Stink is history as public toilets get ready for Games

Lester Blake is happy, but not for any breakthrough in his engineering profession. His source of happiness is a clean and tidy public toilet, with an automatic hand drier, soap, and, most important of all, toilet paper.

"When I first came to Beijing in 2000, the biggest problem for me was not finding tissue paper in public toilets which is quite different from what it is in Germany and many other Western countries," said the 40-plus German yesterday.

The Beijing municipal government has vastly improved the capital's public facilities, thanks to preparations for the Olympic Games.

And now about 1,700 public toilets in downtown areas and tourist sites, and more than 2,400 in and around the Games venues will provide free toilet paper and liquid soap, said Guo Weidong, a Beijing municipal administration commission spokesman.

The arrangement, to continue throughout the Olympics and Paralympics, is part of a three-year campaign that began in 2005 to renovate and modernize Beijing's 5,333 public toilets for the Games.

Many of the public lavatories now have Western-style flush toilets to meet the needs of foreigners, the physically challenged and the elderly, he said.

And about 8,000 workers have been trained to keep the public toilets clean and dry. After all, "public toilets reflect the living and hygiene standards of a society," Guo said.

"Beijing is working hard to make every public toilet a pleasant experience for the millions who visit the city for the Games," said Yu Debin, deputy director of the Beijing tourism bureau.

Recalling his earlier horrifying experience, Blake says: "In 2000, I had to take a deep breath before dashing into a public toilet, hold my breath with my head held high (no double entendre) never look down (to avoid the stink and the filthy floor) and then dash out -- All in less than a minute."

A Beijing tourism bureau survey in 1994 showed that more than 60 percent foreign visitors were afraid of entering the city's public toilets.

All that has thankfully changed.

Wang Fangde, 68, who lives in one of Beijing's traditional siheyuan (courtyard houses), is another man happy with the changes. "A decade ago I could roughly tell where a public lavatory was because of the stink… it hit you from even 20 meters away."

And Wang has a wish: "I hope toilet paper is provided free even after the Olympics and Paralympics."