Rare Pepe

You might know Pepe the Frog from racist alt-right memes on the internet. Memes of Pepe killing jews or dressed as a klan member ruined the memory of what was originally just a regular web-comic character and the anti-defamation league labeled it a hate symbol. So I was surprised to see this on the subway.

Was this Pepe-toting Korean woman somehow a white nationalist? It didn't make sense. At first I thought it was a fluke and then I stumbled upon another rare Pepe, this one singing Karaoke. Is 4chan taking over Seoul's karaoke bars?

Confused, I did some research and discovered that in Asia, most people don't know that Pepe is a hate symbol. Instead, he's associated with the Hong Kong protests against Chinese authoritarianism. Why? The best explanation I can find is that someone used Pepe in some protest memes not knowing it's considered a hate symbol, and it got some modest popularity. People in the west started reporting on the use of a hate symbol in Hong Kong and protesters saw the media attention as beneficial, so they doubled down.

So Pepe has gotten a kind of redemption. He gets to live on in the east as a symbol of freedom rather than hate. Although after talking to a few Koreans who didn't seem to know anything about Pepe as a symbol, either for nationalists or for protestors, I think the main reason he's popular here in Seoul is that he's a cute frog.

Thank You: A Phonological Breakdown

There's a word I say several times a day here which I've been working on pronouncing better. It's the Korean formal word for thank you, the IPA transcription for which is /ka̠msʰa̠ɦa̠mnida̠/. It's difficult because there are many phonemes in it which don't exist in English, but which sound similar to phonemes that do.

The first phoneme in the word, /k/, actually sounded to me like the American English /k/ as in 'kite': a voiceless velar plosive consonant. However, I was wrong.

Korean actually has 3 different pronunciations of /k/, each with a different degree of aspiration and force of closure: lax, tense, and aspirated. These are represented as /k/, /k͈/, and /kʰ/ in IPA or ㄱ, ㄲ, andㅋ in hangul.

Because English features a relatively high degree of aspiration, Americans sound like they're always using the most aspirated /kʰ/ no matter which one they're supposed to be using, and at first we actually can't tell the difference between the three at all. So I try to say the lax /k/ or ㄱ, which is a soft, voiceless stop followed by light aspiration. What comes out instead is much closer to the aspirated /kʰ/ or ㅋ.

I've been practicing and it's getting better, but I still can't do it consistently. Also, confusingly, voiced versions of these consonants seem to show up sometimes as allophones depending on placement, so /k/ can become /g/. Normally this only happens intervocalically, but I think sometimes it happens in initial position as well. The revised romanization even transliterates this word as beginning with 'g'. Perhaps it just seems this way because the voice onset time is much longer when the plosive is phrase-initial than when it is word-initial, making it easier to identify as voiceless when phrase-initial than when word-initial.

Next, the vowel /a̠/ which seems pretty close to an American English open back unrounded vowel /aː/ as in 'bra', but it's actually retracted. That was a pretty easy adjustment to make, perhaps because vowels are easy to adjust, or perhaps because the difference was too subtle for my speaking partners to bother correcting, especially given how poor my articulation was on the consonants.

Then comes /m/ which appears to be the first phoneme in the word that exists in English. It's a voiced bilabial nasal just like in the English word 'mom'.

The hardest phoneme in the word for me is the sibilant phoneme for the hangul character ㅅ. It's represented as /s/ but this is misleading because it is articulated very differently from the American English /s/ as in 'sea'. I produce this consonant as a voiceless alveolar fricative, which native speakers seem to identify as being closer to /s͈/, the tensed version written as ㅆ in Hangul.

To make matters worse, the IPA transcription I'm working with doesn't use either /s/ or /s͈/. Instead they're using /sʰ/, seemingly trying to shoehorn this sound into the same categorizations used for the Korean plosive triads by calling it aspirated.

Sibilants are fricatives, not plosives, and I'm not sure how it's possible to aspirate fricatives in the first place. But even if I knew how to do that, Korean speakers have been queuing me to aspirate less rather than more when pronouncing this phoneme.

From imitating them, it seems like it's supposed to be palatalized somehow. Perhaps normally the phoneme is the same but in this case it's substituted for an allophone of some kind, I'm not sure. Apparently, there's some controversy about this phoneme in the field, and I haven't been able to find an explanation.

