Just wanted to come in here and check on you. I hope you're doing alright and having an amazing time in Korea because you deserve it ๐ฅฐ
I'm sorry it took me a while to answer we weren't home this weekend.
Thank you so much for asking and I hope I don't say more than what you're interested in, but I'll take this opportunity to give an update since I'd been planning on doing so.
Generally, in I guess a nuclear family sense we're good, I'm happy and healthy. Bean (our cat) has had a few sniffles these past weeks, I've been hesitant to take her to the vet because before it started I took her for her eyes and she was extremely stressed, so since her sniffles come and go I'm hoping its just allergies, like me.
My parent's situation is, confusing tiring and it angers me. Because it hurts seeing my mom like that. She's lost so much weight it has us all a bit scared. But I know my mom, she's strong and I know she wouldn't do anything to put herself in danger and hurt us. She's trying her best to stay healthy but heartbreak and the situation my dad has her in is naturally taking a toll. I say situation because he has us all in a standstill "I'm not asking for a divorce but let me just live as a bachelor for a min until I decide but fuck marriage counseling" type of vibe. As far as I'm concerned, even if by some miracle comes back, he is nothing to me but my sister's dad and for her sake, I'll be cordial.
In Korea. Well, let me preface this by saying as we all know this is a generalization, and we all know there is not one country out there that is perfect. The pandemic has gotten out of control in the past few weeks. Since all this started this is the first time the government implemented a level 4 warning on the situation. I've been complaining from the beginning because... if they had done this since we started we could have avoided this but the government has been too busy keeping the image they got at the beginning of the pandemic. Sadly they're also have been scapegoating foreigners a lot.
We all understand it's a very homogeneous country, there's resistance to change, naturally especially given the history. However, they are very stubborn and don't like being told that they're doing something wrong. It has always been a thing (pre-covid) where certain establishments don't let foreigners in, just because. And with no anti-discrimination laws here, there's nothing much we can do. If we complain we get called racists and go back to our countries. At the beginning of the year, they tried to get all ex-pats to get the test because of an outbreak in a dormitory that housed foreign farmers instead of realizing the housing conditions and health regulations for the workers were subpar. After international backlash, they retracted the order.
Sadly this month a few foreigners got sick and reignited the belief we are the danger. So people were being pretty rude saying we're the problem, we're reckless and it's our fault knowing very well that just as foreigners would go out young Koreans were also right next to them in these places doing the same. Also not to mention just a week before this whole mess there was a HUGE worker protest in downtown Seoul, with over 8.000 people even though the government asked them not to. We don't have many vaccines either so it's all a huge mess. It's kinda funny because young women are probably the demographic that has been vaccinated the least (not counting teens or children of course ) but they somehow still mention the lack of births. Like please, if you want babies please care a little more for those who can birth them.
Again, please understand that complaining about something in Korea doesn't mean I hate it. I love it, and I can't see myself living anywhere else, especially because I have hope it will get better especially for the sake of my future children (I've heard about a lot of half Korean people going back to their birth country because of how they've been treated). I can also sit here complain about Colombia as well. All countries have something wrong, the thing is how they react to that criticism. At the risk of being controversial, seeing how a lot of people (obviously not all) react and act in these cases it feels like this is Korea's generation that is akin to boomers.
Once again, this isn't me trying to bash Korea, but just as Americans do, if we don't talk about what's wrong and what hurts people in a country there will be no change. But I mention this again because TikTok, Korean TikTok (both the ex-pat side and the native side) is very scary. You can't say anything someone doesn't agree with because it's a war. For me, it seems very toxic, so I hope it doesn't leak into Tumblr.
I'm happy to talk about the positive side as always. But for now, I needed to let it out.
