Tourist attraction: Tourists feel 'monitored' and 'embarrassed' as timers installed above public toilets at Yungang Buddhist Grottoes in China

Cubicles in a female public toilet at the Yungang Buddhist Grottoes in China were fitted last month with the new bizarre digital timers. The timers hang above each stall and let people know when the cubicles are unoccupied, as they feature the word "empty" in green. When someone enters and closes a stall's door, the counter above it displays how long the cubicle has been occupied.

A tourist told the state-run local newspaper Xiaoxiang Morning Herald: "I found it quite advanced technologically so you don’t have to queue outside or knock on a bathroom door. But I also found it a little bit embarrassing. It felt like I was being monitored."

A user posted on the Chinese social media site Weibo: “A tourist site isn’t an office – who would spend their time in the toilets? Is it really necessary?" Another wrote: "Why don’t they just spend the money on building more washrooms?".

A staff member at the Yungang Buddhist Grottoes told the Chinese newspaper the timers had been installed to cope with the increased number of visitors across the site.  The staff member said: "It’s impossible that we would kick someone out [of the bathroom stall] midway. And we aren’t setting a time limit such as five or 10 minutes of how long one could use the toilets."

Another state-run newspaper, the Nanchang Evening News, reported that a staff member at the UNESCO World Heritage Site said that the the timers had been operating since May 1 and were not meant as monitoring devices. The staff member told the newspaper that the times were more of a safety measure "in case some guests use the toilet for an extended period and an emergency occurs".

In 2023 the Yungang Buddhist Grottoes in Datong City, Shanxi Province were visited by more than three million people from around the world. The site consists of a series of 252 caves in which more than 51,000 statues were carved in the 5th and 6th centuries.