W.C.
I am not a fan of nightclubs - 나이트 in Korean - but found myself visiting the 호박 나이트 in Uijeongbu during my first month in Korea. Some of my coworkers asked me to go following an after-work dinner and it seemed easier to accept than to make up an excuse to go home. As the drinks from dinner caught up with me I asked about directions to the bathroom and was led to a room by one of the female co-teachers; my first thought was that she took me to the wrong place, but it turned out to be a uni-sex facility. Despite being the only male in sight the rack of urinals along one wall did suggest that I hadn't wandered into a bathroom for the opposite sex.
Visiting a friend in Daegu for the 2008 설날 holidays led to a similar experience, this time featuring an outdoor restroom for an Odeng restaurant (food no. 23 on this list) where two girls were having a heated discussion. Had you mentioned the possibility of this happening to me while I was still living in the United States I probably would have felt a little awkward about it. What, go to the bathroom with women standing around me? That isn't very private, is it? However, when put in that very same situation it didn't feel that extraordinary. Similarly, seeing half-nude sunbathers at a glacial lake in France was a rather pedestrian affair despite my preconceived opinions to the contrary. Watching everyone treat a behavior as a normal occurrence can go a long way toward making it a normative experience for outsiders.
During a break in teaching last week I went to the men's restroom outside our academy and saw one person brushing their teeth in the women's sink and another doing the same in the men's room. We share the floor with two other businesses so it wasn't that surprising to find someone else using the bathroom at the time. I didn't pay any mind to the bathroom's other occupant as I walked over to a urinal; at least not until I heard a female voice utter an expression of surprise in Korean. My surprise visitor apologized and finished up in the women's bathroom, though I had no problem with using a urinal in the far corner to create a sense of modesty for us both. (Brushing one's teeth does seem to be a somewhat private affair. And it's worth pointing out that, while I may seem rather blasé about all this, I wouldn't mind having some privacy when it comes to stuff like urine tests.) At this point I'm more concerned about my male students becoming overly curious about their teacher's anatomy than I am about sharing the bathroom with the women on our floor.
Finally, for the the image included with this entry, it's one I first saw on a bathroom sign at a 떡삼 restaurant. You can find it on any number of online sites but I'm unsure who to credit for the original photograph.