It’s bad when people perpetuate customs without independently evaluating them and consciously deciding whether or not they’re worth perpetuating but it’s even worse when people abandon a good custom that they’ve always had only to replace it with something worse. No I’m not talking about how in many parts of East Asia the handshake has become a common greeting, I’m talking about toilets. In East Asia not too long ago most toilets were squat-toilets as opposed to sit-toilets however nowadays in many East Asian shopping centers you may have a hard time finding a squat-toilet because in many public places they’ve been replaced by sit-toilets which are not only unsanitary, particularly in public places, they’re also unhealthy as a sitting position is not the position humans have evolved to go #2 in.
However many locals and the occasional fruit loving foreigner are fighting back by refusing to sit. By politely lifting up the dirty toilet seat with our foot, hoping up on to the toilet to do our business, and leaving our footprints behind as evidence of our peaceful protest we are letting shopping centers know that we want squat-toilets. As for people who can’t squat we already have a solution for that, it’s called the handicapped toilet and it even comes complete with bars to help users get on and off of it. If shopping centers feel that most people would prefer to sit on a dirty toilet seat rather than squat they’re welcome to have half the toilets sitters and the other half squatters. However if they eliminate all of the squatters and think that signs like these will dissuade people from hopping on to the toilet they are wrong.