On a roll

The first thing you notice about dining with Thai people is not the delicious aromas of ... OK, so the second thing you notice about dining at a street food venue or even an office function, is not the unknown hygiene factors of the food's preparation, or even the abundance of sticks (more on this in another post), but the fact that all these people are using toilet paper as serviettes.

When you first walk through the office and spot rolls of toilet paper on people's desks, your first thought (as an Australian) is that they've had a big night out on the lagers and curries the night before.

Or maybe those unknown hygiene factors have caught up with their seemingly indestructible Thai stomach after all! If I'd known the language better when I first arrived, people would have become fed up with me asking them every morning if they were feeling all right.

As I say, it jars a little at first, but when you think about it, it makes sense. Toilet paper is a lot cheaper than tissue paper or serviettes, so why not use it for all your wiping needs?

Of course, in a lot of Asian countries, toilet paper often isn't used in the toilet - more on this in another blog too - so it's more correctly a roll of tissue paper.

I think that when the first farangs turned up with their fancy sit down toilets and rolls of "toilet" paper, Thais thought: "Hey, what a cool idea! Tissues that come in a roll! That's so convenient, and easy to use. I wonder why they keep them next to the dunny though? No wonder they're all so fat if they're hoeing down on fried chicken even when they're on the can!"

I'm pretty sure that's how it happened. In fact, I'm going to go and setup an article for it on Wikipedia now.

D.

PS. If you Westerners are still grossed out by this, just remember, the rolls of toilet paper didn't come out of the toilet, they came from a factory where they make all the other types of tissue paper too.