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Behaviours, Encouraged

How do you know that the taxi you are about to step into is clean? In a culture where grolling onto the floor of restaurants is par for the course it is for many locals a non-trivial question.

Chongqing taxi's include seat covers printed with the day of the week - writ large. In ten days of hopping around the city I only once came across a taxi that displayed the wrong day - suggesting that by and large covers are consistently replaced. Fresh covers imply they are washed, which implies cleanliness which becomes one of the differentiators that separates this taxi from local alternatives - buses, motorbikes and mini-bus taxis.

Does a desire for clean over dirty also extend into the digital domain? And if so, how to communicate the two states? Movie files that give off a putrid odor once they are past their 'use by' date, and naturally the hacked versions that do the reverse. And (mostly) thinking beyond China, in what contexts is dirty desireable, imply authenticity?

Kinda related: mobile phone cleaning services in Seoul, cleaning swab's in Seattle hotel rooms, the separation of clean and dirty spaces in Japan and kerb-side shoe cleaning services in Kampala.

Writing from Tokyo | June 11, 2007 | Permalink