Oink Oink

It feels like SARS all over again. Yet again I am in China during a worldwide outbreak of a potentially deadly illness. During SARS the entire country was shut down for a long time. We were not permitted to leave the campus I was living at. If we did leave (I was classified as a teacher and could usually get out and back in), it was iffy if a store or bar or whatever would be open. I was not allowed on a train to go home from Beijing because my skin was hot (duh! I had a horrible sunburn).

This time, however, it's N1H1. Or as it's referred to by my students "The Pig Ill". As senior teacher at my job I am required to keep the other foreign teachers up to date as well as receiving hundreds of pointless emails from my manager or the head office of the corporation. Last week I received another email filled with tons of information that does not necessarily pertain to me. This one was about N1H1 preparedness.

According to this email the school I'm working for is cracking down on health. Rooms, toys, doorknobs, and chairs must be sprayed down with sanitizer after each class. Parents are not allowed in the school. And antibacterial soap must be placed next to the sink in the bathroom.

It was nice not to have a ton of parents in the hallways during our classes. (The parents talk loudly in the hall, answer their phones, and peek in the classroom to make sure the teacher is asking every question to their kid.) As this school is a business, this rule lasted about one hour. Instead of being refused to enter, the school found an old thermometer (which isn't accurate BTW) to scan everyone's hands before they enter.

As I expected, there is no sanitation going on.

The best part of this is the antibacterial soap. Laughable! It's a bottle of soap, or used to be. It is 95% water with a tiny bit of soap.

I asked why so many new rules were made. My manager said that two schools in this city had been closed due to N1H1. You'd think if schools had been closed (especially in a country that didn't even admit to having N1H1 until recently) that these precautions would be carried out.

I guess I know who will pay my hospital bills if I get N1H1.