Thailand Isn't Too Happy About Switching to Western-Style Toilets

<Puff> <cough cough> There's nothing suspicious at all happening inside this Toilet Tuesday:

TO SQUAT OR NOT

As Thailand prepares to get rocked by a seismic shift in bathroom behavior, locals are expressing apprehension over the incoming wave of Western-style toilets. Over the next three years, the Thai government plans to replace many "squat" toilets in public bathrooms with seated "throne" types, saying they're more sanitary and better for the knees. (About 6 million people in the country suffer from degenerative joint disease, some allegedly caused by a lifetime of hovering above plumbing fixtures.) But in surveying average citizens and academics, the Bangkok Post found a deep distrust over the abandonment of squat toilets, which are reportedly present in about 90 percent of Thai households.

The complaints about Western toilets are an eye-opener to those who consider the chairlike loo the ultimate in commode design. They include claims like "Unhygienic as users have to share toilet seats with others," "Always dirty and break easily because users like to squat on the toilet seat," and "Difficult to maintain due to complicated flushing system." The seated toilets are also more expensive than the hole-in-the-ground models, due to their abundance of porcelain and valves and metal doohickeys. And at least one person that the Post interviewed thinks the "complicated" Western toilets are harder to scrub, saying, "I spend only one minute cleaning the squat loo and need over three minutes to clean the seated one."