The Split Pants SceneDiapers. Most Western people would consider them an indispensible, if disposable, part of child rearing. Not so in China. Here, child rearing might refer to the constant visibility of baby bottoms. In place of diapers, Chinese babies are clothed in "kaidangku”, split bottom pants, which resemble mini cowboy chaps with a waistband.
This leaves baby’s private bits very public, both front and back, out happily enjoying the sunshine for all to see. This make strike foreigners as strange, especially after you realize that it is not only the view, but the function of split pants that is thrust in full view.
Mothers will hold their babies trussed up by the arms and legs inches off the ground, often making encouraging water stream noises through their teeth, waiting for baby’s participation, right there by the side of the road. The babies, for their part, do not appear shy about it, happy to water plants and cement cracks across our arid city.
Split pants may be a little unsanitary. No doubt there are safer places for a child’s bottom and assorted bits and pieces than Beijing sidewalks, which are home to phlem, broken glass, trash, and dog leavings, and seeing a child sitting bare bottomed on the street, which is a common sight, is a little unsettling, as are the rivers of human urine often seeing irrigating the trash beds on their voyage to the main street.
But split pants are not without their benefits. A healthy breeze blowing by baby’s neither regions is enough to transform what western babies experience as a wet, hot, fetid marshland into a cool, comfortable tundra of rash free skin.
In addition to the simple issue of summertime comfort, split pants, for boy babies at least, may be safer in the long run. A 2000 German study has linked the use of plastic diapers to male infertility. The temperature inside plastic diapers can get so hot it’s not just uncomfortable, it’s potentially unhealthy, and can impact the body’s ability to produce sperm later in life.
Another point is awarded to the split pant camp for being eco-friendly. Over 90% of US and Canadian households use disposable diapers, and about 18,000,000,000 soiled diapers are chucked into landfills each year in the US alone. The EPA estimates that these diapers, which take about 500 years to decompose, comprise about 2% of the nations sold waste by weight, which ranks them as the third most prevalent solid waste item in America, right after newspaper and food and drink containers. A baby sitting bare bottomed on a Chinese curb may be unhygienic, but I think 18 billion dirty diapers sitting around for the next 500 years takes the cake.
Despite the advantages and cultural hold split pants hold in China, the influx of Western thought has begun to bring disposable diapers onto the market. Higher end markets are beginning to stock these markers of Western squeamishness about private parts and bathroom business, and the sales of some brands are rising by 50% every year, and, in cities at least, the use of diapers is coming into vogue as a status symbol.
To be honest, at first glance it’s a bit strange and disconcerting to see flocks of youngsters running around, frolicking in the dirt and chasing down dogs with their crotches fully exposed. And ok, peeing in the street is unhygienic- but I still think 18 billion 500 year old dirty diapers take the cake.
Reference:
’Open Crotch Pants’ make way for disposable diapers. China Daily. 7-16-2004. http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/16/content_349150.htm
The Politics of Diapers: A Timeline of Recovered History. Mothering Magazine. Feb 2003. Issue 116. http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/diapers/politics.html
