4mo ago

People warn about culture shock, but nothing prepared ne for this solid toilet paper roll in Vietnam

Are westerners being robbed of TP when we get the hollow rolls? Is communism the right path after all?

134 comments

I've been on Lemmy for about a year, so I'm certain that communism is the only right path.
- Same, I've installed Arch on my ThinkPad, shaved my legs and put on knee high stockings. I also give every car a middle finger and swear when walking past parking lots. Lemmy has radicalized me in surprising ways.
  
  But do you hate AI?
  
  did you libreboot it tho?
  
  Legitimately curious about the stockings. I get all the other jokes in this thread but that one went over my head.
- Good man! It also happened to be Vietnams national holiday here yesterday, and so there were national flags and hammer and sickle flags everywhere, festivals, and street performances about Ho Chi Minh and the struggle aganst France, China, US, and TBH i never felt so patriotic for a country not my own!
  
  It's their Independence Day, September 2nd.
- I'm sorry, the right answer was anarchosyndicalism.
  Send this red fascist class traitor to the mines.

Don't go to Russia. Every once in a while you can encounter this atrocity. Yes, it has holes right out of the roll, no perforation whatsoever and not even a hole that you could hang it on and therefore outer layers are always dirty. And, of course, feels like a sandpaper, tears when wiping, but stretches when you actually try to get a piece. Please don't tell me that this exists outside of Russia, that'd be way to much assrash for this world.
- when you take brutalism so far that your toilet paper looks like concrete
  
  Now with 20% more aggregate!
- Don’t go to Russia.
  There's a very tall list of reasons to not go to Russia and their toilet papers isn't very high on it.
  
  I don't know...
  My list goes:
  Their toilet paper
  I might criticize Putin
  I might criticize the government
- That's because soft toilet paper is too gay for Russia.
  
  Fellas, is it gay to use tp that doesn't hurt?
- You see these in Poland every now and then, just with an actual central hole. I remember seeing these in my school, we used to call it srajtaśma ("shit tape" is the best translation I can think of), and it was just as bad as you described it. It also had a very particular smell to it.
  
  Funny how I could probably understand what you mean if you said it without translation. Sounds very simillar to срать тесьма, which is also shit tape, though it's not a correct grammatically in Russian. To my knowledge, we don't have a specific name for it, but if there were I'd say it'd either be студенческая/солдатсткая (student/soldier) paper because they're so poor, or жоподёрка (the assripper)
- I encountered this in Ukraine, often combined with those toilets in the floor and/or extremely rickety, extremely "well-loved" outhouses. Once, we stopped in what appeared to be a stranger's yard and my hosts advised we were at the rest stop. I asked where the restroom was. They all started laughing. They are a hearty bunch.
  
  The one that's just like a concrete block with few holes in the floor? God that shit's terrifying. Grew up in Russia and luckily never had to use one of those as they were never the only option. But if I had to, I'd rather shit my pants instead. Had to use shoddy garden toilets, squat toilets and toilets with no stalls before a few times each, all were awful experiences, but this thing, it combines all three for the ultimate discomfort.
- So it's just crepe streamer paper?
  
  Very close to it, yeah, like a very thin and shitty one. Doesn't stretch as much nor is as sturdy, but the texture is spot on.
- Its literally tissue paper, I think youre being pretty dramatic
  looks like itd be more ecofriendly because its mot bleached, and its not shipping around with a heap of empty space for the (now i think about it) oversized cardboard tube
- These exist and are widely used in rural Romania. Even public institutions like schools and town halls use these there. They're not the worst you can get though. About 10-15 years ago you'd also stumble across houses that had no toilet paper, just newspapers. You were supposed to wipe with those. Not a fun experience!
- My public school in Louisiana had very similar toilet paper. I'm not sure if its actually the same, but it certainly looks like it.
- What the hell??? This can barely even be called "toilet paper".

It's so hard to use toilet paper after getting a bidet.
I mean sure, I use TP to double check the bidet did it's job and to dry. But wiping twice as opposed to dealing with a marker butthole has spoiled me.
- Only reason you have a marker butthole is because you ain't eating enough fiber motha fucka. Get some fiber powder and drink that shit bro wtf don't spread misinformation like you spread your ass to shoot water up there to enema douche the bit of poop you left pinched off up your buttholy hole because you ain't eating some God damn fiber my man!! EAT FIBER YO POO BE ONE BIG OL UNBREAKABLE LINK ITS WONDERFUL 👍
  
  ^ this user does not wash their asshole
  
  My butthole is a marker unless I get a whiff of fiber, at which point it turns into a firehose. The only time I get a decent poop is when my diet is mostly sugar, cheese, and meat.
- Twice? Try a dozen.
  
  I meant wiping twice as in I'd bidet, wipe once to dry, wipe twice to confirm clean, and then done. As opposed to marker butthole 😅
  
  That’s a grease pen, not a marker.

