Popular Chinese celebrity couple Ma Yili (马伊琍) and Wen Zhang (文章同學) recently shared their experiences at a baby changing room at Shanghai Airport. When Ma needed to change her daughter’s diaper, they found the infant room was useless, leaving the two embarrassed and angry.
Ma Yili published a long post on her Weibo account recently, in which she criticized the inadequate nursing facilities at the airport, calling them a “disaster”.
In her post, Ma Yili explains that her daughter was suffering from a stomach ache when they were at Shanghai Airport, and that she needed a clean diaper quickly. In the room, Ma Yili discovered there was no place to wash her hands, forcing her to use the tap in the ladies’ room. There was also no baby-changing station; her daughter needed to stand while changing the diapers. As a result, her pants were stained with poop. Even worse, according to Ma Yili, there was no hand sanitizer in the dispenser. At that time, the boarding time for her flight was approaching and she had no other choice but to throw away the dirty pants and cover her daughter with her jacket. Ma Yili shared her anger about the inadequate facilities with all of her 42 million followers.
Her post had accumulated around 240,000 likes by February 15, within just five days time, becoming a trending topic (hashtag “Ma Yili deems infant rooms useless” #马伊琍称母婴室形同虚设#). Many followers said that they were happy with Ma sharing her story, as it reflects their own experiences with baby changing rooms in China.
Ma continued to complain on Weibo that most of the nursing rooms in China fail to understand the mother’s needs and do not provide the proper equipment. Most of China’s high-end shopping malls provide proper facilities to change baby’s diapers, but this is not the case for domestic airports and railway stations.
Ma also shares her experiences as a breastfeeding mother: she visited many nursing rooms during her trips all over China but disappointedly she was unable to find one with proper wash basins and socket outlets – usually there was just a table and a chair. But except for a chair, according to Ma, breastfeeding mums also need sockets to connect breast pumps. Ma says that there have been times when she had to manually pump breast milk inside the toilet while the people waiting outside started to knock on the door telling her to hurry up.
Ma finished her post by urging train stations and airports to provide proper baby-changing stations, sinks, chairs, electrical outlets and garbage bins in all nursing rooms in the near future.
Most of the Weibo netizens agreed with Ma Yili and shared their own embarrassing situations in China’s baby changing rooms.
Weibo netizen Shanshan said: “I hope this post will get make the public more aware about mothers’ needs so that we can go out with our children in a more convenient way.”
Another mother commented that she found that nursing rooms in Japan were well-equipped with a sofa and a table, a tap for parents to wash hands, a baby changing station and a separate section for breastfeeding: “That’s why I like Japan more than China”, she says.
– By Jen Tang
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