Traditional Chinese buildings are generally sited with their backs to the north and their faces to the south. (Image: Queenmargo via Adobe Stock)
In everyday Chinese, people say they are going “up” to the toilet (上廁所) and “down” to the kitchen (下廚房). Behind the wording lie the way people once laid out their homes, the way they thought about direction, and the order that custom imposed on daily life.
To trace where the expressions came from, begin with the spatial order of the traditional dwelling.
Traditional Chinese buildings are generally sited with their backs to the north and their faces to the south. North was the honored direction and south the humbler one, and the distinction between upper and lower was often tied to the points of the compass. The main rooms on the north side sat at the center and held the highest status, usually serving as the living quarters of the elders, and they were called the upper rooms (上房) or the upper position (上首). The south side and the ground near the gate were where utility spaces went, and both counted as the lower position (下首). The arrangement was not arbitrary. It came out of ritual prescription, climate, daylight and the ethics of the family all working together.
Because of its foul odor, the privy was usually set in an out-of-the-way spot, or in a higher and more distant corner of the courtyard. The kitchen had to sit close to firewood and water with an easy way in and out, and it also had to stay away from the quiet precincts of the main rooms, so it was commonly placed toward the lower end of the courtyard or near the gate. Going to the privy therefore became going “up,” and going to the kitchen became going “down.” One word’s difference, and the order of the whole compound hangs on it.
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Over time the orientation hardened into a form of speech, and the form of speech settled into habit. Language works like an old seal, holding the impression of the grain of traditional life.
Earlier privies also say a good deal about how people actually lived. Early texts often use the character hun (溷), which refers to a privy and is also connected with the pigsty. People built according to the ground they had, putting the privy on higher ground or next to the animal pens so that waste could be turned into feed and into fertilizer for the fields. The arrangement does not suit modern taste, but it reflects the plain wisdom of reuse in a farming society.
The “up” in going up to the privy, then, is not purely a figure of speech. In some older forms of dwelling, people really did climb steps to get there.
The “down” in going down to the kitchen carries a further layer of meaning drawn from custom.
Mencius says the gentleman keeps his distance from the kitchen (君子遠庖廚). The original point was not contempt for cooking. The line used a reluctance to watch a creature killed as a way of speaking about a humane heart. In the customs of later ages, though, the kitchen was commonly regarded as a place where servants labored, ranking below the hall, the study and the reception room. In a large household, when the master cooked, it was called 親自下廚, going down to the kitchen in person, and the phrase carries the sense of moving from a place of honor to a place of work.
In the modern era, the layout of an apartment bears little resemblance to that of the old courtyard. A bathroom may sit next to a bedroom, and an open kitchen may run straight into the living room. The system of orientation has receded, but the inertia of the language runs on.
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