New apartments have "western toilets" now, new developments do, hotels do, tourist public restrooms do... they are slowly converting over to kind'a what we're used to, but I'm speaking from a Beijing (and big city) perspective. Like all things U.S., something begins somewhere and it takes time to spread
...
My favorite thing about it that there you throw toilet paper into waste baskets by the toilet - not into the toilet itself. The sewer systems weren't built to handle it. At my apartment, I didn't really care (I didn't want stinky toilet paper in my bathroom), so I just threw it down the toilet. About a half a year later, I come riding back on my bicycle to the apartment and I see a city crew working on a manhole cover right next to the building. They were pulling out a mountain of toilet paper (at least a yard high
)! I guess all the toilet paper backed up the sewer which flooded this nasty basement strip-bar joint that was attached to our building - next to the sewer cover (the people there weren't very nice). Employees were coming up the stairs with soggy shoes and watermarks stains halfway up their lower legs
!
Serves them right, nasty people
!