"As the host of the 2008 Olympics, Beijing is trying to improve the state of its commodes and make every trip to a public restroom pleasant for millions of athletes and visitors this summer," says Yu Debin, deputy director of Beijing's Municipal Bureau of Tourism.

A survey by the bureau in 1994 showed more than 60 percent of overseas travelers were dissatisfied with Beijing's toilets, and most described going to the smelly and dirty toilets as a revolting experience.

The construction and management of the toilets in a city reflects the level of civilization and living standards of a society, says Ma Kangding, an official with the Beijing Municipal Utilities Administration Commission overseeing the "toilet revolution". Zhou Jiang, 76, lived in a siheyuan, or courtyard home, with no modern amenities for decades. He used his nose to locate a public toilet when he was a child.

"I would squat over a huge pit, and would feel dizzy if I looked down because I could be hovering over a two-meter pit with no water to flush to it," he recalls.

In the 1960s, when China was still struggling to feed and clothe 600 million people, the sanitation of the public toilets was deemed a trivial matter. Yet the economic boom since the late 1970s has dramatically changed the landscape as well as transformed public toilets in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

In 2002, when Beijing won the right to host the 2008 Olympics, the city accelerated the renovation public toilets. The designation "W.C." was replaced by "toilet" and clusters of five-star toilets were set up in tourist attractions. To guide people to the nearest toilet, the government has included toilet signs on tourist maps and will equip the online search device installed along the main streets of downtown with electronic toilet maps within the year.

The renovations also included hi-tech devices to save water and neutralize odors. Water-conserving equipment is being fitted in bathrooms of all Olympic venues, with the hand basins and toilets equipped with inductive flush valves, which only use a tenth of the water flushed away in ordinary toilets.