Last Shout Out to the Korean Medical System

Here I am at my hospital, Hanyang University Hospital. I'm going through a series of regular tests. Being an insulin dependent diabetic and having Graves' Disease (a thyroid disorder) means I've got more tests than usual to take on a yearly basis. I got here a few minutes late for my 9:40am OB/GYN appointment. But, in spite of running five minutes behind, it's been smooth sailing.

My OB/GYN was female, as I requested, and her English was pretty decent. She talked me through the exam and caught that I'd not had a mammogram in over five years. It was time for another one. The nurse sped me off to pay for the exam and then took me to the exam room. The exam tech was really friendly and was honest that it was going to hurt. It did. Ouch.

I have my final appointment with my endocrinologist tomorrow, so I had to go to give them what they needed for a bunch of lab tests. Then it was off to my scheduled eye exam. For those that don't know, diabetes wreaks havoc on your blood vessels, internal organs and also messes with your heart. That's why it's really important for diabetics to keep their blood sugars in as normal a range as possible. As a result, diabetics ought to do yearly eye exams. Not just the ones where you look at a chart but the unpleasant one that requires your pupils to be dilated. That way the doctor can literally get a good look inside to see if there is any diabetic retinopathy (eye damage from diabetes).

Right now, that's the phase I'm in. My pupils are dilating, and I've got to refocus every minute or so because I'm sitting here typing on my laptop.

So, for those that don't know, it's worth saying again. At least on the university hospital level, medical care here is modern, affordable and efficient. Like any system, there are frustrations and glitches. It's not perfect. I went to one clinic that really did cut corners to the point that all I did was walk in, say what I needed and walked out with a prescription. That's dangerous. Also, a lot of doctors here have a God-complex, so their listening skills aren't the greatest. They're not really used to a pro-active patient.. They're much more used to telling a patient what's wrong with them and not being questioned. In contrast, I'm the sort of person who gets out and does the research so I know a fair bit about the latest research regarding the two conditions I have. Those are the most irritating points, but there are doctors with God-complexes back home. At least here I can afford to see a doctor.

As a whole, the system is much easier to navigate and much more accessible in terms of cost. The worst thing would be communication issues. If you don't speak Korean, it can be a problem. If you speak Korean, it can be frustrating because almost everyone assumes you've got no clue. Today I had a doctor express pure shock that I could read her name in Hangul even though she could see from my chart that I'd been here for a few years. (I'm sorry but how dumb must a person be to not know how to read Korean after being here that long?) However, I've learned to just smile, realize they're doing their best and try not to take things at more than face value. It's worked well for me. I've blogged about having a scratched cornea and having excellent service. I've blogged about other positive experiences here as well. Being someone with experience in both the US and Korean health care systems, I've got to say Korea slays the US in terms of accessibility. When I was at Ewha, I didn't have the public health insurance card and I could afford to pay out of pocket for my medical exams, tests and medicines. I could never afford that out of pocket in the States for two years. I truly think the US system is a travesty. How can such a developed nation have so many people who don't have access to basic health care?

With that said, I'm not looking forward to wandering back into the morass that is the US medical system, especially in this crap economy. However, it comes with going home and having two chronic conditions to manage. The fact is, I can't avoid it even if I wanted to.

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Crap That I'll Miss: Responsive and Pro-active Utility Companies (and the ease of paying your bills)

Okay, I've not been blogging at all. There is a good reason. I'M MOVING!

However, I have been collecting these things in my head. However, I've got to write this one right now. Why?

Yesterday I needed to make a phone call back home to track down my landlord in San Francisco. I picked up my home phone, called the number and waited for an answer, NOTHING.

Okay, it's not a rush really, so I went on to something else. I tried another number later in the day, nothing. Now this is weird.

So I use my cell phone to call my home phone and it's not ringing and my fax machine isn't ringing either.

Hmmmmmmmmm...did I forget to pay my bill? Nope. But now it's after business hours.

I call Korea Telecom (KT) at 9:07am this morning. I told them that my phone was dead. She took my cell phone number, checked it from her end and called me back at 9:11am. They're also my ISP, so she asked me if my Internet service was up and running. I told her that was fine. She then said she'd send someone out between 10am and 11:30am today.

Usually, I can live with that but today I'm scheduled to be on the radio at 11:30am. I tell her this and she says she'll see what she can do. I get a phone call from a KT repairman at 9:24am. He says he's en route.

He shows up a few minutes later, checks everything, finds a cord that's been snapped, replaces it and my phone is ready to go at around 9:47am. I know this because that's around the time I start playing around on Facebook again and that's the time I started writing this.

So just to summarize: It was less than one hour from my first phone call to KT to a working home phone.

