China's capital Beijing plans to require attendants at its
public toilets to speak basic English in a bid to improve the
services provided to foreign visitors, state media said.
It is part of an ambitious campaign to raise the standards of
public loos in the city of 13 million as it gets ready to welcome
thousands of tourists for the 2008 Olympics, the Beijing
Morning Post reported.
The paper did not specify the level of English toilet staff need
to possess, but said they must in future also be proficient in sign
language.
It made no mention on whether they planned to train the workers,
or leave them to their own devices.
Beijing is emerging as an actor to be reckoned with in toilet
science, recently hosting the World Toilet Summit, a gathering of
urban planners and environmental experts.
It said earlier this year it would spend 400 million yuan (US$48
million) to provide enough public toilets to make everyone
happy.
The report of the sweeping new construction plans came after a
previous announcement that Beijing would reduce the number of
public toilets from 7,700 to 4,700.
The overall goal, to make public toilets available within a
tolerable eight-minute walk, will partly be met by ordering
restaurants, shops and hotels to offer their facilities for
free.
(China Daily December 11, 2004)