A Post-Swine Flu Fall

About a month ago on a normal Tuesday afternoon I was prepping for a gameshow with my friend and co-worker Candy. We had just taken the tarp off of the game boards and were checking the mics when we noticed the park guides, Korean women who work in City Hall, stopping visitors in the streets, telling them something, and then gesturing towards the exit gate. We didn't think much of it until the visitors started moving faster,hurriedly pulling small children by the hand, one man even picked up his two children and started sprinting towards the exit like a featured extra in an M. Night Shalaman movie. Clearly something was wrong. Candy ran over to one of the guides and came back with the official report: Swine Flu had come to English Village.

We learned that 14 teachers from the drama training program we ran in July had become sick after leaving EV, and 6 were confirmed to have swine flu. The park immediately closed to visitors and all employees were put in voluntary but highly recommended "self isolation" for 10 days with twice daily temperature checks from the board of health. Of course no one cared that having a temperature is not necessarily indicative of having the swine, in fact the one EV teacher that did get infected never ran a temp at all, and several teachers that had all the other symptoms were not tested because they were a perfect 98.6. In their infinite wisdom our administration did not require all employees to get tested, just one of the many great decisions made over those 10 days.

Now, nearly a month later EV has reopened, and is waiting for the public to trickle back in. And I mean trickle. It's very surreal to live in an empty theme park. Our first day open I was assigned "Welcome" Duty, basically to hand out balloons and greet guests as they entered the park and got their temperature taken (something now being done to every EV guest..makes sense I know). The morning's total for balloons handed out was 12. Shows started to get cancelled, classes closed, and finally EV offered up to 15 days of unpaid leave to anyone who wanted it, just to give its employees something to do.

I will say that as our new season opens the crowds are beginning to come back in. No thanks to the South Korean government who advised its people to stay away from "camps, parks, and other public places" for the rest of the year. Funny that EV is a government run institution. I'm quite used to doing a show where there are more people on stage than in the audience...and we only have 4 actors per show..but that usually happens in late December or January when the weather is really and truly awful. The lack of misspelled t-shirts, visors, and Mickey Mouse backpacks is palpable and I haven't heard of a butthole poking attack in weeks. On a more serious note due to budget constraints we are only having 1 mainstage show this winter...1 show..with 4 casts. I just hope this isn't the start of a down hill slide into unemployment.