It is one of the few strange things about Hong Kong that I can never understand. And it is one of those that pissed me off a lot!

There are many shopping malls and office blocks (be it small or big) in Hong Kong that are in this "sick and stupid" trend of locking up toilets. It is not because their bowls and taps are made of gold..but most of the mall toilets are "meant for tenant only" (and not for its shoppers!).  If that is the case, why bother to open a mall? If you need to use the toilet, you need to get a key from the tenants.

Last weekend, one of my favourite mall "Winsor House" joined this sick trend and started locking up its toilets. I have to walk around the entire mall looking for the one and only toilet or the shoppers - which was located at the basement. And when I reached there, I saw a long queue of women. Trust me, it was long - about 30 ladies! Lucky for me, the queue for the Gent was so much shorter - only about 5 people in the row.

Outside the toilet, I saw pregnant women and old ladies and children in the queue. The management who made this decision to lock the toilet probably didn't understand the needs of a pregnant lady or the elderly! The cleaner was there and she unlocked the door for the ladies. Instead of being praised for her acts, the security manager in suit reprimanded the cleaner. "Do not let the shoppers use the toilet lah" he said to her in that typical snobbish tone! Man, for that spilt second, I felt like slapping his dick-face!

That was it! It pissed me off so much that I went straight to their customer service counter and yelled at the poor receptionist.  I cannot see the logic at all! The mall rather let their shoppers spend quality time queuing for the loos than shopping and spending money? That was just so fu**king STUPID! In fact, Winsor House was undergoing "upgrading works" now - an it says "let your shopping desire flow" on one of their hoardings. Yes, let my shopping desire flow elsewhere! The whole shopping experience was so lousy!

To my bigger horror, I later found out that the toilets were only locked on weekends (when it was also the busiest period!) ! This is certainly ridiculous! And after some observation, I suspect the ill-intention of the management. There were a lot of foreign workers gathering around the mall - my guess is they may not want these people to use the toilets. And if my assumption is true, then it will be a bigger sin - the management is simply racist!

Last Tuesday, the operation manager called me to "smoke" me with their standard "customer-service script". I interrupted her speech and gave her a hostile lecture about shopper marketing. Seriously, if they can't afford to keep the toilet opens, why bother to run a mall? And if they are worried about the non-shoppers who just come and use their toilets - they can simply put a cashier outside each toilet. Better still, shut down your mall entirely!