in the burn-barrel, though... they are the trash that will not die. Ever.