Ep 209: Poopooland and the Mr Toilet House
History of Amusement Parks.
Amusement parks have their origins in the Middle Ages. Amusement parks in the Middle Ages brought various aspects of other entertainment together in one place. Attractions like rides, shows, themed or specialty food were often in the mix. At first however, they were mostly pop ups. Think of the circus which “came to town”.
In time amusement parks became places where people would come to them to find fun. 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. In the 1860s and 70s, mechanical rides, such as the steam carousel first built by a man named Thomas Bradshaw, made their appearance at the amusement parks.
The carousel set the stage for the rides of the fair. It had a huge impact. While owning a horse and riding one often could be very costly, going to take a ride on the mechanical horses on the carousel brought the experience, at least in some capacity to the masses.
Another huge step for amusement parks was something called the “pleasure garden”. Personally, I think they desperately needed to workshop the name “pleasure garden”. These pleasure gardens were in many ways what became amusement parks. There were songs, and singing, mechanical rides, gardens to walk through, live plays and music, and seasonal attractions and festivities to be a part of.
Putting a park and a fair up in one spot to be left developed from the World’s Fairs. They became a way for the country to show off not only innovation, not only the economic success the country was having, but also to attract the people of the world to these elaborate parks. If you hear that idea and think, that sounds particularly American, yes. The first fixed amusement park went up in Coney Island in 1895: the Sea Lion Park in Brooklyn NY. Two years later, it was joined by Steeplechase Park. Coney Island also had Luna Park which opened in 1903 and Dreamland in 1904.
It’s pretty neat. Amusement parks were not the only thing that were popping up on and around coney Island at the time.
Amusing Food Competitions
About a decade after most of these locations of attraction were opening up… a Polish Jewish immagrant was opening the first of their nickel hot dog stands where they sold their secret recipe hot dogs, made by wife Ida Handwerker. They undercut the competition and Nathan Handworker’s famous, or Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog locations were born.
In time, they held the first Hot Dog Eating contest, held in 1967 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the invention of the hot dog. The first win was by a man named Walter Paul. The 400 pound truck driver ate 17 hot dogs in an hour. Nowadays, those are rookie numbers. This year, Joey Chestnut won it again after eating 66 hotdogs in 10 minutes.
Poopooland
Amusement parks are a popular summer stop. And there have been some strange offerings for themes over the years. Which, if you think of it… a theme around a cartoon mouse and all the cartoons and characters he knows and loves, is strange in and of itself. But one theme park or amusement park theme takes the cake, specifically the cake we care about here at Privy; the urinal cake if you will.
Poopooland is a theme attraction/museum in Seoul, South Korea with another location being opened years later in Busan. Poopooland is one of Seoul's many free museum attractions which welcome people normally to learn more about Korean heritage and culture, but in this case to educate about digestion and plumbing and infrastructure.
At poopooland’s original location in Seoul, you could enjoy photo opportunities near the poop wall, slap the butt, which I need to note, this big old butt on the wall with the poop emoji underneath of it, has to immediately bump this museum up to pg 13. I’m not saying that staring into the heart of a fake plastic butthole is too far, but it really does a lot to lend credibility to the term “brown starfish”. The butt notes if you slap it 10 times you will have an 80% chance of having a more regular bowel movement. I don’t know if this is superstition, maybe Koreans are like whooping butt to help the poop along, I’m not sure.
Poopooland also has a fart wall with buttons that produce various fart sounds when pushed. What is tough about the buttons is they look like semi-realistic turds. So it’s almost like you are touching poop in order to get the fart sound to trigger. Again, it’s a lot. Immediately I wonder if anyone ever spent enough time in front of the fart wall in order to make a song out of the various fart sounds that came from it.
There is a rudimentary obstacle course with a giant hanging stuffy poop that you had to avoid. This honestly, from the pictures I have seen looks like a well made McDonalds play structure with some poop theming and branding thrown in to help lend to the theme.I’m sure the kids who are undoubtedly who this obstacle course is made for, loved it.
What I think looks the most interesting in Poopooland Seoul is an exhibit where you can learn about and actually sit on replica toilets from various points throughout Korean history. That would be neat, and it also makes me wonder how many times a little kid, not understanding that they are in a museum, sat up on one of these toilets and let it fly.
Mr Toilet (House)
The story behind Poopooland is more interesting than the museum itself. The museum in Busan, began as a larger museum in Seol, known as the Mr Toilet House. So… that begs the questions, who in the world is Mr Toilet, and why did they put together a whole museum for this guy, and surely Mr Toilet is not the name his mommy gave him.
Who was Mr Toilet? Sim Jae-Duck had a lifelong passion for bathroom access and improving sanitation conditions. He got his public beginning in this work in improving sanitation for the 1988 olympics and when he was mayor of Suwon South Korea. During that time he is most known for modernizing and beautifying public restrooms in the region ahead of the 2002 FIFA World Cup. I think it’s wild that when I began working on this, no joke the world cup was underway, and by the time this comes out, I’m sure you will know who has won, but at this stage… it’s interesting that 24 years ago Mr Jae-duck, actually I get why they went with Mr Toilet, worked on the bathrooms in South Korea for those events.
But, his story with toilets predates that. As the story goes, the reason Sim had such a passion for sanitation is because his mom gave birth to him in a toilet at his grandma’s house. Nothing will really make you care that the world is full of clean toilets like being birthed into a clean one. Gott make sure others can have that good start. And so, as he grew up, he sought to improve bathroom conditions in South Korea.
In 2007, he founded the World Toilet Association, which we have discussed and will discuss further in the future. Shortly after this time, he used 1.6 million dollars building a toilet shape building in Suwon. It’s massive, and when he died in 2009, the toilet building was repurposed into a museum, or attraction called the Mr Toilet House. Mostly, now it is kind of like a toilet theme gallery. The museum itself is one of those largest ever things, and holds the record as the world's largest toilet sculpture.
Mr Toilet House and Poopooland, what an adventurous family outing that would be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusement_park
http://playpoop.com/eng/contents1
https://www.koreanquarterly.org/tag/poopoo-land/
https://lovelisakim.wordpress.com/2017/05/10/poop-museum/
http://playpoop.com/eng/contents4
