A Journal of The Plague: Two-Week Quarantine in South Korea
by Michael Kennedy
Introduction
Monday, April 27, 2020 – Arrival in Seoul from Los Angeles: 5 a.m.
The Mission
Leave Seoul on Friday, April 24 - and return immediately as a 90-day tourist, without enduring a government mandated two-week quarantine anywhere during the experience.
I have lived in Seoul for 10 years. For nearly half this period, I worked as a high school teacher at the Yongsan U.S. Army base. This provided me a special Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) visa.
Since my retirement in 2016, I have had the status of a 90-day tourist in South Korea. I’m here, and nowhere else because of my Korean girlfriend. She is also my age and retired. I cannot imagine experiencing the Third Act of my life without her.
Of course a residency card via marriage is the easy answer to my problem. Sookyung and I plan to make our arrangement legal. However, I seem to be married to someone else. These things happen.
Los Angeles offered the best option for entering a country along the Pacific Rim without any quarantine policy. This also helps explain why the U.S. has the highest death rate for the Chinese virus in the world … now at 56,000.
Guam offered a sensible option to returning to the United States – until the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier docked with a shipload of infected sailors in mid-April. All Korean airlines cancelled flights to Guam immediately.
On to Hell-A.
South Korea does have a two-week quarantine that applies to all arriving travelers – including nationals … with an exception for home duration if there is proof of a local residency.
All travelers entering South Korea – foreign or national, must submit to daily monitoring of both location and health conditions. This helps explain why South Korea has one of the lowest death rates for the Chinese virus in the world … now at 243.
Before I bought a round-trip ticket to Los Angeles on Korean Air, I asked the same question several times:
- “If I have a residential address in Seoul, can I fulfil the quarantine policy at that location?”
- And each time, the answer was: “Yes.”
The real answer is that I am …
“On lockdown, like penitentiary.”
- Doin’ Time/Summertime (Uptown Dub) (1997)
Sublime
Mission Impossible
For the next two weeks, I’m in quarantine in a dormitory room at Semyung University, with a view of a lake from my generic third-floor balcony. This is 125 miles southeast of Seoul, in the low-rolling Daemi Mountains of Jecheon.
Although I arrived here by 10:30 a.m. today after landing from Los Angeles at 5 a.m., the official two-week period begins tomorrow. I will get out of jail on Tuesday, May 12.
Sookyung did everything possible to intercede with Korean Immigration and gave assurances that we are a legitimate couple, and that I should be able to fulfill the mandatory quarantine from “home.”
“Where is your residency card?” the Korean Immigration official asked me at Incheon Airport.
“I don’t have one,” I said. “I live in Seoul with my girlfriend – for the past six years. On a tourist visa.”
“No residency card?”
“That’s correct”
“Then that’s 30-days in the hole.”
“Chicago Green, talkin' 'bout Red Lebanese
A dirty room and a silver coke spoon
Give me my release, come on
Black Nepalese, it's got you weak in your knees
Seeds and dust that you got bust on
You know it's hard to believe.”
- Steve Marriott
Humble Pie - Smokin” (1972)
Day #1 – Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Since the plague came to town, I have not seriously used a camera since my visa-run to Fukuoka on February 7. I went into self-quarantine as a matter of common sense. Korea – which is to say South Korea, did not go into lockdown like most countries. However, for the first six-weeks of Fear and Loathing in Seoul, most people kept a low-profile.
My usual pockets for street photography in downtown Seoul have dried up.
For my visa-run to Los Angeles, I took my Ricoh GR II because it’s light and durable.
Out of sheer boredom, I’ve used the camera to document my present cell – since Room #306 feels like jail.
I just want my life back.
When I arrived at LAX – with 54,000 Americans already dead from the Chinese virus, there was no medical screening.
No questions asked by U.S. Immigration officials, not even:
- Do you have the Chinese virus?
- Do you favor a Lysol cocktail?
- Do you object to nude photos of First Lady Melania Trump?”
Most of the staff wore facemasks – but only about half the passengers. LAX looked like a ghost town. Most all shops were closed.
