Latest / Privycast / Ep. 209 Poopooland and Mr Toilet House

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Ep. 209 Poopooland and Mr Toilet House · Privycast

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Everybody has a different comfort for being perceived as a different type of dork.
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I will go to a Pokemon card convention because I I'm a dork.
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I I like Pokemon cards.
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But I'm not a Renfare dork.
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I'm just not.
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I'm not there yet in my dork journey.
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If you've dorked hard enough to go to a renfare, good for you.
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I'm not dorking that hard yet.
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Welcome back to Privy.
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Privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom.
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I'm your host, Hunter Hoover, and I love bathrooms.
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Welcome back, everyone.
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Thank you for being here.
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And we have just celebrated our
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Nations 250th anniversary this I'm gonna say this month.
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I'm gonna say this month.
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But it's summer.
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It's fully summer.
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Now people will say like summer starts in the middle of June, but like it was dumparooney raining in Oregon in the middle of June.
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And so it doesn't really have the spirit of summer yet.
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Really, July is when summer really sets in for me.
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Kids are out of school, things are slowing down.
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Maybe a little bit with work.
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Oaks are getting out there and doing fun things.
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At the point of this episode's release, I'm camping.
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And you know camping's got some stories coming your way.
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Oaks are getting out and doing fun things.
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There's a lot of cool options for summer fun to be had with the family.
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And a lot of those things take you outside.
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And I'm going to be honest with you, the outside can be hot.
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It's hot out there.
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I'm one of those guys that the way I'm shaped really i I I I kinda quit functioning after eighty degrees.
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I know I've got some friends in Arizona, shout out Michael, that they they they function in eighty.
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They function in a hundred.
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And I'm like, brother, brother, you don't have to do this to yourself.
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And they'll say, there's air conditioning.
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It's like not outside.
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The sun is still beating down on you.
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It can be hot out here.
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And as the heat rises, so do
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People's pursuits of ways to get in out of the heat.
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And there's a lot of outdoor fun with very clear ways to cool off.
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Beaches, pools.
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There's other ways that we can cool off in the summer heat.
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Before we explore this more, it should also be noted that a very popular summer activity is getting out.
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To amusement parks and fun centers.
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Kids are out of school.
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We have a large chunk of time that we didn't have before, where maybe we can't travel to do that, or we don't have a full day to go do something.
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There's something about summer that really puts you in the mood for a good ride and a specialty corndog.
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Specialty corn dog is just code word for overpriced corndog.
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I'm just gonna tell you.
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Very, very seldom do I have a corn dog priced at over $3, and I go, that's it right there.
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That was definitely worth $7.
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Those corndogs are priced due to convenience.
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That's just all there is.
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And there's be they're being sold next to where entertainment is happening.
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Fairs, amusement parks are a lot of fun.
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And it's
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Clear why people set up food stands next to them and set out for these activities in the summer.
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A key example of this, which will come up as we get into our topic, is local to myself here in the Willamette Valley in Oregon.
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And that is the Enchanted Forest.
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Now, I I the Enchanted Forest is kind of a case study for what I want to get into.
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Now, the Enchanted Forest here in the Willamette Valley in Oregon.
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I live in Albany, Oregon, so just north of us is the Enchanted Forest.
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The Enchanted Forest is an outdoor attraction park, is what I will call it.
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Amusement Park doesn't exactly feel right as a descriptor because, in my opinion, it isn't exactly amusing.
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There's a lot of amusing things that go on there, but it finds this strange line between a museum of strange fairy tale adjacent features.
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And fair rides, disguised and amusement park rides, mostly because they're not taken down and set up every week.
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Like it's the same quality of ride as a as a state fair ride, but because they didn't like take the thing down, set the thing up, take the thing down, set the thing up every other
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week, it's safe and like better somehow.
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The Enchanted Forest is a strange place.
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And for many months of the year, it sits closed because the Willamette Valley, as we've often said so far in the show, is rainy.
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It rains all the time here.
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What isn't fun when it's pretty much going to rain for nine months of the year, months on end, is being outside looking at things and riding metal rides.
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So again, the portion of the enchanted forest
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P a large portion of it is essentially an outdoor museum with rides kind of sprinkled in and attached to it.