So that's about as far as I've gotten. It's a little more than one syllable into a five-syllable word. I'm pretty stumped by this sibilant issue. My working theory right now is that because it's word-medial and occurs between two voiced phonemes, some Koreans are voicing it instead of aspirating, making /ka̠msʰa̠ɦa̠mnida̠/ into /ka̠mza̠ɦa̠mnida̠/. We have that same sonorization in English, pronouncing 'whimsical' with a /z/ instead of an /s/.

I wish I knew a Korean linguist.

Sauna Eggs

I accidentally bought sauna eggs instead of baked eggs at the convenience store again. The packaging is nearly identical so it's an easy mistake to make if you can't read Korean. Every time this happens I try to force myself to eat it, but I've always failed up until today.

Sauna eggs are eggs that are pressure-cooked for a long time until the whites turn brown and take on a nutty, roasted, vaguely medicinal taste. They apparently serve these in Korean saunas for some reason and sometimes are seen in k-dramas. The first time I tried them I had to spit it back out.

Today I finally crossed over into actually wanting to finish two. Strange how things taste better the more familiar they are.

Kim Jong-Un

People keep asking what people here in Seoul think about whether Kim Jong-Un is dead. The people I meet haven't really been talking about it. I brought it up yesterday, and a Korean friend said he's just desensitized to that kind of news story because Un's father, Kim Jung-Il, had so many health rumors for so long.

When Kim Jong-Il finely did die, nobody knew for more than two days, so it's not like the rumor mill eventually proved reliable either.

No one I've talked to here seems to think Kim Jong-Un's dead, although they said if he did die, that would be bad for South Korea. Apparently, he's seen as very peaceful, for a North Korean dictator at least, being young and having studied abroad in Switzerland. If he dies with no heir apparent, there will be a power struggle and one of the older generals might come to power. Those guys might be crazy enough to try to invade South Korea, so there is reason to worry. It just doesn't seem very likely at the moment.

Social distancing at the Gym

People seemed curious about what the gym is like in Korea so I thought I'd provide some insight. The first thing you do when you walk in is to get your temperature scanned. Then you write down your name, number, address, and temperature on the log.

If anyone who turns out to have COVID-19 went to the gym, contact tracers will use this information to notify everyone who's been to the gym since then that they need to self-isolate.

Once you're in, you need to stay 1.5 to 2 meters away from other guests, which this sign announces. You also need to wear a mask the whole time, and if you take it off someone will come and scold you. This feels a little like high altitude training because the mask makes it harder to breathe so you get less oxygen.

Every other treadmill has a sign on it saying it's been decommissioned to help maintain social distancing. This is true for all the cardio equipment in the gym. There are also bottles of hand sanitizer all over the gym.

I'd say overall the gym is doing a pretty great job. The one challenge is dealing with competition for equipment like the squat rack. It's harder to maintain distance, as you can see here, particularly at popular times like 7pm.

The gym does have limited hours, closing at 8pm on weekdays and not opening at all on weekends. I'll be curious to see what things look like in the US when gyms start to open back up.

Cat Cafe

Seoul is famous for its cat cafes, and I wanted to peek inside to see how they looked. I'm normally highly allergic to cats and as soon as I get a whiff of them my nasal passages close up like a clam, but the owner beckoned me inside and I thought I'd get a few photos. I sanitized my hands, slipped on the specially provided slippers, and sat down at a table, hoping that the cats would respect the 2 meter social distancing guidelines.

As soon as I was seated, a few cats sidled on up to me. Uh oh. I braced myself for the sinus attack as one of them proceeded to crawl up my chest towards my face.

But it didn't come.

At first I thought maybe it'd just take a minute to kick in, but then I remembered my face mask. It must be blocking the dander.

What a lucky break, I guess I can come to cat cafes now. If you've never been to one because you're allergic, once local ordinances permit it I definitely recommend taking advantage of the fact that it's now socially acceptable to rock an N95 in public and check out a cat cafe.

Good Enough Burger

I stumbled across this burger restaurant. They're tag-line is "Why pay more? It's good enough." At first, I thought this was a terrible marketing tactic. Why not settle for a barely passing burger? And then I discovered this appears to be a very successful chain with franchise locations all over Seoul.

So finally I bit. Is this burger really good enough? It's only $1.50.



Was it good enough? So this was a close call, but I'm gonna go with no. Not good enough. Not even for $1.50. So much mayo.

