People's attitude matters in loos change

I had a memorable trip to Yunnan province in the early 1990s, traveling south from the capital Kunming to Xishuangbanna, near the border with Myanmar.

I journeyed right to the edge of the Mekong River that forms part of the Golden Triangle, which is an area that is infamous for its poppy fields, an area overlapped by Myanmar, Laos and Thailand.

I was especially fascinated by the houses built on stilts that were homes to the ethnic minorities. They reminded me of the kampung (village) houses in Malaysia and in early Singapore before they were torn down to make way for urbanization.