page_title: Night soil
section_title: China, Hong Kong, and Singapore
hierarchical_section_title: Night soil / History / China, Hong Kong, and Singapore
caption_attribution_description: Foochow, Fukien province, China: a woman carrying buckets of night-soil. Photograph by John Thomson, 1871. Iconographic Collections Keywords: J. Thomson
context_page_description: Night soil is a historically used euphemism for human excreta collected from cesspools, privies, pail closets, pit latrines, privy middens, septic tanks, etc. This material was removed from the immediate area, usually at night, by workers employed in this trade. Sometimes it could be transported out of towns and sold on as a fertilizer.
  Another definition is "untreated excreta transported without water". The term "night soil" is largely an outdated term, used in historical contexts. The modern term is "fecal sludge"; fecal sludge management is an ongoing challenge, particularly in developing countries.
  Night soil was produced as a result of a sanitation system in areas without sewer systems or septic tanks. In this system of waste management, the human feces are collected without dilution with water.
context_section_description: The term is known, or even infamous, among the generations that were born in parts of China or Chinatowns (depending on the development of the infrastructure) before 1960. Post-World War II Chinatown, Singapore, before the independence of Singapore, utilized night-soil collection as a primary means of waste disposal, especially as much of the infrastructure was damaged and took a long time to rebuild following the Battle of Singapore and subsequent Japanese Occupation of Singapore. Following the development of the economy and the standard of living after independence, the night soil system in Singapore is now merely a curious anecdote from the time of colonial rule when new systems developed.
  The collection method is generally very manual and heavily relies on close human contact with the waste. During the Nationalist era when the Kuomintang ruled mainland China, as well as Chinatown in Singapore, the night soil collector usually arrived with spare and relatively empty honey buckets to exchange for the full honey buckets. The method of transporting the honey buckets from individual households to collection centers was very similar to delivering water supplies by an unskilled laborer, with the exception that the item being transported was not at all potable  and it was being delivered from the household, rather than to the household. The collector would hang full honey buckets onto each end of a pole he carried on his shoulder and then proceeded to carry it through the streets until he reached the collection point.
  Hong Kong has a similar euphemism for night soil collection, 倒夜香 dàoyèxiāng, which literally means "emptying nocturnal fragrance".
caption: A woman carrying buckets of night-soil, photographed in 1871.
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