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This neglects a key drawing factor of many museums.
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They're often indoors.
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And as a result, often have air conditioning and keep you out of the rain.
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Sometimes it's nice
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to go inside and get out of the heat.
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This is why major amusement parks succeed, often having cooling or other options for cooling off beyond just riding various ride options that might be available.
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They have Mr.
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Fans, AC ink corridors to keep you cool while you wait.
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In fact, there has even been an increase or an influx of attempts to make these attraction parks to combine what would normally be outdoor activities with indoor conditions.
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One of these recently opened up near Salem, and they're like, we've got bumper cars and go-karts and a ropes course and all that.
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And it's like inside, and you can order pizza.
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And it's like, that's actually kind of cool, these attraction parks.
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Uh, but but most famous is
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Of these.
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And I think when people hear that and they're like, yeah, our indoor trampoline park.
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When I was a kid, the only time you were getting on a trampoline is if you or a neighbor friend had a trampoline in their backyard.
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Now, I was one of the privileged kids who had a trampoline.
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I almost broke my spine on it, but I had one.
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And I would go over to my friend's house and they had a trampoline.
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And you get a bunch of kids on there and you jump for hours.
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You come up with new games, is good fun.
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It's weird.
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Because I speak highly of trampolines, but like when we, Santa, was trying to get our kids a trampoline, it was like I don't know if I want that.
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They have one and they love it.
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It's good it's good outdoor fun.
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But indoor trampoline parks have popped up and they have lent to there being other indoor activities, indoor paintball, all because they want to get you in, out of the elements,
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the rain of the Pacific Northwest, here where we are, or the heat.
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Many times they'll paint these things not as those things, but as indoor amusement parks.
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It's not just indoor go-karts, it's an indoor amusement.
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Usually from what I can tell, you can call anything an indoor amusement park as long as there's more than one different type of activity you can do, and a person could be there
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found having fun and being amused.
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It's a low bar.
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It's a low bar indeed.
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But why all this discussion and this bloviating about amusement parks at the top of the show?
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Does Hunter just love them?
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Sometimes.
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Are they a beloved and long-standing summertime fun activity?
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Yeah, sort of.
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Will Hunter in 2027 likely return to another?
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Theme park to visit every bathroom there?
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Most most likely, yes.
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But I wanted to before we dive into the the main topic, again, we have to get some history for these amusement parks to really appreciate them and what's going on.
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Amusement parks have their origin in the Middle Ages.
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And if you're thinking that this is what a Renfair is trying to simulate simulate, you're you're probably right.
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Like I think you're probably exactly right.
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Like Ren Fairs are trying to simulate those old original amusement parks that were popping up during the Middle Ages.
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I've never been to a Renfair.
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I think you have to have some level of comfort of being perceived as a dork to go to a Renfair.
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I'm not saying that it's bad.
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Like
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Everybody has a different comfort for being perceived as a different type of dork.
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I will go to a Pokemon card convention because I I'm a dork.
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I I like Pokemon cards.
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But I'm not a Renfare dork.
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I'm just not.
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I'm not there yet in my dork journey.
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If you've dork hard enough to go to a renfare, good for you.
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I'm not dorking that hard yet.
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It seems to me that Renfairs are just like an over-gratuitous LARPing session where really everyone has just agreed that like we're all gonna pretend like this is real for the
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weekend, and it's just gonna happen.
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It's weird to me.
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Amusement parks in the Middle Ages brought together various aspects of other entertainment to amuse the masses.
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Attractions like rides, shows, theme days.
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and specialty food were included as parts of these amusements.
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At first, however, they're mostly pop ups.
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They would roll into town, pop up for a handful of days, and then leave out.
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This is, I think, where those early days of the circus and the circus quote being in town came from.
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In time, these amusement parks became places where people would come to them to see the fun that was available.
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You don't have to take the circus to the people, the people will find their way to the circus.
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Things really boomed in this way when larger attractions that were mechanical in nature and would often be left in one spot once they were set up were put in place.
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In the eighteen sixties and eighteen seventies,
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Mechanical rides, such as the steam carousel, first built by a man named Thomas Bradshaw.
