Go Away Swine Flu:

Last week we got word that our company, which has thirty locations across Korea, was going to limit traveling out of Korea during our summer vacation this year. Actually, let me rephrase that, they want us to cancel our trips out of Korea this summer. Their response being, "it's better to be safe, than sorry".

Unfortunately a few weeks back, when the Swine Flu was at its prime, a teacher from the US brought the disease to Korea. She had recently been to Mexico, and had been in a training session with around thirty other Westerners. This brought upon fear that she gave the flu to the other thirty teachers and they were all locked away together for a seven day quarantine. It was interesting to read their blogs and hear their personal account of the quarantine. Many of them had no clue what was going on, but knew they couldn't leave and had to wear a mask at all times. Some compared the seven days to being locked in cell as they described the hard bed and white walls.

This pandemic turned into one of the largest English schools in Korea closing down for 2 weeks and resulting in them losing millions of dollars.

I think my company is fearing that if we all go on vacation this summer, our company will, in turn, have to close down too. But here is my question-- if I can't go on vacation, can the kids still go on vacation? Unfortunately, Korea has a really bad way of announcing things. What I gather from what I read is that Koreans believe that ONLY white people can actually get the swine flu. Or that we are more prone then they are.

Either way, I am still planning to travel to Cambodia during summer vacation. Maybe I'm not taking the swine flu seriously, but I can't imagine cancelling my trip over something that isn't as prevalent as it was two months ago.