© Aliciay98
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For reasons we’ll get into below, we’re kind of torn about this newest Hong Kong hipster sensation. Suffice to say that Japan’s status as “creator of the world’s weirdest stuff” is in jeopardy. How deep is it in jeopardy? Very:
A restaurant chain where food is served up in mini toilets has proved a surprise hit in Hong Kong… Diners with a taste for the bizarre have been flocking to the Modern Toilet restaurants in the city’s Causeway Bay and Mongkok tourist districts since they opened six months ago. The chain serves its food in miniature toilet bowls, urinals or sinks while customers sit on toilets for seats and are surrounded by pieces of bathroom plumbing fashioned into tables and lighting. The restaurants are even promoting themselves in Hong Kong Tourism Board visitor kits with an advertisement featuring a picture of a urinal filled with ice cream… ”˜We think our restaurant is very special and a lot of fun,’ Sally Ng, manager of the Causeway Bay restaurant told the newspaper.
Where to begin? First of all, filling up a restaurant sink with ice cream is hardly a neat trick. Just go to any Denny’s in any college town on any Saturday night in America. Done and done.
As for the rest of the stuff – the licking of toilet bowls and urinals – it’s a little weird to realize that what counts as “special” tourism board-approved “fun” in Hong Kong is used to torture dissidents in Iran’s feared Evin Prison. Of course there are all kinds of crucial differences. In Hong Kong the bowls are fake and filled with sugar. In Iran the ethos is somewhat the opposite. And we’re certainly not saying that Modern Toilet is offensive or anything like that – it’s not like they’re evoking the torture for laughs. But some might say that instinctively finding the fun part of what elsewhere constitutes torture is a kind of unhealthy cultural decadence.
On the other hand, it’s ice cream in the shape of poop served to kids out of a toilet bowl. So there’s at least a slim chance we’re overthinking this. Obligatory photo gallery here, toilet bowl seat decor here, and video right here:
The Modern Toilet even has an English language website. The sidebar promises a soon-to-be-unveiled “Hot Drinks Cup.” Mmmm!