The same was true of Incheon Airport when I left Seoul on Friday. The difference is that before you could check-in at Korean Air, there was a temperature check, and some serious interview questions about health.
The difference tells the whole story.
The attempt to leave Korea, step into another country and return here for a 90-day visa has become ungodly expensive - but all you need is love.
Day #2 – Wednesday, April 29, 2020
I am a negative person.
I’ve been told this numerous times throughout my life. The comments always resulted from my attitude, which happened on the home front during high school, the college that expelled me, and two or three employers who abruptly showed me the door.
Today, when I emerged from quarantine in Room #306 long enough at noon to pick up the generic airplane food that is delivered to the door, there was a large envelope with my name in English. It contained a one-sheet record of my COVID 19 test from yesterday.
I am a negative person, and this time it’s good news for a change.
Yesterday two health workers, a young male and female entered the general area wearing some quasi-science fiction looking space garments to administer a COVID 19 test to me. They were pleasant and spoke some English – with a proficiency that easily exceeded my Korean.
The test consisted of jamming a thick tongue depressor into my mouth and taking a swab of the interior, followed by a long thin Q-tip inserted into one passage of my nose that felt like it reached my brain stem.
My English was very impolite when this happened.
Day #3 – Thursday, April 30, 2020
It is another fun day in Room #306 in the middle of fucking nowhere.
If Dostoevsky could manage four years of exile with hard labor at a katorga prison camp in Siberia, I can manage two weeks of chillax behavior here.
Yet I can’t begin to linger at the well of self-pity in light of Nelson Mandela and his 27-years of solitary confinement.
Day #5 – Saturday, May 2, 2020
While I must endure my sentence in Room #306 in order to reach home like an exaggerated version of Odysseus on his journey back to Penelope, I sometimes imagine myself as Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist, and scholar of comparative religion.
Here I am in my austere surroundings with time suspended and only an electronic device or two for contact with the outside world. The airplane food is placed outside the front door, and the same old soothing female voice alerts all prisoners that it’s time to eat.
I can feel the imaginary ankle chains, like Paul Newman scuttling along in Cool Hand Luke.
Thomas Merton comes to mind now because the Benedictine Order (Ordo Sancti Benedicti) – while not exacting a vow of silence, there are such lengthy periods of contemplative silence throughout the day that the tradition is virtual policy.
Day #6 – Sunday, May 3, 2020
These are wretched times, and I’m waiting for Americans to rise up and overthrow the corrupt charlatan in the White House.
My country – regarded as the richest in the world now has 65,776 people dead from the Chinese virus. They are not so much dead from the Chinese virus as they are from the abject unfitness of a deranged narcissist like Trump. Yes, drink bleach; that will help.
I cannot understand why Americans have not taken a rope, tied his old white legs to the rear axle of a pick-up truck and dragged him through the streets of New York City. My God, 65,776 people dead in eight weeks. That’s more than the American deaths in the 20-year Vietnam War. Eight weeks v 20 years.
Day #8 – Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Today marks Day #8 of my captivity in Room #306. Seven down, and seven more to go.
The death toll in the U.S, - as of this morning, is 69,355 people. While Donald Trump and ladyboy Jared Kushner are trying to sell the American people a broken down car and calling it a new Executive model.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Wall Street racketeers benefit from his Crony Capitalism. As long soup kitchen lines form in New York City, experts predict the death rate in America will be 3,000-per day within three weeks.
Day #9 – Wednesday, May 6, 2020
I’ve been very busy this morning, and cleared my schedule to wash a polo shirt in the bathroom sink. It’s all down hill now.
Foolish me, I did not pack for a two-week quarantine, and I have not lived in a dorm room in 50-years.
This one is austere … barebones, almost Spartan. I’ve seen worse.
Yesterday I ruminated about some of the places I’ve lived during my exciting high-octane life.
For one-night stays, the absolute worst was a semi-derelict hotel in Poza Rico, located in the state of Veracruz in Mexico – near the site of El Tijin, a spectacular Mayan pyramid. I passed through the town in 2000. The hotel was straight out of Peckinpah’s Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). It’s the only place in the world I’ve stayed where the TV was chained to the wall.
