Sunday, March 30, 2008

#20 Bad Hygiene (1st edition: Diaper Changing at Dim Sum)



It's Sunday and I just got back from Dim Sum as every good Asian is on a Sunday afternoon. Today, we were at Jin Fong and saw the above happen right next to us. As I was biting into some shu mai, this family decided to bring the 3rd World to Manhattan by changing their baby's diaper AT THE COMMUNAL TABLE. Just so people know, Jin Fong seats you at communal tables with people that may or may not be with your party. Imagine if someone at your local diner whipped out a diaper and got down to business at the counter? Personally, I loved it and for some odd reason, it may have even made me hungrier, but everyone else started asking for their checks. The best part was there were tons of bai ren tourists there who weren't prepared for the whole Asian Dim Sum experience complete with Diaper Ending. But hey, the juice is worth the squeeze, Jin Fong's got the best dim sum in chinatown...

For those that don't know, this is not an isolated instance of bad Asian hygiene. If you go to the motherland, you'll see plenty of people peeing in the city's water source, human poop on the sidewalk, and CEO's spitting on the street while walking to power lunches at Golden Peacock Palace or something equally fantastic. It's not that we don't know it's gross, we just don't care. So what we spit on the sidewalk and people get sick? There are like 8 billion Asians, we could go for another Avian Flu Outbreak in a year or two. Think about it as chlorine in the gene pool. We just want to speed up the process and improve natural selection by creating a sess pool like environment on the streets.

So, if you're going to the olympics this summer and see people changing diapers at restaurants or taking dumps on the street, just let it go. There's a science to this hygiene thing. Survivor China isn't a one year thing for Asians, it's a daily battle to develop immunities against the bio-crises locals have to offer.

6 comments:

george said...

i don't even notice stuff like this anymore...

george said...

did anyone say anything to them? waiter perhaps?

Anonymous said...

I hate to say this, but my God you are so right. I love going to Chinatown in Toronto (I live in Buffalo, NY), but always have to plan my trips around how long I can go without needing a restroom!

Anonymous said...

It's that bad huh? I always thought that just a stereotype.

Anonymous said...

I see Chinese parents change their kids at restaurants in Philadelphia's Chinatown all the time. The most recent time I saw this was about 1 year go.

When I was little, I would get changed in front of everybody while they were eating. I didn't really care. In fact, I actually enjoyed it :)

-ilovehorseyrides

Anonymous said...

I can totally relate to this. I see Chinese parents change their kids at restaurants in Philadelphia's Chinatown all the time while growing up (and I still do occasionally!!!)

-ilovehorseyrides