In ancient times, houses were laid out (安排) in a certain way. The door of the home would face south, with the bathroom located (位于) in the northeastern part of the house and the kitchen located in the southeastern part.

中國(guó)古代的房子大都坐北朝南，廁所多位于東北角，而廚房則多位于東南。

On maps, north is usually at the top of the map, while south is at the bottom (底部). In Chinese, we say “上北下南” to refer to the north as shang (upper) and the south as xia (lower). So people would say they were going “up” to the bathroom and “down” to the kitchen because of how their homes were laid out.

上北下南，左西右東……這下知道為啥說(shuō)“上廁所”、“下廚房”了吧！

What’s more, people thought cooking was humble (卑微的) work. Going to the kitchen would lower their position (地位). 

還有一點(diǎn)，古代人們覺(jué)得“做飯”是一個(gè)“卑微”的事情，去廚房會(huì)降低身價(jià)，所以會(huì)用“下”這個(gè)字。但現(xiàn)在大家說(shuō)到這個(gè)詞已經(jīng)不會(huì)有這個(gè)聯(lián)想啦！