Warning – Graphic Images – But the Reality
For some reason, Korean students can’t seem to learn two things when it comes to using the toilet:
- Getting their business in the toilet
- flushing their business if they do happen to get it where it belongs
Working in several Korean schools, numerous times a week these lovely scenes greeted me.
When I decided to start this blog, I took these photos:
Be glad you only see the images and not smell the contents. I gagged on several occasions rushing to open the windows. Rarely are there fans in school bathrooms and rarer still do they work if there is.
Unlike in the US, where teachers have separate facilities, in Korea, teachers and students almost always share the same restrooms.
Consequently, to avoid gagging throughout the day, I was also the unofficial “flusher,” as the cleaning lady often would not arrive for several hours.
Obviously, the parents aren’t teaching their children how to use the toilet. Neither are the schools.
I had to ask for soap when I first arrived at one school. There are no soap dispensers like there are in the States. So, I know for a fact these students did not wash their hands when they were through using the toilet. Even the school where I am now does not have soap in the bathroom where I took some of the photos above. I asked for soap when I first arrived, but the bar of soap doesn’t stay on the soap dish for more than a day or two before it disappears.
Scary thought when every student in your class want’s to shake your hand while saying the few English words they know, “glad to meet you” and “where are you from?”
After repeatedly being greeted by what you see here, I once suggested to a Korean teacher that they put a sign in the stall telling the students to flush the toilet. She said “it wouldn’t do any good.”
Aren’t schools supposed to teach?
I thought, “So, even though some Koreans won’t stop at a stop sign, you don’t use stop signs?”
(In a similar vein, another teacher told me one Friday afternoon, during the H1N1 propaganda scare, to leave the office door open when I went home, to “let the pandemic out.”)
These teachers are the “educated” Koreans.
There is this one last tidbit of Korean peculiarities connected to a Korean toilet; the waste basket one finds in every stall in Korea. After Koreans miss the toilet, or fail to flush, they deposit the paper, if used, in the little basket. Something about the paper will somehow damage the sewage system? Can’t see how, but that’s what I’ve been told.
Toilets in restaurants are not much better. Before lunch at this restaurant
I went to use the restroom and wash my hands. This is men’s sink area. There was no soap available.
Do the employees wash their hands after using the restroom?
Hepatitis A anyone?
Aren’t there at least minimum health laws and health inspections insuring the basic minimal health and hygiene standards are met to protect the public?