---

Update: I've eaten here several times now and it's definitely good enough. I was thinking about it all wrong. They're not trying to make a serious burger, they're trying to compete with McDonalds and Burger King on price. Their burgers are about as good as McDonalds or Burger King burgers, but cheaper. If you are in a hurry and want a trashy but delicious fast food chain burger, why pay more? It's good enough.

Hongdae Nightlife

In an attempt to make some friends here in Korea, I've been trying to establish myself as a regular at a language exchange bar called Playground. Every night, they host a language exchange meetup and provide stickers with flags from different countries so people can show which languages they speak. It's about half Koreans and half foreigners, mostly from Europe and the US.

You can see students from the nearby university doing choreographed dances (perhaps k-pop trainees or students at one of the performing arts schools) in the park across the street from the bar. Here are a few in their tracksuits in the chilly spring weekday night performing for a very thin crowd.

On weekdays like this one, there are usually less than a dozen people who come through Playground throughout the night, but on Saturday the number shot up to 20+ people.

Playground Bar closed around 2am and people went bar-hopping afterward. Young people in Hongdae seem pretty nonchalant about the virus, here's a shot of the revelers spilling out onto the streets for cigarettes or a place to puke. Most of them are not wearing masks, and while there are many foreigners (who do seem to wear masks less in general), it's mostly Koreans.

Hanging out in Hongdae I get the sense that the threat has passed and people have already returned to normal, and yet many people elsewhere in the city who I talk to on HelloTalk (a popular local language exchange app) are still trying to avoid social contact altogether.

Today, the government officially began relaxing some of its more extreme measures. 

"Administrative orders on churches, bars, gyms and cram schools that strongly recommended their temporary closure will be lifted on the condition that they comply with strict quarantine rules."

If there's no second wave, on May 5th we'll downgrade to what's called "routine distancing". I'm sketchy on the details of what that looks like, but it sounds like continued temperature scans, hand sanitizer, and face masks but it'd be okay to go to work or school again. The requirements to get there are under 50 cases a day and at least 95% of them traceable.

Right now, we've been well within those guidelines, but the government wants to wait until after April 30 (Buddha's birthday and a long weekend in Korea) to do that. We just have to stay under 50 cases a day and over 95% traceability until then. If we fail though, it seems pretty plausible the cause could be Hongdae. An official from the Mapo-gu district where Hongdae is located told The New Yorker their biggest fear is a super-spreader, saying "The biggest problems are gaming cafés, churches, and Hongdae clubs".

My first day out of quarantine I was positive I didn't have it because I'd just been in isolation for 15 days, so I felt pretty comfortable going out of the house. You can't spread it until you've got it after all. Now that I've been free for a few days though, I'm getting more nervous.

Then I got this alert.

This one's in Mapo-gu, that's my district. A guy pretty close to my age. Came in through the same airport I did. He went to the Ministop convenience store? Is that my convenience store? I think mine is a Ministop. Is this the same address? Nope, 29 World Cupbuk-ro, this isn't my street, this one is closer to the subway stop.

Woah, this guy only went to one place in three days. Just the Ministop, other than that he self-isolated. Wow, I'm glad he didn't come to Playground Bar for the meetup. What if my location history ends up on an emergency alert? Will my gym have to close? Will the meetup shut down? What will people think of the fact that I went to three places today?

I get why they do this. People say the gender and age of the patient aren't relevant, and I suppose medically it's not, but it sure makes the alerts more visceral.

Should I stop going to the meetup? The government just eased the restriction, cases are at an all-time low, and the bartender told me to come in tomorrow to volunteer since they don't have anyone on Tuesdays who know the ropes. Man, I hope I'm not a super-spreader.

Freedom Hangover

I think I had a little too much freedom yesterday. There was no alcohol in quarantine, and I'm not a big drinker anyway, I'm really struggling with this hangover. Today I've been inside most of the day. The Airbnb has one of those cheap little projectors you can get for a few hundred bucks nowadays so I hooked it up and have just been watching Tiger King and rehydrating.

I wanted to get some protein so I went to the convenience store on the corner for snacks. There were a ton of seafood snacks that would definitely not sell in the US. I picked up these little crab pieces because they had some English on the label so I could figure out what it was. I couldn't hack it though, got two bites in and threw the rest away. Oh well, back to bed then.

First Day of Freedom

Apologies for the delay in posting, I got carried away enjoying my freedom. I checked out and walked outside and delighted in the ability to walk more than ten steps without having to turn around.

