Freelance Flaneur: The tale of Mr Toilet

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

The tale of Mr Toilet

심재둑 was born in a toilet.

The other children used to tease 재둑, calling him 'Mr Toilet' and worse names that are much too rude to write down in a children's book.

'From toilet originated; you be faeces!' one cried.

'Will show them!' sobbed Mr Toilet. 'I am becoming Suwon mayor and be construction house in shape as toilet. At I am died, Mr Toilet Museum is be special legacy.'

So Mr Toilet did become mayor, and he did build a house, and it was the most toilet-shaped house in the whole world! (Until Dubai decides to build one, like they ruin everything).

And when Mr Toilet died in 2009, his house was converted into a museum where it stands to this very day.

Mr Toilet's body was not flushed down the toilet. That would be inappropriate, have some bloody respect.

Mr Toilet House (해우재),
Suwon

Image: Freshome.com

Although this is, admittedly, precisely the sort of novelty scatalogical attraction I'd base a whole day's excursion on, I didn't even know about Haewoojae ('Mr Toilet House,' 'Mr Toilet Museum,' 'Beautiful Toilet' or 'place where one solves one's worries,' depending who's doing the cheap translation) before I got to Suwon and picked up a tourist map

But as soon as I saw that commode facade I recognised it from something I read or might even have written a couple of years ago, when I wrote news and blogs for a load of travel companies and tried to source any slightly unusual attractions or events I could find to make things less repetitive. I hadn't made a mental note that it was in South Korea at the time - back then, anything further away than Koblenz seemed impossibly distant for me to ever think about visiting, even if there was a house shaped like a massive toilet waiting for me.

Mr Toilet was a little eccentric (if you hadn't reached that conclusion already), and he really liked toilets (you're kidding?)

Rather than being objects of derision to be hidden from sight, he believed bathrooms should take pride of place in the home, which is why he built this toilet right in the centre of his toilet

With tintable glass for privacy. He might have been weird, but he wasn't a pervert

심재둑 founded the World Toilet Association in 2007. I wonder if it's still going strong without his enthusiasm driving things, or if the faces in these group photos have become a little more reluctant since

I notice my home country is conspicuously absent from this lavatorial legion. This isn't snobbery, but the plain biological fact that British people never go to the toilet. That's why they're so stuck up and full of shit (I'm available for corporate gigs)