When you google “weird museum” you usually get the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets as one of the results. But we don’t want to cover popular google searches on this blog. Also, who wants to write about a collection of toilets when there is a toilet-shaped museum in existence? Opened just last year, Haewoojae in Suwon, South Korea literally means ”a place of sanctuary where one can solve one’s worries”. Sounds about right. Sim Jae-duck aka Mr. Toilet aka the Chairman of the World Toilet Association General Assembly built the world’s only million dollar home shaped like a toilet as part of his campaign for clean and beautiful bathrooms worldwide. It’s good to see a man with a cause, even if it that cause happens to be sanitation. But let’s not forget that up until the 1970s, most toilets in Korea were squats. Besides the fact that 1.1 billion people still live without the luxury of any kind of toilet. So think about that the next time you bitch about the guy leaving the toilet seat up. Anyway, Mr. Toilet (who has since died…may his heaven be full of toilets) turned his Toilet House into a Toilet Museum with the proceeds going towards building better and cleaner toilets around the world. Mark your calendars – November 19th is World Toilet Day. Here’s to a moment of silence while sitting on the toilet. FLUSH!
An old acquaintance of mine just moved to South Korea this past week. If it ends up being a permanent situation, I think I have a potential museum to visit in my future. Still. Nothing beats the Toilet Seat Art Museum.
