A bowl of soup lands on the table, and beside the cutlery is a roll of the kind sold for bathrooms. In the Korean records we found, the reason given is cost: in 2001, a restaurant owner and a local official both told reporters the rolls were the cheaper choice.[3][4] Two other things sit in the background. The everyday Korean word for the paper does not name the bathroom, and the rules that draw a line between table paper and bathroom paper arrived later.[1][2][3][6]
This piece sticks to what we could check in Korean sources: a national dictionary, news reports, a columnist’s essay and government rules. Where a source was weak, or we could not confirm something, we say so (how we research). For more on daily life in Korea, see our everyday guides.
A Korean word that doesn’t name the bathroom
In everyday Korean, a tissue is hyuji.[1] The national dictionary gives the word two uses in a single entry: thin paper for wiping yourself after the toilet, and paper for blowing your nose.[1] A single word, then, serves both purposes.[1]
A roll goes by durumari hyuji, and durumari describes something wound up into a roll.[2] A Korean columnist has pointed out that the Korean name is about the shape, while the English one names the room the paper belongs in.[2] The columnist suggests that this is one reason the roll never looked out of place on Korean tables. That view is the columnist’s, not a documented finding.[2]
In 2001, the reason given was price
The main record we found is a KBS television news report from the city of Daegu, aired on October 31, 2001.[3] According to the report, a roll cost about half as much as square tissue sheets, which is how paper made for the bathroom reached many restaurant tables.[3]
A restaurant owner interviewed for the piece offered two reasons: napkins cost more, and rolls were what the place had put out for years.[3]
In the same report, a health official at one Daegu district office put the share of local restaurants using rolls at roughly 30 to 40 percent.[3] That figure was one official’s own estimate, given in 2001; it was not a survey, and it does not describe the whole country.[3]
A second newspaper, Munhwa Ilbo, quoted the same official as saying most owners set out rolls instead of napkins because they cost less.[4] So price is more than a theory passed around online. It is what the people involved told reporters at the time, at least in Daegu in 2001.[3][4]
The rules that separate the two papers came later
When that 2001 report aired, toilet rolls were not classed as hygiene products in Korea.[3] Paper cups were a different case, since food safety law already applied to them.[4]
That has changed. Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has had a labeling rule for hygiene products since 2018.[6] The 2025 edition of that rule (Notice No. 2025-34), which we read on October 15, 2026, sorts tissue into toilet tissue and facial tissue and requires each pack to name its type.[6]
The ministry’s product standard spells out what each type is for. The only text of it we could open was an unofficial copy, and its edition is not confirmed.[5] According to that copy, toilet tissue is meant for hygiene in the bathroom, while facial tissue is for the face and for everyday use.[5] The same copy says fluorescent whitening agents may not be used when toilet tissue is made, and that paper napkins must show none in testing.[5]
Some packs of rolls also print a line asking buyers to keep them for the bathroom.[7]
Later changes were tied to visitors
The local governments that pushed restaurants to drop the roll linked the change to visitors.[8][9] In 2006, Jeju Province passed an ordinance on restaurant standards that, among other rules, barred restaurants from giving customers toilet rolls.[8] Its fines took effect in 2007.[8] A Jeju news report on the ordinance presented it as a way to deal with practices that foreign visitors disliked.[8]
Busan took up the question in 2015 with a survey of small restaurants.[9] With 11 of its 16 districts counted, rolls were still in use at 622 of 18,830 restaurants, or about 3 percent by our calculation.[9] That number covers small restaurants in part of one city in one year. It is not a national figure.[9]
The city handed out stickers for restaurants to show that they did not put rolls on their tables, and said it planned to steer owners through administrative guidance.[9] According to a city official, the switch had taken hold at most restaurants, though the official understood that many older eateries in traditional markets still used rolls.[9]
Another everyday question we answer from public records: is jaywalking illegal in Korea?
Other explanations, and what we couldn’t confirm
Three explanations come up often online: the roll is cheap, it handles any kind of mess, and it soaks up spills well. Here is how each one held up against the sources we found.
| Explanation | What the sources show |
|---|---|
| It’s cheap | On record. A restaurant owner and a district official said so in Daegu in 2001.[3][4] |
| It absorbs well | True of the tissues tested: in a 2022 Korea Consumer Agency test, all 13 toilet tissues tested absorbed water well.[10] We found no record that restaurants picked rolls for that reason. |
| It’s handy for anything | Plausible, but we found no record showing it. |
There is also a gap in time. Our restaurant figures come from 2001 and 2015, and we did not find a recent nationwide count, so how often the roll appears on tables today is something we can’t tell you.
In the columnist’s words, culture is a matter of difference rather than of right or wrong.[2]
Good to know
- Buying tissue in Korea: look for the printed type on the pack. Under the ministry’s labeling rule, each pack names whether it is toilet tissue or facial tissue.[6]
- Buying rolls: check the pack for a printed line asking you to keep the rolls for the bathroom. Some packs carry one.[7]
Summary
On record: Price. Speaking to reporters in Daegu in 2001, a restaurant owner and a district health official both pointed to lower cost, and the owner added that rolls were what the restaurant had put out for years.[3][4]
Background: One Korean word, hyuji, names paper for both the toilet and the nose, and a columnist sees that as part of why the roll fit in; that is the columnist’s opinion.[1][2] Rules that separate table paper from bathroom paper came later.[3][6] The ministry’s labeling rule dates from 2018.[6]
Our reading: What the records explain is the cost and the habit; why the roll held on at some tables for years, no source we found says.