China Opens Giant Public Loo

Visitors take their pick from 1,000 toilet stalls
By Caroline Zimmerman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 7, 2007 4:28 PM CDT
China Opens Giant Public Loo
Chinese visit a four-story, free-of-charge public restroom in Chongqing, China Saturday July 7, 2007. They're flushing with pride in a southwestern Chinese city where a recently opened porcelain palace features an Egyptian facade, soothing music and more than 1,000 toilets spread out over 3,000 square...   (Associated Press)

Time for tourists to ditch the Great Wall and head for the city of Chongqing in southwest China, which recently opened a startling new attraction: a sprawling public restroom. The free facilities lie behind an Egyptian facade that conceals 1,000 toilets spread over four stories and almost 33,000 square feet. "We are spreading toilet culture," one official tells the AP.

"People can listen to gentle music and watch TV," he adds. "After they use the bathroom, they will be very, very happy." To really answer the call of nature, patrons can choose facilities that don't have roofs, but the true people magnets are the urinals shaped like gaping crocodile mouths and women who resemble the Virgin Mary. (More China stories.)

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