There is definitely a paper shortage in Hong Kong. How do I know this? It is because every time I finish using the restroom and reach my hand towards the roll of toilet paper, there isn’t any. Also, when I spill food on my face (which I happen to do a lot) and reach down for my trusted napkin, I am usually setting myself up for disappointment and a dirty face.

Most days, I keep a to-go pack of tissues with me at all times. It is almost that life outside my room depends on this little package of tissues turned napkins turned toilet paper. I would have never imagined something so trivial to become an all-important device until I reached Hong Kong.

There are many days when I am caught running back and forth to the bathroom like a crazy person due to the fact that I get into the stall, and have my belt halfway unbuckled before I realize that I left that oh-so-important roll of toilet paper in my dorm room.

Most people probably would not have a problem with this, but I am a procrastinator at everything. This means that I wait until the very last second to go to the bathroom. When I forget my toilet paper, that last second becomes torturously long.

On top of being a procrastinator, I am also incredibly forgetful. This always gets me into trouble because on the days that I am not sprinting between my room and the bathroom, I am thinking about how it is too late to go back to my room. That’s right. Remember that episode of “Seinfeld” when Elaine forgets to check her stall for toilet paper in the public restroom? That’s what I feel like.

Not only is there a short supply of toilet paper, but restaurants are scanty on napkins as well. By “scanty,” I mean that very few restaurants offer napkins at all, and the ones that do will often charge for them. This situation often gets me into trouble. When I forget my little pack of tissues, I have few options. Most of the time, I eat incredibly slowly so that I spill as little as possible on my face (On a side note, that is tediously hard when you are trying to eat something like fried chicken).

Alas, no matter how slow I eat, I often get some sort of food remnant on my face. This means that I either have to use my sleeve, or I have to walk around with something on my face.

At home, I honestly don’t care if I use my sleeve or walk around with something on my face, but it is hard to not care in public and around friends. I try to opt for the sleeve option, but only when I am positive that no one is looking. I just put my head down like I am looking for something on the ground and wipe as quickly as humanly possible.

Even though carrying around multi-use tissues is a pain and forgetting them is even more of a nuisance, the lack of certain paper products in Hong Kong has opened my eyes. Now, when I see napkin dispensers, I only take one napkin instead of the ten that I would normally take if I was in the States.

In fact, I have started become a lot less wasteful with paper products in general. Will this last when I get back home to the place where toilet paper flows so freely off the rolls and napkins are offered in “bottomless” dispensers? I am not sure yet, but I hope so.

Ariel Ringlein is a junior in management from Guthrie Center. She is in Hong Kong for the semester as part of the ISU study abroad program.