Ben Wagner and I went down to the quarantine in Seocho today to bring some diversions and necessities to the English teachers in Quarantine for H1N1 Flu. RateMyHagwon is planning daily pickups at 7:30pm, Exit 5, Nambu Bus Terminal. We also met Okibum, a friend of one of the quarantin-ees, too. You should go there and bring some stuff to help out a bunch of expats who can't get out. Seriously, you should. Wash your hands after, but go.
Benjamin Wagner, the lawyer who published the defense of E-2 English teacher's rights, was interested to hear the conditions of the quarantine, and also whether it seemed like foreigners were being singled out for quarantine. He asked some pointed questions, but it didn't seem to me that foreigners were being treated differently than the Koreans...and the teachers involved felt that they were fairly treated. Some of them have been moved to hospitals, a few have been allowed to go home, and one or two were even asked to do home quarantine, if I heard right.
Meanwhile, the quarantine situation got better every day: people figured out how to do it properly, and today all the teachers were in good spirits when they came down to the roof of the building to talk to us from a small distance. They seemed like nice folks, looking forward to getting on with their Korea experience.
But don't believe me: let them speak for themselves!
Once again, it's heartening to see the Expat community start to connect with each other, care about what's happening to each other, and look out for each other. I'm glad to see that coming from a lot of different directions.
one expat's life in Korea
4 comments:
Thanks so much Rob & everyone that came by. Really brightened peoples spirits for the evening!
-Drew-
http://underquarantine.tumblr.com
Good job, Rob. Is there anything they still need?
I made some suggestions at Hub of Sparkle: entertainment options would be the best. Something creative, like a stack of a4 paper and patterns for how to fold paper airplanes -- would help them pass the time in a fun way.
Nice work! I've been reading the blog, and trying to let the expat community down here in Jeju know what's going on. :)
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