How long have you been in there?! A popular tourist destination in China has installed toilet timers. Reactions are mixed

CNN —

Boasting 51,000 statues carved into 252 caves and niches some 1,500 years ago, China’s Yungang Buddhist Grottoes is irrefutably a spectacular attraction.

But in recent days, the restrooms in this UNESCO-listed World Heritage site have been earning more attention than the views.

A video recently shared on various Chinese news and social media sites shows a set of timers installed above a row of toilet cubicles in a female washroom, with each stall getting its own digital counter.

When a stall is unoccupied, the pixelated LED screen displays the word “empty” in green. If in use, it shows the number of minutes and seconds the door has been locked.

‘We won’t kick people out midway’

The original video was reportedly taken by a visitor who sent it to the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald, a state-run local newspaper.

“I found it quite advanced technologically so you don’t have to queue outside or knock on a bathroom door,” the paper quoted the visitor as saying.

“But I also found it a little bit embarrassing. It felt like I was being monitored.”

A staff member at the attraction reportedly told the Xioxiang Morning Herald that the timers were installed to cope with an increase in visitors to the attraction – and that includes the facilities inside the tourist site.

“They aren’t there to control the durations you could use the bathrooms,” the staff member was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

“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.”

China’s Yungang Buddhist Grottoes features 51,000 statues carved into 252 caves and niches.

Nanchang Evening News, a state-run newspaper, quoted a