I was in Shanghai the other week on business, and sitting in a traffic jam, which is not unusual for the middle of Shanghai at 6:00pm after work, when I saw something that literally made me speechless!

We are stopped at a red light waiting for it to change, and I looked over to see a middle aged gent out walking his dog. The dog performed the ritual circling around it’s owner then squatted down doing it’s business around a tree which was rooted into the pavement. The tree had one of those fancy wrought-iron gratings around it’s base, which helped contain the soil, and prevent people from walking in it.

Gent was fumbling around in his pocket, and found a large tissue – good I thought! He’s going to pick up the mess on a rather busy pedestrian thoroughfare, and take care of it responsibly. Prevent the spread of nasty canine diseases and stop people from getting it on their shoes.

OH NO that would be too easy! – He bends over and wipes the dog’s ass, then crumples up the tissue and chucks it next to the poo at the base of the tree! Oh my God! My Korean colleague and I looked at each other in the cab and our jaws dropped! Had we really seen what we saw? Is this normal practice for Shanghainese? Unbelievable!

Korean logic....

It defies me every corner I take.

Take this lunchtime, when nature called me to expunge yesterday’s lunch of Kimchi and rice. I took a short but hasty trek along to our works restrooms which have 5 cubicles or “traps” as I like to call them as they resemble the racing gates at a horse race. Trap #1 is occupied, but 2-4 are vacant with all doors ajar. I opt for trap # 3, so there is a gap between me and Mr Stinky in #1.

I let go, sit back enjoy the ride. I hear the door of the restroom open, and in pops one of our other work colleagues and he makes straight for trap #2 – directly in-between the both of us in residence already.

Trousers down, and I’m sure I felt the floor rumble under me, as he let rip a fart and a splash that the disaster movie 2012 would have been proud of. It must have measured at least 6.9 on the Richter scale. Why did he have to pick the middle trap between us? Is there a level of exhibitionism that I am not aware of? Do we have to listen to rumblings from other peoples bottoms? I think not, or is this just another example of Korea’s obsession with all things pooh?

Next time, I’m going for the furthest away trap, maybe he’ll get confused!