A Serious Toilet Seminar

There are trivial things in everyday life that we often overlook its importance. One of those things is toilet. Toilet is so trivial, that when someone try to delve seriously into discussing about it, most people can't help but stunned, amazed, and laughed. Hence, when someone does a seminar on "Toilet and Humanity", I find it ... well.. a bit unusual if not bizzare. My attention was caught immediately when I received an invitation to that seminar this morning (click on the photo for a more readable screen capture)

Thanks to the invitation email, now I know that toilet organizations do exist in the world, such as World Toilet Organization (a.k.a. the WTO even with link to the UN website at its front page and a blue toilet seat as its logo), World Toilet College (a.k.a. the WTC), and even the Toilet Development Bank (is it somehow related to Asian Development Bank or African Development Bank???) - click on the photo for a more readable screen capture.

This guy - the founder of the WTO - has the passion, aspiration, and determination in trying to provide better toilet condition in the world AND to destigmatize the word "toilet". I would have to agree with him in one thing, that toilet issue is indeed a serious one.

But ... I really don't think he should use the term "toilet". I suppose the term like "human waste management" or "human sanitation" or perhaps even "defecation" would sound more serious and more scientific rather than "toilet". Please.

Really. You can't blame if people laugh at it or think that it is not a serious effort. Just check out Kenny Sia's interpretation of the WTO news (funny but otherwise politically incorrect - just because he's malaysian). I suppose the marketing guys from WTO would have a really tough homework. It wouldn't be easy to change the existing connotation of the term "toilet" from general public into something of a more acceptable meaning.

Filed in: funny