So, my beloved Norwegian friends…was there frequent enough confusion regarding the proper use of a toilet to justify putting this handy “how-to” in every train bathroom?

24 comments

  2. Lol, have never seen those signs in Norway before. But I have seen something similar in Asia. So who knows. Funny tho.

  6. Playing devil’s advocate, look at it this way:

    If the toilet seat is unclean, which it especially would be if others are also hovering over it when dropping the contents, you’d want to touch it with your shoe soles instead of with your cheeks.

    If you can trust everyone else to also sit on the seat, you can sit on the seat. If some do and some don’t, the natural progression is for fewer and fewer to sit, and more and more to hover. Negative reinforcing spiral. Let’s cherish that we haven’t gone down that spiral in this country.

  7. This is for tourists, particularly Chinese tourists. In China (also other Asian countries) it is common to crouch over the loo. Crouching with your feet on the seat of a standard Norwegian WC, especially on a moving train, causes a mess and can cause harm.

    This sign is common on transportation, roadside restrooms and in hotels and other touristy places.

    Summer of 2019 I had to help a Chinese lady who had a bad fall in a public restroom because she didn’t understand how to use the toilet. Knocked her teeth out a when she slipped and fell.

    It looks weird, but the struggle is real.

  8. I’m American and in the military but I’ve been told by my ncos that in the middle east, people will take a number 2 while standing on the toilet and squating because it aligns your body better to take a poop. I looked it up and it’s true but it can very well become messy.

  9. We have these signs in Australia as well, particularly along the Great Ocean Road (a very popular attraction for Chinese tourists).

  10. Haven’t been on a train in a few years, weren’t any signs on those.. propably should have been though.

  11. It’s for tourists. Particularly tourists from China I think. In South Korea they often had two kind of signs hanging in the toilet, one in chinese like this and one in English explaining that the used toilet paper should go in the bin, not in the toilet (because the plumbing couldn’t handle it). From what I observed, both groups tended to ignore the signs, leading to a lot of clogged toilets with footprints on the ring.

  12. They installed these at my workplace, after complaints about broken toilets and shoe prints started emerging after they hired a new Indian IT company

  13. Typically a problem where there a Asian tourists. Seen this sign everywhere across Australia as well where there is an even higher number of Asian tourists

  14. In my former place of employment they had to hang up a variant showing that you should not defecate in the sink. It became a problem there after the immigration wave. This was at the airport.

  15. They shit in holes in China so they need to be WC trained. Many chinese tourists all over Norway.

    They also spit on the floor when inside and fart loudly in public, which is funny.

  20. It’s simple cultural differences. Many societies crouch. Crouching is better for your health and predates the toilet. If you come from one of the societies that crouches and this is the first time you’ve encountered a toilet, there can be confusion. Some of us who are accustomed to toilets might have confusion if we went to a country and found a hole in the floor in the bathroom with no toilet. Listening to people from the U.S. talk about how confused they are by bidets is another example.

  21. You have been pooping wrong your whole life, let me explain. Most toilet seats have a 90 degree angle, but this angle makes so the bowels don’t align properly, making the feces have to make a sharp angle, which causes it to substantially become harder to poo. Think of a sharp turn right a car needs to make. Squatting is the natural position, for that matter some companies have started making a bench for it.

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