# Wiping your bottom the Indian way or the European way? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 12, 2004, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-your-bottom-the-indian-way-or-the-european-way/228833 "2004-02-12T13:53:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glory)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-your-bottom-the-indian-way-or-the-european-way/228833/21 "2004-02-13T07:39:45Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > As it is there are strict taboos regarding the cleanliness of food. Indians never share food. To touch food that has been on someone else’s plate is considered extremely disgusting. That’s interesting. I’ve been to New Delhi twice and on my last visit I spent 4 weeks. I was training some call center reps and we ate together everyday in the company cantine. A lot of the female agents would order one large plate and share it between two individuals. All of the students were very curious about how I liked Indian food and often bites off food off their plates or out of the little metal tins they brought from home (delicious lunches prepared by their moms!). I found dining experience to be extremely communal. I’m a right hander and no one seemed to mind which hand I ate with. I didn’t feel like faking it with my left hand. Since I am right handed, I use the right hand in the bathroom and I felt it would be disingenious to act like I was using the correct hand for the correct task while carrying on like normal in the bathroom. ---
**Author:** ![Thaumaturge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@Thaumaturge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thaumaturge)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-your-bottom-the-indian-way-or-the-european-way/228833/22 "2004-02-13T07:46:17Z")
From my experience in visiting restrooms in the middle east, spraying your arse with water is a hidious and thoroughly disgusting practice. A few times I have opened a stall door only to be greeted by the sight of excrement sprayed everywhere- on the walls, floor, and of course all over the toilet. I don’t even want to imagine how that happened, but I know that you can’t accidentally do that with toilet paper. ( Nor have I ever seen some thing so hideous in the countries that use TP anyway). Another point, not only do these people wash their arses with their left hands, they wash other _things_ as well. One time I was sitting in a chow hall in Kuwait watching the kitchen guy cleaning the refridgerator with his hand and a spray bottle. His _left_ hand! I suddenly remembered the practice in that part of the world of personal hygeine and lost my appetite. :eek: I highly doubt he thoroughly washes his hands perfectly every single time. We need a ‘going to hurl’ emote. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Jenkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Brown\_Jenkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Jenkin)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-your-bottom-the-indian-way-or-the-european-way/228833/23 "2004-02-13T07:55:20Z")
Four years in Indonesia and two in Vietnam and this whitey never even dreamed of using the hand. **jjimm** , I admire you and all farang/bule/honkeys who can bring themselves to go down that path. I did like the hose & nozzle, though. Bung-blasters, we called them. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-your-bottom-the-indian-way-or-the-european-way/228833/24 "2004-02-13T11:09:24Z")
> [@Glory](#): > > I’m a right hander and no one seemed to mind which hand I ate with. Perhaps an Indian doper could confirm this, but from my experience of being in India, I’d say their true reaction if you used your left hand, would be “shock and disgust but too polite to say anything”. ---
**Author:** ![noname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58f4c7/32.png) [@noname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/noname)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2004, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-your-bottom-the-indian-way-or-the-european-way/228833/25 "2004-02-13T17:47:29Z")
> [@Carnac the Magnificent!](#): > > Before soap came along, diseases like hepatitis (and worse) were pandemic, killing untold millions…Their transmission is certainly aided in the absence of thorough hand washing. Have a look at the q i answered. The washing in q was about butts, not hands. > [@Carnac the Magnificient!](#): > > I might add: Even with soap, I doubt the vast majority of Asian hand wipers regularly (and vigorously) wash their hands for the required 30-60 seconds, thus negating any theoretical advantage of this technique. In fact, our washing rituals last about a minute or more. And that involves vigourously scrubbing your hands (both) thoroughly, every inch of it. I have been doing it since childhood, but I never had hepatitis or any other disease. > [@jjimm](#): > > Perhaps an Indian doper could confirm this, but from my experience of being in India, I’d say their true reaction if you used your left hand, would be “shock and disgust but too polite to say anything”. I am a left handed Indian, and the reactions that i get are usually amusement(from the urban people) and shock (from rural folks). Nobody is disgusted anymore. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wiping-your-bottom-the-indian-way-or-the-european-way/228833.md?page=1)