First thing I was taught by a HK-Chinese friend in a restaurant, was to take the first can of green tea and use it for washing the chopsticks, the porcelain-spoon and the little bowl that is set on your place.
The restaurant usually provides with the first can of tea a big bowl, into which the "washing"-tea can go.
Only the second can of tea is for drinking.
It is also common practise to wipe everything off from which you eat with the paper-napkins that are on the table.
Shitting... Thank god, never witnessed that. But I remember from a bus-trip from Yishang (close to the 3-Gorges-Dam) to Wuhan (capital of Hubei province) the following:
Central Bus station in Yishang: Big and clean and modern overland bus takes about 15 to 18 people. They scatter around the bus, a few here, a few there some in the back, some in the front. All more or less respectable looking people.
Next station, another 10 people get on the bus and also sit where they like.
Then, before we reach the 3rd and last bus-stop before we leave Yishang, the bus stops at a red traffic light and the bus-driver jumps out of his seat and starts to holler around in the bus and suddenly all passengers move up to the front and one row of seats behind the last rearmost seated persons is filled with all kinds of luggage, so that nobody can sit there. - A buffer-zone...
My Chinese friend explains to me upon my asking, that the busdriver knew that the last station would only have migration-workers getting on the bus and he did not want any of them sitting up front - only in the back.
When we came to the station, indeed the migration-workers (the poorest of all Chinese and the most exploited ones!) got on the bus and they were a seedy looking crowd.
Without wanting to offend any of them, I could understand the busdriver´s "Arpatheid"-rally, when I saw and smelled them.
So, China for me is a country full of contradictions and sometimes you just have to close your eyes to some things.
Monty, how is the cleanliness of the toilets/restrooms in the offices or in the factories? So far I have always managed to only shit into my hotel room´s toilet... and that was always clean.
Greetings,
Concerned