So Grossed Out

This is the perfect example to demonstrate how nonchalant Koreans are about sanitation and modern science.

This morning, I walked into the teacher's office, put my stuff down at my desk, and looked on with horror at the bloody paper towel left on my desk. Who knows what corpse left it there... It was covered in blood. I made a few disgusted sounds and started looking around for the culprit. My second thought was, "How do I dispose of this? I don't want to touch it." Just then, the German teacher (a really nice man) comes walking up, says, "Hmmm," picks it up with his bare hands, and tosses it in the garbage. He doesn't even bother to go wash his hands afterwards.

I was now thoroughly grossed out. Oh, but it gets worse.

So I started looking for some sort of cleaning agent or disinfectant spray but discovered that no such thing exists in our office. I am now even more grossed out because I have to return to my desk with who knows what on it, left behind from who knows who. The German teacher asked me, "What's wrong?" and I told him, "I need cleaner for my desk. The blood. I must clean it." He gives it some thought and suggests I use a tissue. Ha! A tissue!! Now that will surely clean up any blood born pathogens left from fore-mentioned donor!! I insisted that wouldn't work. I needed a cleaner. "You know, blood disease?" I asked. He gave me a thoughtful look and picks up a spray bottle from the shelf next to the fridge. "Water?" he says. *Sigh* This is getting no where.

Finally I settled for the next best thing to a disinfectant spray--hand soap. The other teachers just looked at me like I was nuts, a hypocondriatic germ-o-phobe. Why? Because they just don't care. My friends, the Hanes, just went through a similar experience at the hospital where the nurse didn't wash her hands or put on gloves until they insisted she did--she was going to draw their blood. They just watched her draw blood from one patient after another without washing her hands in between. That's sick folks. And when they finally protested enough that she went to put on gloves, she put on food handler's gloves, not latex.

And that's Korea. They can keep the streets clean but not their hospitals.