Shops are open, and some people have even taken their masks off. I was able to buy a more fashionable black mask at a convenience store on the corner, no lines, no rationing, I even had a choice between several brands.

I met up with James Chae for dinner, he took me out to a Korean barbecue joint where an old married couple was celebrating the national holiday by getting completely hammered. Afterwards, he brought me by the university where he teaches design, and then to a bar in the neighborhood.

Drinking in Korea is apparently always accompanied by snacks and today we had peanuts and anchovies. You tear the tiny little head off and then pop the rest of it. It's incredibly salty so it pairs naturally with beer.

Quarantine Day 15: The Last Day

Today is my last day in quarantine. Curious what the Korea I will meet tomorrow has been up to, I decided to translate one of my government alerts.

I haven't been bothering lately because it's a hassle to screenshot them, upload the image to my laptop, run it through OCR, and then paste it into a translator, which is the only way I can figure out what they say. I've tried retyping the hangul characters by hand, but Korean is agglutinative so you have to figure out which strokes to type in which order, and without any knowledge of the grammar you can get stuck on a single block for a while.

This one said:

"Central Election Management Committee 4.15. When you go to vote on the election day of the National Assembly, be sure to bring a mask and identification card and practice distance from other electors."

According to The Korea Herald, my first day of freedom is coincidentally also the day of the world's first pandemic election.

James mentioned he would be off work for a national holiday when we arranged to meet for dinner, but it hadn't occurred to me to ask why. I wonder if he's going to vote. I'll be staying far away from the polls, heading to Hongdae to check into my new Airbnb and finally getting to do some laundry.

Quarantine Day 14: Extra Day Penalty

I thought I'd be able to check out tomorrow but my first day in quarantine wasn't counted. Apparently the clock starts the day after you arrive. So Wednesday will be my first day back on the outside.

I'm planning to meet up with James in Hongdae, which is looking like the best neighborhood for me to settle down in. It's much easier to get around there with just English because of the universities nearby, it's relatively cheap, and there's a language exchange meetup that meets daily at a bar. If it's still happening of course, although it looks like it is.

I was a regular at a language exchange meetup in NYC and it was kind of a turnkey social circle. Perhaps it'll be the same here. As long as it doesn't turn into a cluster....apparently one popped up in Itaewon which is another reason why Hongdae is at the top of my list.

Now I just need to book an Airbnb. There are not a lot of good options, everything is tailored to students bunking in groups. I think I found a decent option but it seems a little sketchy, might be false advertising.

No matter where I end up, I'm sure it'll be better than this quarantine hotel room. There's on thing I'll miss though: the electric toilet seat warmer. I dunno why we don't have these in America.

Quarantine Day 13: Improvised Exercises

In order to stay in shape while trapped in a tiny hotel room, I've been improvising some exercises. Bodyweight exercises only go so far because I don't weigh that much, so in search of more resistance I've been exploring household objects.

The bed makes a decent leg press, although it weighs much less at the top of the range of motion than it does at the bottom. The greater the angle between the bed and the floor, the more weight is on the headboard and the less is on my legs. I tried putting stuff on the bed to make it heavier but they just slide off.

It works better for chest press because the range of motion is shorter (arms being shorter than legs) so the angle between the bed and the floor stays small, increasing average resistance throughout the motion. It's still easier at the top than the bottom though.

I'm okay doing bodyweight only for shoulders. I still can't do a handstand push-up with full range of motion so I can keep working on that. I needed something for my back though and none of the door jambs are deep enough for pull-ups, even if I had the finger strength to maintain a crimp grip for that long (which I don't).

The best I've come up with so far is single arm rows with my simplicity descending life line. It's not very heavy but if I do a lot of reps with it I eventually feel a burn.

The hotel initially provided a plastic wrapped package of water bottles with a handle that would've worked better since it was heavier. Unfortunately I drank most of the water bottles in it and the hotel refused to give me another. They don't want to give me more than 5 or 6 water bottles a day so I've been calling at different times of day hoping to get a different staff member that doesn't know I've hit the quota.

Between that and drinking less water, I've gotten pretty close, and the plastic wrapped package has some structural integrity again. By tomorrow it'll be fully restocked. I think it'll be about twice as heavy as the simplicity descending life line. Too bad I'll only have a couple more days to use it.