That’s cuz you gotta bring your own TP with you instead of it being provided to you for free. No need for a TP holder tube if you’re not gonna share.
Wait, are US bathrooms communist???
- Dont let the Republicans find out! They will lobby to take free TP out of schools on account of spreading communist ideology.

Food so spicy, they give you a roll of bandages as toilet paper. Patch yourself up.
- MEDIC!
  
  ZE MEDIC IS HIYAAR!
  
  Well, first aid for an arterial bleeding is to "stuff a finger in the hole and get the person to lay down on the floor". I suppose that could still be relevant here.. If you have a cock ring I guess you could apply it as a tourniquet

There are some commercial rolls I've seen in the US that seem to be a happy medium...the holder itself in the stall has a thin plastic rod for the TP to go on, and the rolls have a very small opening in the center (and no cardboard) to go on that rod.

Here in Vietnam we use the whole toilet paper! That’s 65% more toilet paper per toilet paper!

You can buy something like this here in the US.
The roll is smaller, and they market it as being made for camping (takes up less space in the pack, etc). It also, of course, costs more because of this, since modern camping gear loves to price gouge.
If you’re going to pack TP though, just spool what you need around something smaller in diameter (like a skewer). Or if you know what you’re doing then just use leaves instead, those are free.
- if you know what you’re doing then just use leaves
  For those who may not know what they’re doing, I’ve crafted a handy guide:
  
  Or just use one of these.
  
  You forgot our beloved nettle!

Shitposting is being taken a little too literally lately

I used to buy rolls where the center of the tube came as a little personal roll you could put in your purse. I can't remember which brand anymore.
- H.E.B. store brand toilet paper is like that. Haven't seen any other companies do it.

I dont think i saw any TP in VN. Everything was bidet and wash hands.
wasnt terrible. Cold showers constantly and no water pressure were by far more of a culture shock to me. It was more similar to when I would go and hike for weeks on end in college.
- Yeah when they say 10 min max limit, they really mean it.
  And even then you see people taking showers as fast as 5 minutes to save water stored in the tank.
  
  Do they use rainwater collection tanks for showers or is it just a buffer tank on the roof to compensate for low pressure?
- Skin pores close on cold water, making it less effective. Feels gross for me too (hypersensitivity), did that once for a while in a hot summer.
  
  Hmm. I guess theoretically you could soap up with warmer water before getting in the cold shower. So the shower is mostly just rinse.

In China it comes stacked in bags and you pull it out sheet by sheet like paper hand towels or a box of tissues. You can hang the bag up.
- Fascinating

As a household that doesn't use a toilet paper roller, this would be amazing. I hate throwing away all those empty rolls
- Just rip the tube up and use it like a really tick toilet paper
  
  Thanks, I hate it.
  
  Like a paint scraper
- I try to find uses for ours where we can. I have a BBQ with a dead sparker so I usually use a half-tube which I light on fire and drop by the burner before turning on the gas
  
  Take dryer lint and stuff it in half a toilet paper roll, then dip it in some melted wax. Makes a great fire starter and you can use stuff you're gonna throw away anyway.
  
  half-tube
  Short cylinder or long half cylinder?

The toilet paper I used in Taiwan was in the form of individual pieces folded up like American tissues for blowing your nose. I even accused my host of making me use tissues, but she showed me that they were actually marketed as toilet paper. Oh, and I couldn't flush them. That was not embarrassing at all.
- Dumpin' in the trash can

In Brazil I saw a toiled paper that the center was filled with another roll, so you'd need to remove that center to put it in your bathroom and use it as a "portable toilet paper" to carry with you

Just yesterday I was reminiscing with my wife about how TP rolls used to have no tube when we were children and how hard it was to find the center to put them on the holder.
- If I may ask, what country and how long ago was this? I have never really seen this before
  
  This exists now in the US at Target. I liked them, actually.

Where do you think all the centers of our TP go?
- They sell them as donut holes near the airport

But what about all the kids crafts and hamster tubes?

I see at least 3 plys.

That's an option here in Japan, though most don't use it. I'm pretty sure some people sell that style in the US as well. I use one that has a hole but no cardboard insert.

I see your Vietnam toilet paper and raise it with with my paradoxical environmental savings whatever this is (lights were on when this picture taken):
- This is common in US motels and some hotels. It's supposed to say that one should put their towel on the floor, rather than the rack, to have it replaced.

Solid TP rolls are quite common in Asia. Not sure if this is still true, but a lot of public toilets don't provide toilet paper for fear of people stealing them. You have to bring your own TP, at which point including the cardboard insert takes up too much space to carry around.

I got a box of these from Amazon in 2020. (In USA)
- Are you still using them?
  
  They were kinda handy to have around tbh. Like, tissue in my backpack during allergy season, or in my car. I think we used them as tp on a camping trip.
  At home, we only used them until the usual tp rolls came back into supply.
  They came in a pretty big package so we had them around for a couple years, but I think they're all gone now... So, yeah we used them, maybe not as intended and maybe not favorably, but they saved my ass in 2020, literally!