Bathroom Anyone?
It's amazing to me how somethings as basic as the toilet and restrooms can have so many different variations. I mean, thankfully they have toiles here (never anything I worried about, but am grateful for), but it's not always the same, friends.
My apartment is definitely no Hilton by any means, and T Teacher sniffs whenever I talk about it and he frequently tells me I could be doing better (considering his new apartment has an actual bedroom and no roaches, he thinks it makes him an authority on these things). Many bathrooms, especially in budget housing, are wet rooms - a toilet and shower head with a tub spout sticking out of the wall, no sink and no shower curtain. Initially this took a little bit of getting used to, and deciding between the spout to wash my hands or the kitchen sink is something I still struggle with.
I hadn't realized how accustomed I was to my setup until I had a couple friends over, and one was like "Sis, you don't have a sink in your bathroom."
Ahh. Yes. I'd forgotten they came with those.
I've been in enough homes here to know that my setup is definitely a remnant of an older time, but I won't lie, the level of comfortable I am crouching on my bathroom floor to brush my teeth and wash my face is more than it was brushing my teeth at the farm sink in my parents' basement (I may have roaches, but this girl has only seen two spiders the entire time I've been here).
Another thing I've run into here is toilet paper in public bathrooms. Or rather the absence of it. Like there just isn't any. And no, this isn't a result of the pandemic TP crisis, this is just a thing. I've talked about this before in past posts, but just a review for anyone new to the blog. Individual businesses that have their own bathroom often provide TP, but in buildings where businesses share the public bathroom in the hall, the public toilets are left TP-less. Many places will keep a roll of TP by the door for you to grab a few squares as you go, and that's generally the first thing you look for if you're trying to find a bathroom. But even then, it's not uncommon for there to be no TP.
On top of that, Korean plumbing is super old. Meaning that it can't really handle toilet paper being flushed, so there's often a giant trash can kept to the side for disposal. Forget about the signs reminding women not to flush toiletries, no one would dream of it. If there's a sign, it's about the TP. That being the case, many Koreans just have a packet of wet wipes with them just in case.
Now let's say you know all this, you've got your backup TP or wet wipes, and you've successfully located the bathroom. You're adventure isn't over.
Something common to South Korea is squatting toilets. Like, guys, the first time I came face to face with one, I understood what it was. I've read my blogs, watched my YouTube, but something no one had ever talked about was how you used it. Thankfully though, the internet was made for clueless souls like me, and there's an article literally for everything. But that didn't help me in that, because I was a baby in Korean and didn't have data on my phone yet, so I noped out of that and luckily found a stall with a regular toilet.
But I wasn't always to have that kind of luck. Eventually the time came where squatting toilets were literally the only options available. But by then I'd done my research, and they fortunately had toilet paper. Someday I might get a double whammy with a squatting toilet and no toilet paper, but I'll take that adventure when it comes. Squatting toilets make me envious of urinals.
Not saying though that guys have it much easier here. Something my expat friends have talked about is how exposed men's restrooms are. For example, almost everywhere we go, the men's the restroom is the first door by the main hall, and the door is always open, with no little partition to separate the doorway from the stalls. Urinals are placed just to the side, easily in sight, and though it's turned to the side, privacy just isn't a thing. Anyone walking by (like the women going to the women's restroom further down the hall), have an uncomfortably clear view of the restroom's interior.
My work isn't safe from this either. Each of the men's bathrooms are located right by the stairwell, and the urinals are just right there. In the mornings there's no one on the floor where my office is, so I generally don't have to worry about it, but once it hits 3pm my eyes hit the floor and I don't look up again until it's closing time. That has been mostly successful, though every once in a while I'm not paying attention to not paying attention, and then everyone's uncomfortable. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe it's Changwon, maybe it's other places too. Cultural differences? More than likely, but honestly who knows?
If you go out for a night on the town and need a place to go, don't look in the hole-in-the-wall where you're eating dinner, go outside, find an alley, and take a peak. Many bathrooms are tucked in alleyways, and many of those are unisex. You never know what you'll get though, so keep your expectations flexible.
Take for example, the bathroom behind my language exchange group's go-to chicken house. You sneak past the kitchen out into the back courtyard, then follow the howls of the damned from the near-by noraebang, to a little stand in the back. First will be the sink (don't expect there to be soap anywhere, by the way), then separated by a wall as you walk past is a urinal (no door), and then in a little stall just past that is a squatting toilet. Which thankfully has a door and a lock because that is not a situation anyone wants to get walked in on.
That all being considered, I have learned that it's possible to have a favorite public bathroom. Mine is located behind a little Japanese bar about a block from the main bus stop off into Sangnam. I had been in rather urgent need of a bathroom, and so I stepped into the bar and used my very technically accurate Korean to ask for assistance. The bartender led me to the appropriate alley, and there I found probably the nicest alleyway bathrooms in Sangnamdong. Normal toilets, normal lighting, toilet paper, and soap. Granted you have to walk down a super sketchy alley into a little courtyard, past two bathrooms that DON'T work, and nod politely to the girls taking their smoke break who look like they could eat you for lunch. But, nothing worth having is easy, including nice bathrooms.
-Shayla
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