Quarantine Day 12: Neighborhoods

I'm beginning to look into places to stay for once I'm out of quarantine. It seems like there are plenty of options on Airbnb but it's difficult to know what to look for. The standard recommendations most travel sites make are the following, in order from cheapest to most expensive:

• Hongdae: cheap, young, university-dominated area where English is widely spoken
• Myeongdong: easy access to markets and transportation with a more local vibe
• Itaewon: the international scene with lots of foreigners and casual nightlife
• Gangnam: big corporate offices alongside the most lavish shopping and nightclubs

Normally, I choose where to stay based on commute time and nearby things to do, but given that I won't be going into an office and am supposed to be avoiding lots of outings, it seems like perhaps I need new criteria. But what should they be?

Quarantine Day 11: Vlogger Insights

I'm nearing the end of my quarantine and am starting to think about what life will be like on the outside. Thankfully, there are lots of vloggers in Seoul, and from their videos you can get a decent idea of what people are doing. Some vloggers are really excited to go out again, and other vloggers are mad at them for going out too much. This vlogger is less opinionated about it and is just filming to show people what it's like.

 

So based on that, it seems like while there are definitely way fewer people than normal, shops, malls, and even an indoor theme park are open. According to this data set I found from Johns Hopkins, there were only 27 new diagnoses and 132 recoveries yesterday, continuing a weeks long trend of decreasing numbers of active cases. Korea never had to lock down the way NYC is doing, and people have been starting to relax for a while now, so it seems possible things could be returning to normal without a second wave, although of course the threat is still real.

Based on this, how much should I indulge in this lack of lockdown luxury? Can I start going to the gym again? What about using the subway every day? It's hard to know where to draw the line. Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself, it'll be four more days of quarantine before I get to have these problems.

Quarantine Day 10: G-Dragon

Continuing my Korean cultural education, I've been listening to some K-Pop. G-Dragon is arguably the most popular Korean pop star at the moment. While not a household name in the US, G-Dragon has done collaborations with Missy Elliot and some other mainstream American rappers. This photo I think effectively conveys this artist's androgynous fashion style. Do you think G-Dragon is a guy or a girl?

This propensity for gender blurring is not uncommon in K-Pop, but it is rather confusing to me given how conservative the country that produced it is. Gay marriage is still not legal, porn sites are blocked by the government, and tattoos get blurred out on TV. And yet, trans rights are kind of ahead of the curve. Trans people still face prejudice of course, but unlike in the US, housing and employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity is illegal in Korea. Is this because of K-Pop? Is there some deeper cultural root? 

Quarantine Day 9: Korea Cares!

I forgot to check in on my self-diagnosis app to report no symptoms and got a call from a friendly Korean woman with the government who seemed genuinely concerned about my health. I told her everything was fine and I'd actually remembered to check in this morning even though I forgot yesterday. She offered to call me every day, but I told her I'd set a reminder alarm on my phone instead.

The staff noticed I stopped ordering food and sent a hotel manager to come check on me. They said they'd allow me to throw my garbage out again, and gave me a bag of supplies, including some proper disinfectant (not that scented stuff), four N95 masks, and a digital thermometer with an adorable blue penguin on it. Wow Korea, my favorite color and my favorite animal, how did you know? Temperature is a healthy 36.8ºC. Can't wait to try out these N95s when I'm finally free again in 6 more days. I've been stuck using an old disposable surgical mask since the outbreak started because the pharmacies in India were all sold out.

Quarantine Day 8: K-Drama

As part of my Korean culture education, I've started watching a Korean drama. Korean culture in general is experiencing a renaissance period, partly because the digital era has made it easier to export culture profitably, and partly because the government began subsidizing it once they realized the power that soft influence brings. It's even considered a weapon against the North.

That's part of why I picked this particular Korean drama, Crash Landing on You. It's about a South Korean woman from a powerful elite business family who goes to test her business's new activewear line by going paragliding, but gets caught up in a tornado and flung across the border where she crash lands and is rescued by a handsome North Korean army captain.

What makes the series interesting to me is that the actress who plays the leading role is actually a North Korean defector. While the premise itself is pretty far-fetched, all the depictions of life in North Korea are pretty accurate because they consulted her on everything. And the role of South Korean cultural influence on life in North Korea is a recurring theme.

I imagine the producers thought a lot about the impact the show will have when it makes its way across the border. What will they think seeing a fellow North Korean who escaped to star in a South Korean TV series? The North Koreans in the show (all played by South Koreans) accuse her of spreading propaganda when she accurately describes life in Seoul, much like many of her former countrymen are sure to accuse the actress of doing. In a way they're both right; she does tell the truth about the world below the 38th parallel, and that's what makes it such potent propaganda.

