Day 95: Korean Out-House

I feel as if I need to share this picture from one of the temples I went to while on one of my vacations (Cheolla-do). If you can read Korean somewhat or at least recognize characters, you'll be massively confused, similar to how I was when I first saw this. Then my friend explained that I should read it from right to left, like traditional Korean used to be written/read. But then I still ran into a problem with the second character because it seemed impossible. It turns out that in 'olden times', in order to write the ㄲ they would combine the ㅅ with the ㄱ. So, if written today we would spell it 뒤깐. But that still didn't make much sense to me until my friend said that they don't spell it 깐 anymore but 간, so we would write it 뒤간. I then started putting the pieces together. 뒤 means behind, while 간 means a small place. When added together, you'd think 'Oh, a small place behind', perhaps meaning storage or a shed. No guys and dolls, don't think to far here. When we say behind, we literally mean your behind, and the place that we refer to is, well, you get the idea. So, this building is home to the temple bathroom, which I had the joy of using, consisting of rectangular holes in the floor that drop down into the rocks/river below. Luckily, it didn't smell all that much, besides the awesome smell of old wood.