Layer this on top of a week ago when KT was calling me to install a new fiber cable modem. I think they're laying the ground work to upgrade speed across the country to 1 GBPS by 2012. I'll be returning to a country that's just figured out that it's a good idea to install broadband lines throughout the nation.

On top of that, I just pay my bills on the Internet with bank transfers to an account designated just for me (so that when I pay KT knows I've made a payment and credits my account immediately).

Oh.the.pain.

When I go home there is no way I'll see that high level of service. That makes me sad.

Bye bye efficient utility service:

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Crap That I'll Miss: Fun, Smart and Hilarious Kids

Nothing is perfect and working with children can be a challenge at times. This is particularly so in Korea due to cultural differences and very demanding parents. However, pretty much since I've arrived, I've had tons of fun working at winter or summer English camps. Maybe it's because, in some ways, I'm a kid at heart. I love clowning around with them but also getting serious and seeing them absorb information from me like sponges. Now I'll be 100% honest and also say that I love sending them home at the end of the day because it's truly exhausting too. I discovered that I liked teaching kids when I taught as a substitute teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area.

However, some camp experiences have been better or worse than others. That depends on a number of factors. The most important is the experience level of the management team because a micro-manager can make a camp hell to work at. Unfortunately, there are a lot of micro-managers in Korea. One camp I worked at has a manager so into control that he made teachers sign out for copy paper and locked their classrooms after the kids left to force all the teachers in the library to write their lesson plans and prep for the next day. That was weirdness on a level I'd never seen before and, luckily, haven't seen since. However, I can count the truly unpleasant camps on one hand, so that's not too bad if you calculate 8 years. There was maybe one or two times I elected not to do a camp, so that's around 14 or so of these. Even if the camp is a nightmare on the management side, usually, the pay is decent for a two to three week assignment if you're already in the country. I don't think I'd ever do one if I had to cover my own airfare to get here though. But people are coming here sometimes to get a feel for Korea before deciding to work here for a year or use being in the country for a camp as a way to start looking for an annual position.

The perk for me is changing the type of student I teach from college age young adults to young whip smart kids. There are behavior issues, for sure. But there are behavior issues with college students too. The kids know, just as we do, that these things are temporary and some take advantage of that. However, most of the time the kids are great. I'll miss the few weeks each summer and winter that I spend doing it. This time around it's much more of a challenge because now I'm simultaneously trying to keep up with my writing and interviews. That's truly exhausting.

I also have to say I hope it helps these kids develop a more open perspective to race and people who are different. Prior to being taught by me a lot of these kids have never had much contact, if any, with a black person. Most of these kids are children whose parents are white collar workers, so they have the means and then some. Mostly all have had interaction with foreign teachers and quite a few have lived abroad. It's just the reality is that most teachers here are white and some of them are less than subtle about their views on race.

That's still really weird for me to imagine. As a kid, I remember my first teachers being white and that was no issue. I don't recall gasps or blunt observations of differences. One reason is, probably, as minorities in a white dominated society, whites simply aren't a novelty to a black child in the inner city. I remember being in a class with both black and Hispanic children when I went to schools near my home. When I started going to more integrated schools, it took me no time to develop lasting friendships with my white classmates too. So it still boggles my mind at how Korean culture is so very "us versus them." Here, anyone who isn't northeast Asian (Korean, Chinese, or Japanese) is a novelty. I get it intellectually, but I do wonder sometimes how it feels to be inside a mind like that where everything is either just like you or in stark contrast to you.

It also points to maybe one reason why it just seems so difficult for Koreans to process an interest in and knowledge of their culture by people who aren't ethnically Korean. In conversations with my Korean friends, I point out that the Chinese actually brag about their diversity. They are also neither crestfallen or defensive when you don't like something about China. Also, both the Chinese and Japanese are experts in exporting certain dimensions of their culture. It's an interesting contrast for sure.

I've wandered off the path a bit into cultural-based musing. However, to sum it up, I'll miss the fun, smart and hilarious kids I've had the pleasure to teach while I've been here.

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Crap That I'll Miss: Hearty, Tasty and Inexpensive Food

I'm crazy busy, but the little and not so little things I'll miss and won't miss keep hitting me. When they do, I whip out the digital camera and snap a pic.

I'm working at my last English camp for awhile. Honestly, I've done them consistently for two reasons. If you get the right one, in terms of pay, it's worth the time you put in and I actually have fun changing the type of student that I teach from adults to kids. Kids are hilarious and have tons of fun energy.

But the schedules are almost always intense. That means when I get home, I just want to relax, goof-off on the Internet, and get ready for the next day. I don't want to cook, and, even though I have someone who helps me keep my apartment in order, I don't want to have dishes piling up.

