The Magical Medical Mystery Tour

    So now is probably a good time to discuss privacy and personal space at home, vs. in Korea. As you can imagine, in a country of 50 million people that live in this ittttty bitty living space, personal space is not a 2-foot ring or bubble around each person like it might be considered at home. In elevators, on subway trains, and in the grocery store, people are often wall-to-wall and face-to-face with complete strangers, and it's not unusual to be hip to hip, bumping along together on the train wishing for the next stop to be yours. The Koreans deal with it on the subway by closing their eyes and going to sleep. Row after row of people (sitting and standing) nodding off while stops tick off on the overhead speaker. In the elevator everyone silently faces the front of the car as the voice announces each floor, and the addition of one or two more people to the already-crowded car. I bring this up because today I went for my pre-employment medical. I didn't feel like my personal space was invaded, so much as my personal privacy. The government here had to concern itself with drug use in the foreign population (rightly so) and now we all have to undergo medical screening once we've been hired on at a job in Korea, within 30 days of beginning work, or they try to hunt us down and give us the boot. Today was much lucky day!

    Graduation day was happening at the school today (nothing to do with me), so I went with the other new teacher who's starting at the same time as me at Best Kids, Jerry. We chatted most of the way there whilst being crammed into the subway car with (what felt like) about a hundred Koreans on their way to work. We had suggested to our boss that we take the bus into Seoul (often quicker than the subway after all of the transfers etc.), but he insisted that the subway was better, so there we were, 2 more sardines packed into a can. Took about an hour to get there, only one transfer and about 3 blocks to the hospital, which was very well marked along the street (in English and in Korean), and we made our way to it easily.

    Many big public places in Korea are set up like the Canadian passport offices... 'take a number, take a seat' and when your number pops up it's your turn. We took our numbers on arrival, 18 people ahead of us and it was only 9:30 in the morning! And this was just at reception... all around us people are coughing and harboring goodness knows only what behind their colourful facemasks... we just edged around the outside of the pack, discussing the poor placement of sick people and our innocent and still-healthy selves. When I noticed an information desk I decided to make sure we were in the right line (sometimes you get to the front and find out otherwise!). Not only WERE we in the right line, she told me that we could ignore the line and just budd! So we lined up at the attendant who spoke the most english, and the 18-person lineup was gone - poof! 15 minutes and about $65 each later and we were headed upstairs to the 2nd floor (she called ahead and asked them to watch for lost foreigners), itineraries in hand, to start the magical medical mystery tour.

    On arrival to the 2nd floor we were looking for a "Health Preservation Office" or some such thing. We had the name in Korean on the sheets in front of us, and took our time searching the walls to match signs to our instructions. A grandma (volunteer at the hospital I think?) hesitantly approached trying to read the instructions over my shoulder from a distance (difficult when I'm a head taller!), and then pointed us in the right direction... to the ENGLISH sign directly in front of us, very embarassing!
    We got ourselves to Stop No. 1 on the medical-mystery tour and sat down toward the back of the room. It was a small office equipped with a few desks and a seating area, a scale, a blood pressure machine that you stick your arm in (like at the drug store back home), and a set of big earphones, along with 3 or 4 Korean nurses and a tiny little security guard. Now for some reason, the heat on the 2nd floor was set to about 30 degrees, heaters were blowing around every corner. I wasn't there 2 minutes before I was sweating, the jacket was off and I was wishing I'd worn a tshirt instead of dress shirt and vest! After starting and stopping a few times on his way over to us, the young security guard approached and said 'give to me your papers please,' meaning the 'itinerary' they'd given us at reception. From there, the show was on... they should have sold popcorn!

