Posted 8/7/2008

WEIRD CHINA

Although the Chinese culture is often breathtakingly beautiful and colorful, there is also a very weird side to the Chinese.

For example, the country seems to have a toilet fetish.

One city built a three-story public toilet building with each floor containing urinals shaped like the heads of dragons, lions, tigers and other great beasts. Doing it can start out as a fearful adventure. Those suffering "shy kidney" tend to go elsewhere.

But now we come to the weirdest toilet fetish of all – a toilet-themed restaurant.

This remarkable restaurant has been open a few months in the city of Hangzhou, which is located in the Zheijiang province of the People's Republic of China.

While eating dinner on a toilet seat might seem repugnant to a tourist, it is apparently seen as "kicky" in China.

Please note that this is not something published by some phony blog attempting to discredit the Chinese government on the eve of the Olympics. This story with pictures was published in www.chinadaily.cn, which is China's official online newspaper. On the front page yet.

Those in the West who claim that Beijing strictly controls press content will find this kind of article surprising. Western news editors would never run a feature like this, probably considering it to be in bad taste and demeaning to China.

But in China, what is weird in the West can seem quite appealing.

Either that or the censors in Beijing were asleep at the switch.

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