I first heard about the Corona virus from another traveler who taught English in Shanghai. At the time she referred to it as SARS, so when the term corona virus started popping up I was confused, was it like the beer? I didn’t pay much attention to it until I heard it brought up again by other English teachers in China, and decided to look at what was going on in the news.
In the Philippines, on the island of Palawan, there wasn’t much concern for it. However, at the end of my trip at the airport for my flight to Manila, I saw a lot of people wearing masks and even more when I arrived to Manila. That Thursday I was meeting my uncle, who happened to be in Manila for business, at his hotel. When I arrived they were taking people’s temperature before they were allowed in. I asked my uncle if it was because of the corona virus and he said, “Yes, they just started doing it a couple of days ago.” As time passed, more and more reports of the virus surfaced: someone in Manila was reported with it, the U.S. had its first case and someone was quarantined in Seoul. Everyday there were more and more reports.
When I arrived to Seoul they were screening people’s body temperatures as we walked out of the terminal. I arrived to my little corner of Korea on Saturday, the first of February, with school to begin on Monday. When I arrived at the school there was a notice on the door in Korean about the corona virus. I don’t know what it said and upon entering there was hand sanitizer. After I arrived to the English room, my co-teacher handed me a mask telling me that we have to wear it while teaching. I didn’t really understand the point since I’d already walked through the school without one and we can’t wear one during lunch, we’d all be in the same room mask-less anyway. On Tuesday it was reported that a Korean in the city an hour away had the virus. On Wednesday and Thursday I went to school as normal, but late in the day on Thursday my co-teacher messaged me saying that all foreigners who traveled abroad must have 14 days of self-isolation quarantine from when they arrived in the country. This comes after having already taught for nearly a week. It seemed a bit redundant. It’d be like making coffee and then putting the mug underneath after the coffee has already spilled on to the floor, or like my grandpa used to say, “There’s no use in closing the barn doors once the animals have already escaped.”
If you’re going to take measures to prevent something, it has to be proactive, not retroactive. I’m not complaining, it means that next week I have no classes and then on the 15th I go back to the Philippines. It also means that when I come back (unless things change) I have to have another 14 day self quarantine which would mean missing the first two weeks of school. My co-teacher then told me: she can’t carpool anymore, she can’t eat in the cafeteria, she can’t teach and she has to stay in her room. It doesn’t make sense nor do I think it’s fair that foreigners have to be on quarantine in case they have the virus, but Korean teachers still have to go to school and sit in a room. She then told me that I have to cancel my trip. I said no, the school can’t make me do that, luckily I had just read a Facebook post from the Office of Education referencing that. The following day my Vice principal messaged me telling me I shouldn’t go on my trip. I politely told her that everything is paid for, I can’t change it, I would take the necessary precautions and that I’m not visiting a country with travel restrictions.
I asked my co-teacher why the VP was messaging me, it’s supposed to be her job to facilitate communication, and she said she contacted the office of education and they responded with, “If you really want to travel abroad, leave right away and then come back 14 days before back to school day. When you come back at the end of Feb, students will miss English classes for 14 days.” That last sentence is everything. My school wasn’t worried about the corona virus; they didn’t want me to miss class when I came back. While it’s unfortunate, it’s not my doing and my school already denied my other vacation plan because they didn’t want me missing classes, which I now am because of the quarantine. If they had allowed me to go to South Africa, I wouldn’t have had to split my vacation in two parts and we wouldn’t be having this issue. A lot of other foreign teachers are in the same position as me; the schools are attempting to make us feel guilty for going on vacation. This is the only time of the year our schools allow us to use our vacation days and they’re trying to prevent us from using them.
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