    The seating area had room for about 12 people, though there were only 4 or 5 of us there at the time. The first job was to go over and stand on the scale. After much 'stand in shoes off... no, um, stand up and shoes... no, um....' I watched as Jerry took off his shoes to stand on the scale. As he stood there with his back to the bar running up the back and some coaching about how to stand ('straight up, up, straight up!'), a little bar propelled itself down the spine of the scale until it lightly bonked him on the head - I'm assuming it measured his height. The nurse called his numbers across to another nurse at the computer (3 desks away so everyone in the room could be apprised of his measurements!), and then he was on to the hearing test (all of course while we watched avidly from the sidelines). Nothing like the 3 minute run at home, where you have to click a button each time you hear a sound, this one was 3 beeps, to which you raised your hand depending on which side the beep came on... left hand up, right hand, left hand, and 'ok finishee.' "Finished? That was the hearing test?" Jerry asked, 'yah yah, finishee,' and on to the blood pressure machine. This one was nothing special, exactly like to ones in the drugstores at home where you sit and stick your arm in. "No looking, no talk" directions to sit still and not speak, and the numbers once again called across the room to the nurse at the computer. Next came the eye chart, standard fare as at home, other than the small shadows of animals that lined the right side of the eye chart... a butterly, a bird, an airplane (yes, really). Cover left eye, cover right eye, all ok. Finally, the nurse brought Jerry to the centre of the room, so that he was about 2 feet away from the seating area (better viewpoint for the spectators maybe?) and mimed that he should raise both arms out at his side to shoulder level, at which point she took his chest measurement, and called those numbers out to the computer nurse, the women on the waiting benches giggling behind their hands. I joined in the process just after he finished his hearing test, and all eyes were on us for the remainder of the stop. The nurses were very friendly, and I'm sure it's normal practice (for example, in the waiting rooms your name is on an LCD board followed by the procedure you're waiting for). Head nurse stapled english instructions to our pages, and directed us to follow the green line (kinda like the subway map but on the hospital floor!) to x-ray.

    'X-ray? What? Since when, did you know we were getting an x-ray?'... x-ray indeed. After walking along the tape to get down the hall to stop no. 2 on the medical mystery tour, 3 very bashful boys (i.e. x-ray technicians) were waiting for us. I changed (shir-cha, tshir-cha, all top, top underwear too) into a little flowered hospital shirt and went in for my chest x-ray. It was a standing machine, the technician just squished me up against it with my little gown on and then took the shot. No nudity, which surprised (and gladdened!) me. Least intrusive most private spot on the tour, I even had a private room (with a locking door!) to change in.

    From there it was 'follow the red line and go le-puh-tuh (left) for sample correction,' which from the sound of alone we were both a little slower as we walked heel to toe along the red taped line. Upon arrival to stop no. 3 we were hit with a new blast of heat as the temperature had raised about another 10 degrees, and we had to pull a number, where there were just over 10 people waiting ahead of us. Sample coLLection, as one would expect, was blood and urine... only all the good times in Korea! When my number was called I walked up to the nurses's desk and sat down. On the tray next to me the nurse had piled (thrown) the empty (and bloody) syringe parts from each patient in line ahead of me, I was all kinds of grossed out, and couldn't help staring at the pile. I was thinking 'ew! that is so unsanitary! you can't just leave bloody things laying around like that! how gross!' before I managed to give my head a shake and remember that I was not at home anymore. 'still... gross...ew!' echoed in my mind as I tried to avert my eyes and listen to the nurse's instructions. With 3 vials of blood drawn (HIV and TB on the sheet, I don't know what else they were looking for) she slapped a sticker on a dixie cup and pointed me in the direction of the bathroom, through the waiting crowd and about 20 feet up the hall.

    "You put cup there, on tray." I looked at the cup, I looked at the little metal cart she had pointed at. 'That tray??' I asked, pointing to the little kitchen cart with a stationary basket on top parked next to one of the rows of benches in the seating area, and she nodded, moving on to the next patient. I giggled uncomfortably, looked at the cup and the tray once more, looking around at the 12-15 faces turned my direction in the waiting room (probably thinking crazy foreigners, what will they do next?), shrugged at Jerry who was still waiting his turn, and walked down to the bathroom with my little paper dixie cup in hand.

    Of course to add to the hilarity of the situation in the moment, this is also where I found the first squatter toilet since coming back, water pooled along one side of it with dirty footprints all around. I noticed a little metal tray that looked like a soap dish directly in front to rest your cup so you could stand up without making a mess. More giggles escaped as I shut the stall door, alone in the bathroom, shaking my head and imagining this working back at home. Sample collected I washed my hands and made my way carefully down the hallway with the cup out in front of me, not at all discreet or dignified, imagining bumping into some little old grandma or running child with my paper cup as I stifled more giggles. The waiting room full of eyes watched as I added my cup to the 'inbox' but I didn't look up. Instead I (carefully, watching for oncoming dixie cup traffic) just backed away with my eyes on the tape lines on the floor and went in search of hand sanitizer. I passed Jerry in the hallway on the way to the bathroom as well. We uncomfortably avoided eye contact, cleared throats, and I told him I'd wait for him down the hall where the air conditioning was on.

    5 minutes after that and we were on our way out of the hospital again, with directions to return in a week to collect the results. We cleared the hospital lickety split, both happy to be free of the heat and the scrutiny for a few minutes longer before making our way down the subway stairs again and back to school. Phewph... Glad that's done!