Korean food is awesome. Now Koreans still have a mental block when it comes to the concept of non-Koreans liking, knowing and craving their food. That's one reason why you don't see as many Korean restaurants abroad as you do Chinese, Japanese or other Asian cuisines. That sucks. However, they are easy to find in areas where there is a Korean population nearby. When I'm home or just about anywhere in the world I can find Korean food when I crave it. One time that meant, wooden chopsticks and a bag of kimchi while walking around in Brussels and another time that meant noticing an Asian woman reading a book written in 한글, hangul, on the Metro in Paris and asking her where I needed to go for a good bowl of 김치찌개, kimchee jjiggae.

I'll miss being able to have a hearty, tasty and inexpensive meal for less than $5.00 (okay, with the current exchange rate, more like around $5.00 USD). Tonight I had a bowl of 국밥, literally "soup rice". The cost was 4,500 won. I'm glad my camera caught the steam rising up off of the soup. It's really cold right now and a warm bowl of soup and rice was just awesome. I'll miss that a lot.

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Crap That I'll Miss: Accessories - EVERYWHERE

Not much to say except how much I'm going to miss accessory stands. In all the major shopping and fashion areas you'll find carts or stands where they're selling all sorts of fun accessories. This can range from a spot full of hair accessories or something like cute costume jewelry.

There is a spot in the Express Bus Terminal here in Seoul that has EVERYTHING. They have hair accessories, jewelry, purses, socks, sunglasses and, depending on which vendors have moved in or moved out, sometimes clothing.

It's just too much fun. Granted, this is about those rad accessory stands, but I'll miss being able to basically buy an outfit on the street without having to enter a store.

Yes, I have her eyes blacked out because I didn't ask for her permission to paste her face on my blog. Therefore, until I ask her (and the possibility of me going all the way back to Omokygyo station is close to nill.)

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Crap That I'll Miss: Ordering Pizza in Korean

Last week at my job grades were due on Thursday.* During crunch times like that when it's really about getting it done, I'll treat myself and order pizza delivery. I've got a Samsung credit card which entitles you to a 20% discount off the price when you use it. I call up and, because they have my number in the system, they'll usually start reading off my address before I have a chance to tell them what it is. Sometimes the system is down; there are tons of orders, which means there is going to be a longer than 30 minute wait and they have to tell you this; or you get a particularly jittery person on the other end who hears my accent and freaks out. But usually there is no problem.

From there, I place my order using the menu on their Korean language site. There is no English version, just study Korean and it really doesn't take much Korean to order food as I've been doing it since my first semester teaching here.

BTW, I order Dominos because 1) it's better than Pizza Hut and 2) Papa John's didn't deliver in my area last time I checked. I will switch alliances once Papa John's is close enough, but, for now, I'll just call the one close to me and pick it up en route home. Basically, for delivery Dominos is my only edible choice and beggars can't be choosers. It's pretty good. It's easy. That's it.

I'll miss the little feeling of accomplishment I have after getting through the process of ordering, informing them I'm using my card and asking them what the price is after the 20% discount, and then dealing with the delivery guy and payment. They also have little bright red mobile digital card processors for credit card orders.

I do look forward to ordering pizza delivery in English when I get home though. But the benefit of home is I can just go to a pizza shop and order pizza by the slice. In fact, that's the first meal I had when I was in NYC this February: a slice of white pizza and a slice of pepperoni. Pizza by the slice is very uncommon here :(
_________

* Which is another reason I was livid on Wednesday evening when Mad Nutter decided to not take his medication and instead chose to pester me.

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Crap That I'll Miss: Cutesy Crap

Last night I had a craving for gummy candy of some sort. The closest thing I could find in the local store were these:

Mickey Mouse and Friends, Gummi Candy.

This, for a change, is marketed to kids.

ZenKimchi had a post that is MIA for some reason, but I got screen shots (sorry Joe but there is always Google's cache to draw from).

Granted, I never thought of Smurfs when I've seen it. I thought of huge dollops of whipped cream on some decadent dessert that I can't eat without a huge dose of insulin.

But Brian in Jeollanam-do expresses the requisite amount of comic rage: I'll see your Smurf hat and raise you a gay ass Snowman hat.

*cough* ... *laugh*

Good Lord, full grown and good-looking men looking like buffoons to sell ice cream, oh, the virtues of capitalism and consumerism.

However, I will miss the cutesy stuff you see in Asia. I've got to say it's fun being the smug Westerner laughing at this stuff.

It's also fun being the geeky Westerner who gives in from time to time and indulges in it. Sometimes being silly is fun ;)

Last winter in Jong-no after an adjuma (a middle to older aged woman) cooed about what a cute tiger I was.

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