Swine Flu

When I came to Korea I saw people wearing masks, not because of swine flu, but because they were a) afraid of catching a cold, or b) sick and trying not to spread germs. This I thought was strange, but since I didn’t see it too often I was okay with it.

Then, the swine flu pandemic broke out and I watched the pandemonium that ensued firsthand. Paranoia grew to epic proportions. Kids were forced to wear masks, forced to use hand sanitizer constantly, forced to listen to lectures of how random activities could lead to catching it, forced to check their temperatures (with the same ear thermometer that everyone else used) at the first sign of anything abnormal, and forced to be subjected to the idiocy without fail. They were even forced to get the vaccine. When I say forced, I mean tons of societal, teacher, parent, and peer pressure were applied on top of the continual media manipulation which made them have to do/use whatever was offered.

It was as overblown as the Y2K bug, but massively larger in scale. City buses had announcements that broadcast Swine flu precautions at specified stops (which still continue to this day, a constant reminder of a phobia blown out of control). I didn’t go a day without hearing swine flu uttered from the mouth of a teacher in the school or a teacher warned (shamed) into wearing a mask. Giant hand sanitizer bottles were stationed in front of the school; others were placed in hallways, in classrooms, and even handed out to students.

Native teachers were singled out as a source of swine flu and were treated even worse than usual. Their jobs were threatened, vacations threatened, and they were quarantined on top of it all. I never heard of one Korean teacher getting quarantined. One of my Korean co-teachers got the swine flu after some students did, and all I could think was, thank goodness it wasn’t me, because I would have been singled out even more than necessary in the Korean narrow-mindedness that is my workplace.

I didn’t give a rat’s ass about getting the swine flu, I just didn’t want to be treated even more shittier than usual. Strangely enough, I would have been quite happy just to be able to use a sick day or two without feeling the wrath of Kahn bearing down on me.