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Thomas Bradshaw steam his steam carousel set the stage for there being rides at the fair and amusement parks.
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It had a huge impact.
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While owning a horse at that time and riding could often be very costly, going to take a ride on the mechanical horses on the carousel brought the experience.
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at least s in some capacity, to the masses who could not afford owning, taking care of, and riding horses is often.
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Another huge step for amusement parks was something called a pleasure garden.
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Father forgive us, we've strayed so far from you.
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Now we gosh.
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We they they needed to workshop the name on this bad boy.
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I'm assuming that when the term pleasure garden was was agreed on, they didn't have like middle school boys running around to make hay with a term like
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Pleasure garden.
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What do I mean by that?
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I would like to to to tell you what I mean by like, why is Hunter ragging on a middle schooler's here?
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I love middle schoolers.
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I think they're great.
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But there's nothing like a middle schooler.
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That's facts.
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I would like to share just briefly some a back and forth I recently overheard from two middle school boys at the park while my daughter played.
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Boy number one said, Bro, I'm like six seven, boy two, six seven long.
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Boy one, no, six seven tall.
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Boy two.
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You wish you had six seven Riz.
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Boy one, I'm six seven Riz Aura farming daily.
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That's but a snippet.
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This went on for almost three to five minutes, and I hated every bit of it.
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And and it makes me wonder what sort of idiot banter were me and my friends saying that my parents sat there and like stared at it slackjawed, going, What in the world what did he
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just say?
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Like, I don't know whether to praise him or slap him in the mouth.
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You know what I'm saying?
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Uh it it was it was a challenging thing.
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And these aren't even bad kids.
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These are
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These are great kids, from what I could tell at the park.
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They were they were done with their baseball practice, waiting for their brothers to get over it.
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Nothing wrong with it.
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But I didn't understand any of it.
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Six, seven long.
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I don't even know what that means.
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I think it's an innuendo, and we're gonna move on from
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But these pleasure gardens, I digress, were in many ways what became amusement parks.
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There were songs and singing, mechanical rides, gardens to walk through and look at the beautiful foliage, live plays and music, seasonal attractions, festivities, and food to
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partake in.
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Putting a park and a fair up in one spot to be left.
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is something which developed coming out of the world's fair.
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It became a way for the country to show off not only their innovations, not only the economic success the country was having, but also to attract the people of the world to
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these elaborate parks.
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And if you hear that idea and think, man, that sounds distinctly American.
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Yes, yes.
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The first fixed amusement park.
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Went up in Coney Island in eighteen ninety five.
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Sea Lion Park in Brooklyn, New York.
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Two years later, it joined with Steeplechase Park.
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Coney Island also had Luna Park opening in nineteen three and Dreamland in nineteen four.
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It's pretty neat.
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Amusement parks were not the only thing going up and popping up and popping around at Coney Island.
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About a decade after most of these locations or attractions were opening up, a Polish Jewish immigrant was opening the first of their nickel hot dog stands where they sold
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their secret recipe hot dogs, made by wife Ida Handworker, which again, there had to be no middle school boys anywhere nearby on a name like Ida Handworker.
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Tough pull.
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They undercut the competition, and Nathan Handworker's famous, or Nathan's famous, hot dog locations were born.
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In time, they held the first Nathan's famous hot dog eating contest in 1967.
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Yes, teens, six seven.
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To commemorate the 100th, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the invention of the hot dog.
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The first win was by a na a man named Walter Paul.
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This four hundred pound truck driver ate seventeen hot dogs in an hour.
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And I gotta say, those are rookie numbers.
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Like just to be clear, it's always a show.
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You know, it's always it's always something to behold when when they just charm down on these dogs.
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These amusement parks were a popular summer stop.
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And I would be remiss if I if I didn't mention the the American fair that just happened in our nation's capital to commemorate the 250th anniversary of these United States.
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It's a similar idea tied to that to show off the the bounty and the good things that we have going on here in these United States.
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And these amusement parks.
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Have had a variety of strange themes and and centering ideas over the years.
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If you think of it, like a theme around a cartoon mouse and all of his cartoon friends that he knows and loves is kind of strange in and of itself.
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Like, what's the theme?
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Cartoon Mouse?
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No, that's not the theme.
