So you drank your fill of soju and now you’ve got to make like a pregnant lady and pee. Not to worry stranger. This helpful blog will get your pants down and your pee out in the most sanitary and polite way possible.
The first thing you should know is they don’t flush toilet paper here. It has nothing to do with ineffective plumbing, high population density, or toilet paper made of lead. The entire culture just got it in their heads that toilets are incapable of handling bits of disolvable paper. They also think that if you leave a fan on in a room with the windows closed it will chop up the molecules in the air and kill you. There is no fan death and paper goes through the pipes just fine. Don’t be surprised when you see a trash can next to the commode full of used paper. You do not need to partake in this tradition. Go ahead and send that paper to a watery grave. I know this is setting me up for a very embarrassing clog situation someday when I have to explain in Konglish why there is paper in the bowl. I still risk it. I get off on the danger.
Now that you know, and will break, rule #1, you might want to know how to find the bathroom. You probably need to leave where ever you are. Don’t drink that watery beer so fast. Cass will go right through you and then you’ll have to go out the back door, make a sharp left, go into the adjoining building and that public restroom that 4 businesses share and none of them clean? That’s the one. Take a deep breath. We’re just getting started.
Koreans spit. A lot. Everywhere. If you look down and see what is clearly a bodily fluid on the floor by your shoe, fear not, it’s just spit. It’s just spit.
So you got into the stall… well that’s weird, there isn’t a toilet in here, just a porcelain hole with a flusher on it. This is a rarity, but I love it when I come across the female urinal. This is easy: drop trow, squat and let it flow. I don’t know how much further the women’s movement would progress with the level of empowerment that peeing standing up brings. I am woman hear me pee! Anyone who tells you that these are hard to use doesn’t have the ovaries to embrace the freedom of the standing pee. Also, you get to foot flush, which I love.
More likely you found a toilet and assessed the seat. You made a judgment as to ass-to-seat or hover. (Be a woman and put your cheeks down, princess). You made your deposit and the only paper you see is in a trash can. It very well maybe that the dispenser is not in the stall, but on the wall just outside. Before you head in there, look around to see if this is a bring your own paper situation. In some bathrooms, you’re just on your own. I keep tissue in my purse just to be safe. Then again, there is the Girl Scout Camp standard of drip and dry.
Thank God that’s over, you’ve cleansed the pallet and are ready to wash up, head out and reload your bladder with more Cass. Not so fast, pilgrim. I’ve yet to tell you how to get those pretty hands of yours ready to dive back in to the free bowl of dry cereal the bar gave you with your beer.
Liquid soap exists, but probably not in the bathroom you are in. That bar of soap sitting in a soggy tray. Pick that sucker up, cuz that’s the closest you’re getting to clean hands tonight. OK. Not the best, but they touched soap. Tough it out. It’s not going to kill you.
All you need now is to grab a paper towel and dry your… grab a paper towel and… a paper towel… seriously? One of two things, there is a cloth towel the cleanliness of which is up to you to judge, or it’s just you and the air. I don’t know how Koreans keep their pants so dry. They must have perfected the shake dry method. I share the burden of moistness with the back of my shirt or jeans.
Ladies, I know that you enjoy the sanctuary of the powder room. Not often, but on occasion there is one bathroom with a urinal and two stalls, one for “a man” and one for “a woman.” I hope you don’t need to do anything too gastric because that drunk dude using the urinal for balance, he’ll still be there and you’ll still have to pee.
The Koreans love a good bidet. I am not brave enough to use them for a few reasons: there are a surprising amount of buttons, all the buttons are in Hangul, and I don’t have faith in the cleaning staff of the public bathrooms at E-Mart to allow water up my anything. That’s right, public bidets.
The majority of the bathrooms are fine, just different. Even so, don’t be a darling and get ready to do your business where you must.
Hagwon? I hardly know won! 