Day #10 – Thursday, May 7, 2020
The idea of 74,807 dead Americans in two months – and a President who offers no empathy, no plans, no leadership – only ambivalence … it is beyond shocking. We can read about the atrocities committed by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and so many others – but that’s “others,” not us … never us … not America.
I’m struck today by Rick Wilson’s article in the The Daily Beast. Wilson is an interesting fellow. A long time Republican strategist, he has broken with his past and is dedicated to defeating Trump. Wilson is also behind The Lincoln Project, which just aired Mourning in America.
The man really behind The Lincoln Project is George Conway … the husband of Kellyanne Conway. There are a lot of just absolutely strange marriages, and Blowjob Bill and Hillary Clinton easily come to mind – but the Conways now set the bar.
Day #12 – Saturday, May 9, 2020
There were some documents (in English) with this morning’s gourmet airplane food about my release from Room #306.
I will bust out Tuesday morning – on a bus to Seoul that will take me to Seoul Station, the biggest in the city. I know the place well. This is where the Gray Panthers have gathered the past three years to protest against their corrupt President, alternately chanting: “Down with Moon Jae-in,” and “Moon Jae-in is a Communist.” The usual slings and arrows directed at the clown driving the bus of the ruling elite … everywhere in the world.
The drop-off at Seoul Station puts me six subway stops from home – about 12-minutes, altogether.
I can kvetch about the austerity of my circumstances, but this ain’t no Hezbollah Hotel in Beirut during the 1980s. This marks Day #12, and I’ve been left entirely alone.
Two health workers administered a COVID-19 test to me on the first day, which was negative.
A week later another health worker stopped by and violated my ear with a medical instrument for a body temperature check.
So far, that’s it.
I don’t see where this measures whether I might be infected 12 days after entering Korea from another country – specifically the U.S. where 78,615 Americans have died.
Day #13 – Sunday, May 10, 2020
Little Richard is dead. Long live the King.
Little Richard’s death at 87 is a vivid reminder of all that I miss about America, a land that is enriched by its diversity. What makes Rock & Roll one of the finest expressions of art is the multi-cultural tapestry of traditions and heritages and genres that bind Americans together, and has given a lasting gift to the world.
Richard Penniman (1932-2020), an androgynous black man who came of age in Macon, Georgia – during the Jim Crow era, was an inspiration to generations of people.
Was Little Richard gay? Yes, yet who cares?
Was Little Richard bi-sexual? Yes, yet who cares?
Did Little Richard show the courage to be true to himself, and express himself through music that was uplifting and inspiring? He did this all – for a truly American genre, and proved how much richer we are for our diversity.
How did Thomas Merton endure his time at the Benedictine Abbey, and his virtual vow of silence? He was obviously not Irish.
How did Nelson Mandela make it for 27-years in solitary confinement without losing all hope … and his mind? This was a man of intractable toughness.
The death of Little Richard evokes nostalgia for an America that no longer exists.
When James Joyce (1882-1941) left Ireland for good in 1912 to live as an expatriate in Trieste, Paris and later Zurich, he carried with him a map of Dublin that he posted on the wall near his writing desk. The Dublin of his imagination existed for Joyce the rest of his life.
I carry with me a map of St. Louis for the same reasons. What I miss about that city on the Mississippi River belongs to the past – yet as William Faulkner (1897-1962) said: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Long live Little Richard. Long live American Rock&Roll.
Right now I could use a cheeseburger and fries with a strawberry shake from Shake Shack.
Day #14 – Monday, May 11, 2020
My 30-days in the hole end at midnight. It’s only 14-days, yet it feels twice as long.
Here is what I’ve missed during incarceration:
- Sookyung;
- my faithful canine, Rorie the Wonder Dog;
- freedom;
- uncensored internet;
- my book collection;
- genuine Korean food, not this airplane food rubbish;
- the city of Seoul, especially walks around Namdaemun Market with a camera.
Since I began this effort to acquire another 90-day tourist visa, I have written 50-pages of letters to friends.
I am homeward bound.