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Okay, animation?
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Like, it's weird.
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But one theme park or amusement park takes the cake, specifically the cake.
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That we care about here on Privy.
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First, as we begin to cover this amusement or theme park, I want to note that there has not been a topic I have ventured into that has put my Norton internet security browser to
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the test quite as much.
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I feel like every other search that I engaged in to do research for today's episode got flagged or was stated by Norton as potentially dangerous.
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I always put links in the description below when this research comes from.
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So if you decide to go check these out, just know like you've been warned.
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My my internet protection browser was like, mm, maybe not this one.
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Maybe not this one.
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The theme park and amusement attraction slash museum, Poo Poo Land, is located in Seoul, South Korea, with another location being opened years later in Busan.
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Poopoo Land was one of Seoul's many free museum attractions, which welcomed people normally to learn more about Korean heritage and culture.
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But in this case
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To educate people about digestion, plumbing, and infrastructure.
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Something we will explore more in the future, but apparently Koreans love poop-themed things.
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Who knew?
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It's very strange.
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I think this might have a connection to the question that I asked my daughter on a recent privy chat.
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Go check out her episode.
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If you want wisdom from a seven-year-old about the bathroom,
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Go check out, I believe it's episode 206 or 207 with my daughter.
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She was a blast to have on.
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But at Pooh Pooh Land's original location in Seoul, you can enjoy photo opportunities near the poop wall.
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Slap the butt, which I should note, is this big, huge butt on the wall with the poop emoji underneath it.
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And this this butt in and of itself, this giant butt that you can walk up and like smack, immediately for me, immediately bumps this museum up to a PG thirteen museum.
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Now, I'm not saying that staring into the heart of a fake plastic butthole is too far.
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But they spent a lot of time making sure that they drew the anus on this butt, and it really does a lot to lend credibility to the term brown starfish.
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The butt notes that if you slap it ten times, you will have an 80% chance of having, quote, a more regular bowel movement.
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I don't know if this is some sort of superstition, like Koreans are whooping each other's butts to help poop come along.
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I'm not sure.
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If you're Korean and you hear this and you want to weigh in, shout at us privycast at gmail.com.
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We'd love to hear more about this, like spank it ten times to help the the turd come out.
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In my in my experience, what really gets the poo flowing is an over in an an overindulgence in coffee.
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Or yellow dragon fruit really gets things flyin'.
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Get things moving.
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It also has a fart wall with buttons that produce various fart sounds when you push them.
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It it's pretty much like one of those one of those like button things on your phone where you get all the sound effects like brow meow honk honk.
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It's like a little little soundboard but on a wall and they're all fart sounds.
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What is tough about the buttons is they look like semi realistic turrets.
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So it's almost like you're touching poop in order to get the fart sounds to trigger.
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Again.
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It's a lot.
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Immediately when I hear about this fart sound wall, I wonder if anyone ever spent enough time in front of the fart wall to make a song out of the various fart sounds.
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And what would be the funniest song?
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Shude, sh if there's a way to comment or like what's the funniest song that you could make purely out of fart sounds as a cover?
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And
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Bonus challenge, if you make that cover out of fart sounds, send it to us privycast at gmail.com and we will try to share your listeners submitted fart sound songs with the
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world.
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We would love that.
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There was a rudimentary obstacle course with a giant hanging stuffy poop that you had to avoid.
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This honestly, from the pictures I've seen, looks like a well-made McDonald's play structure with some poop.
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theming and branding thrown in to help tie it into the theme of the rest of the location.
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I'm sure the kids who this obstacle course is made for undoubtedly loved it.
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Like, don't touch the poop.
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But yeah, it's strange.
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What I think looks the most interesting in Pooh Poo Land soul is an exhibit where you can learn about and actually sit on
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Replica toilets from various port points throughout Korean history.
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That would be neat.
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It also makes me wonder how many times a little kid not understanding or remembering that they're in a museum sat on one of these toilets and was like toilet means poop and they
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let that Joe fly.
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Kids, especially when they're in the throes of potty training, will drop trouser and get ready to plop at a moment's notice.
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It'd be it's wild out here.
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While Pooh Poo Land is neat, I should note the story behind Pooh Poo Land is kind of more interesting.
