Thursday, May 28, 2009

esl teachers in quarantine in south korea

While the worldwide media focuses on North Koreas nukes, missle tests, and latest threats, and an ex-president's suicide in South Korea, there's a story going on in S.Korea about 50+/- english language teachers (Americans included) being held in quarantine for Influenza A, H1N1, the swine flu. They're blogging from their confinement center, but no ones seems to be aware of it here in the states. The US Embassy in Seoul knows though.

Some Korean news stories from this week allude to it by saying they are being 'observed' or 'isolated'--but no mention about the actual quarantine:
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2905314
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/05/117_45651.html

Teacher blogs from quarantine:
http://therubycanary.wordpress.com/
http://underquarantine.tumblr.com/
http://web.me.com/superacidjax/Sparkling_Chaos/Welcome/Welcome.html
Another teacher blogging from South Korea:
http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2009/05/more-on-those-english-teachers.html

The new hires are being confined in a govt training facility in Seocho-dong, Seocho-gu, a Human Resources Development Center just south of Gangnam and just east the Seoul Art Center (pictured on Google Earth). This is the link to the quarantine location:
http://hrd.seoul.go.kr/eng/H01SHRDCBriefAction.do?method=direct
With address, phone number, email addy, map, and directions

Big media has been contacted numerous times, but I guess they have their hands full with the nuke stories. Not even so much as the 'who, what, when, where, or why' has been brought to the public's attention. At least not here in the states.
Google for more blogs.

Olé



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