Quarantine Day 7: Garbage

The hotel will no longer take my garbage out. They're saying by government policy, it has to stay in my room until I'm released from quarantine (9 more days). They gave me some biohazard bags and some disinfectant along with a very complicated 2 page manual written entirely in Korean on how to properly pack my garbage. I've tried translating it but to no avail. Google's image translation breaks down on passages this long.

Upon closer inspection, the "disinfectant" appears to actually just be an odor eliminating scented spray. I can see why this would be necessary because after only one day my garbage smelled terrible. The meals they provide are largely seafood based, which makes it worse. Here's a picture of some kind of tentacle I've been eating. The scented spray is nice but it really just doesn't cut the mustard here.




The staff kept calling about it and saying it's a government policy and I can't keep leaving garbage out for pickup. I really don't want the garbage in the room and have been protesting. They typed up a rough, abbreviated translation of the manual and left it on my tarp. I was able to get them to take one last bag of garbage out but I think that's about all I'm gonna get.

Quarantine Day 6: Semifood Restaurant

I ordered takeout on a little app called Shuttle, and the hotel staff brought it to my tarp! I don't know if it was just miscommunication when they told me I could only eat the quarantine food or what, but I'm happy to have a little more control over my diet again. Here's something I got from Semifood Restaurant.



It's about 3x more expensive than quarantine food but it tastes a lot better. I think this is a vastly superior introduction to what Korean food really tastes like. Here's some beef kimbap. It's like sushi but with beef.

Quarantine Day 5: Climate Control

Climate control has proven to be a challenge. There's a very modern, powerful AC / heater in the room but the controller is entirely in Korean.

You can kind of guess from context clues how it's supposed to work but I'm always left wondering if it's in heating mode or cooling mode. 

I tried using Google Translate's handy camera feature to automatically translate the buttons. The results were pretty interesting. I'm very curious to know what the Barab Century button does.

Quarantine Day 4: Simplicity Descending Life Line

I found the simplicity descending life line beneath my desk. It was next to a hook bolted to the floor. The instructions are simple.

1. Hang the hook to the supporter ring.

2. Fasten the belt around your chest.

3. Throw the rope-rill out of the window.

4. Descending safely with facing to the wall.

The rest of it is written in Korean. From this much, I gather it's a sort of fire escape. Unfortunately, neither I nor my simplicity descending life line will fit through this tiny hotel window.

The window has a much larger upper panel that doesn't open. The glass is pretty thick but I think I might be able to smash through it with the chair if I got a running start. I could throw a few towels over the glass shards so they don't cut my simplicity descending life line.

I quietly pray for a fire.

Quarantine Day 3: Kimchi for Breakfast

The hotel provides all my meals in these little bento boxes. I don't have any control over what goes in them, so I pretty much always get kimchi.

Breakfast this morning was unusual in that I could name almost everything: kimchi, eggs, sushi, fruit, bacon, compressed protein nugget.

The only thing that stumped me was this wet yellow lump next to the kimchi. I make an effort to eat the local food but I wonder if quarantine food is really the best introduction to Korean cuisine.

I stare longingly out the window at the barbecue joint across the street as I gnaw on my wet yellow lump and try not to smell.

Quarantine Day 2: The Benefits of Big Brother

It's time for my daily self-check. This app, "Self Diagnosis", was released by the Korean government. Once a day, I have to self-report any symptoms I might be experiencing. If I have symptoms, they'll send someone to come test me, which is nice. The part that's creepy is that it checks my location in the background and reports it back to the government. That way they can tell whether I am still in my quarantine room. Also, if needed, they can use it for COVID Alerts.

I didn't know what a COVID Alert was when I first got one. It showed up on my phone like an Amber Alert or a Flood Watch alert does in the US. They happen often, and they're written entirely in Korean. Sometimes they're just updates on the situation in general, but sometimes they're reports about a specific new individual diagnosed. They list basic information about the person and every location they've been to since contracting the disease. Even love hotels.

They know when the person contracted the disease because, with everyone's location history and diagnostic status, they can tell exactly who the person contracted it from and where. Creepy, but effective.

I wonder if one day I too will become a COVID alert. Based on my daily self-check results, at least I won't be today.