외국인 환경운동가의 한국화장실 체험기

그린피스의 유명한 배 '무지개전사'호가 서해안을 돌고 있다. 그린피스 쪽 멤버 중 한국인으로서는 유일하게 승선하고 있는 한 대학생과 위성전화로 이야기를 나눴다. 이 학생은 호주 출신 그린피스 환경운동가랑 같이 블로그에 항해일지를 올리고 있다. 한국 학생은 한국어로, 호주 사람은 영어로. 그런데 이 호주 분(여성)이 블로그에 올린 글이 넘넘 재밌다. 아침에 한참 웃었다. 파란 글자는 내가 멋대로 번역한 것. 미리 말하자면 이 글은 한국이 얼마나 선진국이며 최첨단 테크놀로지 국가인지를 낱낱이 파헤치는 글이다.

 

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March 21, 2005

 

An ode to Korean gadgets: confessions of a confounded westerner

 

imgoVtHoz.jpg Slightly irrelevantly, I want to focus on an aspect of Korean culture that I found particularly fascinating. Korea has a reputation for being a technological powerhouse, and it certainly seems that technology companies have a finger in every pie here. (테크놀로지를 향한 한국의 열정이야 유명하고도 남지... 한국 기업들의 문어발도 마찬가지고)The company LG, that most of us in the west associate with electronics such as video players, has been spotted here selling petrol. Hyundai has a department store. Electronics giant Samsung makes everything from high-tech mobile phones to women's cosmetics products. (비됴플레이어같은 전자제품으로 유명한 엘지가 석유도 팔더라. 현대는 백화점을 갖고 있더라. 삼성은 여자 화장품까지 만들더라... 이것이 진짜 문어발인 것을 이 분은 미처 몰랐었나보다. 그런데 쫌 이상하긴 하다. 삼성이 화장품까지 만드나?) Here, pressing a traffic-light button produces voices that direct you to cross the road (or maybe it was to not cross the road, which would explain a lot). Mobile phones receive television as a standard feature. Laptops fit in your pocket.(신호등의 버튼을 누르면 길을 건너라고 목소리가 나온다! 핸드폰으로 텔레비전을 본다. 노트북은 주머니에 들어갈 정도로 작다!)

 

But the night before we boarded the ship, I discovered the gadget of all gadgets, the one thing I thought couldn't be brought into the 21st century. I was wrong. It was the toilet. (그러나 가장 놀라운 것은... 화장실이었다!)

 

Now I like to consider myself a woman of the world, but I'd never seen anything like the toilet in the motel we stayed in before we boarded the ship, so perhaps I will have to reassess this self-image. The Rainbow Warrior crew have just come from Japan and had seen similar, but previously I'd only seen anything like this on The Simpsons. (배에 오르기 전에 모텔에 묵었는데... 일본에도 들러왔지만, 한국에서 본 것같은 물건은-- 심슨가족 만화에나 나오는 건 줄 알았다고요)

 

Basically, this thing had a control panel straight from Apollo 13. I admit I even took a photo. The panel, like an aeroplane armrest, was beautifully laid out with tiny icons illustrating the various ways in which you could erm, wash your bottom. It resembled a clothes washer with various cycles, speeds, rinses, and lots of coloured lights that don't really represent anything but assure you that something is actually happening and don't worry, the toilet knows exactly what it's doing. (아폴로13호 조종석같다-- 화장실이 알아서 뭔가를 하고 있네그랴...)

 

After failing entirely to work out how to flush the toilet, (근데 물을 어케 내리는 건지를 모르겠어)which I thought would be a large red button somewhere or, at the very least, entirely automatic, I decided to apply my special technical knowledge which involves stabbing repeatedly at promising combinations of buttons until something happens.(대체 어딨는겨... 암튼 나의 기술적 지식 -_-;;을 총동원해... 뭔가 될때까지 눌러보자!) So I did. Immediately there was an efficient-sounding electronic whir and a pattern of lights moving up and down the console.(허걱.. 뭔가 불빛이 왔다리갔다리... ) I would not at this point have been at all surprised if the toilet had started talking to me or refashioned itself, (이미 이 시점에는 놀랄만큼 놀라서, 화장실이 나한테 말을 걸었더래도 안 놀랬을 거다)Terminator-style, into a completely different object. As I leant on the toilet to peer in consternation at the buttons, I realised what it was the toilet was doing - warming the seat. (흑흑 나중에야 알았다. 변기가 따끈따끈해지고 있는 중이었고나) Yes, you read right. Warming. The seat. Warming the seat. (알아들었니? 변기가 따끈따끈하다고, 변기가!) Personally I find warm toilet seats rather disconcerting, but this toilet was having none of my quibbles. Horrified at this use of electricity, I strongly considered unplugging the toilet and holding the cord up victoriously in the name of Greenpeace. (이렇게 전기를 많이 쓰다니! 나는 그린피스의 이름으로 과감히 코드를 뽑아버릴까 고민하기 시작했다)

 

In any case, the toilet obviously had no intention of disrupting it's important seat-warming duties to acknowledge my flustered button-pressing, so I decided to reassert human superiority. (나의 뜻과는 아랑곳없이 제할일을 계속하는 무셔운 변기에게 인간의 우월성을 보여주고야 말리라. 쿵야.)

Unfortunately for me, this involved opening the lid and being squirted with a stream of water (pleasantly warmed though, of course, and probably scented for all I cared). (어쭈구리 이젠 뜨거운물에 향기까지...)

 

At this point, I gave up, and decided to leave the toilet to its own devices and go and have a shower which I figured could possibly require an advanced degree in electrical engineering to operate and therefore might take quite a while. But then I thought of it's smug little control panel blinking incomprensibly at me. I couldn't let it win. (포기하고 샤워나 할까 하는데... 아폴로13호가 마구 깜빡이는 것이다)

 

Still bearing the marks of my battle (in other words, a little damp) I knocked on my colleagues' door. Dave (the Logistics coordinator) was on the floor, bent over a map and marking points with a compass. Jim (the Oceans campaigner) was on the bed typing in Dave's dictated figures. "Um ... guys..." I began. "I have a problem." (옆방 동료들한테 구조요청!)

 

Jim looked up from his work and glanced at my damp shirt and pained expression. "Oh yeah," he said, if it was the most normal thing in the world. "I had the same problem. Button on the side." He went back to his typing without another word. (알고보니 물내리는 버튼은 옆구리에 있었어 ㅠ.ㅠ)

 

I had you now, toilet!! True to Jim's word, an old-fasioned, relatively speaking, silver button was protruding from the side of the water tank. I had to laugh as I exerted physical dominance over the toilet's electronic brain and heard the satisfying flush. There's something to be said for gadgets and automation but you know what? I think my ipod is as far as I'll go.