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The museum in Busan began as a larger museum in Seoul, as we noted, known as the Mr.
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Toilet House.
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So that begs the question who in the world is Mr.
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Toilet?
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And why did they put together a whole museum for this guy?
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And surely mister Toilet is not his Christian name.
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It cannot be the name his mama gave him.
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So what's going on?
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First, who is mister Toilet?
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As was expected, his real name was not mister Toilet.
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His name is Sim Ji Duk.
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Duck?
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Not sure.
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Sim Ji Duk had a lifelong passion.
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For bathroom access and improving sanitation conditions.
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Now you might hear that and go, well, like, what's this guy's deal?
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Why has he got a lifelong passion for this stuff?
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I make a podcast about bathrooms.
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No judgment.
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But like, what's the impetus here?
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He got his public beginning in his work in improving sanitation for the 1988 Olympics and during his time as mayor of Suewon, South Korea.
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During that time,
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He's most notif no known for modernizing and beautifying public restrooms in the region ahead of the two thousand two FIFA World Cup.
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Now it's wild to me.
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At the point of this episode's record, I think by the time it comes out, it it'll be a thing of the past.
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But at the point of this episode's record, the World Cup is underway.
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That like people are standing in Costco and
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To watch the World Cup because they can't pull themselves away from the TV long enough for their wives to go shopping, they have to stand there and like watch these guys kick the
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ball.
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It's it's wild.
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No joke, the World Cup is underway.
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And by the time it comes out, you'll know who have won.
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Congratulations to fill in the blank here.
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But 24 years ago, Mr.
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Jai Duke, Seam Jai Duke, actually, I get why they went with Mr.
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Toilet.
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I get it.
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He worked on bathrooms in South Korea for their World Cup events.
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But his story with toilets predates that.
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As the story goes, the reason that Mr.
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Toilet had such a passion for toilets is because his mom gave birth to him in a toilet at his grandma's house.
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Yo.
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Nothing to really make you care that the world is full of clean toilets.
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Like being birthed into a clean one.
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Gotta make sure others can have a good start too, if you know what I'm saying.
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And so, as he grew up, he sought to improve bathroom conditions in South Korea.
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In 2007, he founded the World Toilet Association, which we've discussed and will discuss in the future on this show.
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Shortly after this time, he used his one point six one point six million dollars.
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Building a toilet-shaped building in Suwon, South Korea.
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It's massive.
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And when he died in 2009, the toilet building was repurposed into a museum or attraction called the Mr.
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Toilet House.
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Mostly now it's kind of like a toilet theme gallery.
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Museum itself is one of those largest ever things.
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It holds the record
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For the world's largest toilet sculpture.
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And so, while I probably won't be going to South Korea anytime soon, and I and I think if I ever do, I don't think I can go inside the museum anymore.
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I think most of these attractions have closed.
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I will go look at it, see this world's tall world's largest toilet, the Mr.
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Toilet House.
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It's a sight to behold.
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And the brainchild of Mr.
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Toilet himself, Sim Jai Duke's work.
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Directly producing it and poop Korea's poopoo land as a result.
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What an adventurous family outing those two would be together.
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Thank you much for listening.
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I hope that as this episode finds you, you are enjoying your summer.
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As always, we'd ask for you to leave us a rating or review.
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The five-star options are preferred, helps people find the show.
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And for every rating and review you leave, we will donate some money to Wounded Warriors International and Living Water as a reminder to keep pooping in the free world.
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This free world was not always free.
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And in pursuit of cleaner water for all, not everybody has it, but everybody should.
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Go check out the website privy-cast.com.
30:07
For past episodes, the episode with my daughter.
30:10
You can find it there as well as a link to our store and to sign up if you want to get email notifications.
30:16
Who knows?
30:17
Send us an email, privy dash cast or privycast at gmail.com.
30:21
You can follow us on social media at Privycast.
30:25
You can follow me.
30:26
I'm at Allet7.
30:27
This has been another episode of Privy.
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Thank you to those whose music we use.
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You can find links.
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to the music used as well as our sources for the research for this episode in the description below.
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Keep pooping in the free world, own your stank, and now, as always, don't forget to flush.