Last week was included a visit to a hospital, not because I was ill or injured but because part of moving to a new country (or at least Korea) is a health-check. And Korea does not trust foreign doctors, or at least not doctors from SA, so I had to have the health check here. For the record, as a result of a largely serious-injury and -illness free time so far, I am not at all familiar with hospitals or medical tests on any continent.

There has also been a bit of a drama recently about this medical check. It seems some teachers object rather strongly to, particularly, the drug and HIV tests. The tests are seen as discriminatory against foreigners (and particularly foreign teachers because other visa types apparently don’t have the same regulations). There is also the concern that testing may result in some serious stigma and ostracism issues because HIV carries huge social stigma here and confidentiality is apparently not very confidential. I’m not really sure where I stand on the issue philosophically, but personally I have no objection to the tests.

So, off I went on Tuesday to the hospital. My boss drove me – thank heavens – and filled out the forms (which were all completely unintelligible to me – because they were in Korean, not because they were in medical-eze, although for all I know they were that too). I was then handed a stack of forms and a piece of paper telling me where to go and directed to the second floor as me boss went off back to work. On the second floor, I found a passage leading to the right and walked tentatively along. Eventually a passing nurse took pity on me. My Korean being non-existent, I was unable to tell her where I needed to be. It turns out this is the wisdom of the piece of paper. She read it and pointed to the entrance to the ‘migrant workers’ clinic’.

The people there didn’t speak English either but they welcomed me in and walked me through various standard tests with well-practised hand gestures obviously developed over many, many such encounters. Once the ears, eyes, height, weight, etc. tests were done, one of the nurses walked me into the passage and handed me over to a man who – wonder of wonders – spoke limited English (no condescention intended – I realise I’m in their country). He took me to the next place, explained that I needed a chest x-ray and pointed towards a curtain, having explained as we walked that I would need to pop in the following day to get my results. He then went off, leaving me sharing a somewhat bemused look with the lady at the desk. She gestured towards the curtain, where discovered instructions (in English). I was relieved.

After the X-ray, I was directed (amazing what can be communicated without words) up a little side-passage, where I found a lab technician, who also spoke little English but did have the words for blood test and urine test. This bit went off fine. Except for one thing. When I watched her take a needle out of a bundle of other needles to draw blood, I found myself wondering if the needle was clean. It’s strange and unexpected, particularly when I know these tests are intended to check for foreign things in the blood. Suddenly scattered, random bits of HIV-prevention knowledge surfaced and I forgot that I was in a sophisticated, mostly modern country and worried about whether they were using clean needles. I have no idea where the thought came from. Remnants of a deep-seated and hotly denied xenophobia? Or racism? A little odd.

The medical check felt like forever but really only took an hour and then I headed back to the ground floor. At this point, I would like to wander off on a tangent and ask: do we, in South Africa, start counting floors from zero or from 1? Is there some sort of standard that is country-specific or some international norm? In my head, when I think of F1 (floor 1), I expect to be on the level above ground level, the first floor. If I want to leave a building, I take the lift (elevator) down to ‘0’. But I nearly got completely lost the other day because I tried to find something on the first floor which was a level below where I was looking. Is the norm actually to start counting at 1 and I’ve been lost all these years?

Back on the same level as the pavement  (sidewalk) outside, I headed out of the hospital with a piece of paper saying that I could collect the results the following day after 11:30am and took a deep breathe of  fresh air. Or at least a deep breathe of air that is as fresh as is possible on the pavement between a row of skyscrapers and a 6-lane major road. The area where the hospital is, is near downtown – a by-now almost mystical place I keep meaning to explore but which I have only seen (once) in the middle of the night. I considered crossing the road to explore right there and then, until I noticed that there didn’t appear to be any of the usual pedestrian crossings and pedestrian robots (traffic lights).

My boss, before he left, had said that I could take a subway or bus back (and then home) but suggested I take a bus. The problem  is that the bus system, wonderfully regular and widespread once you figure it out, is not easy to fathom up until that point. This tends to result in me standing around trying to figure out if one of the bus numbers is familiar. On this occasion, I decided I’d have enough new experiences for one day and looked around for the subway entrance.

This is when I discovered that the subway is not just a subway. There were three or four entrances nearby. Most subway stops, have two entrances. This one had many. I picked one and headed down… into a whole new world. Below the road and the hospital and the middle downtown area is an underground mall. Passages meander right and left, lined with little shops selling everything from CDs and cellphones to pastries and underwear. A world of artificial light, crowds, noise and consumerism. It took me so much by surprise initially that I forgot to take note of the entrance number I’d come in by.

I wandered up and down between the shops until I found a sign saying ‘tracks’. I am forever grateful to whatever benevolent Korean decided that the subway signs should be in both English and Korean. I would spend an awful lot of time being lost otherwise. The way Daegu subway works is that you wander downwards, following the signs that say ‘tracks’, until you reach a row of turnstiles, where you put your travel card on the reader and pass through. For the record, the barriers and turnstiles would not stop even the most desultory attempts by criminals to jump them, which of course isn’t a problem here. Also, the turnstiles aren’t – they’re like a low gate-ways with two little gates (about 20cm square at waist height) that snap out if you try and go through without paying. Once you’re through the turnstiles, you follow the signs to different  platforms depending on the direction in which you’re heading . It turns out that this station – Banwoldang – is the intersection point for the two subway lines. Despite having a population of 2.4 million people, Daegu isn’t all that big, so there are only 2 subway lines. One runs roughly East-West and the other (very) roughly North-South. The two cross at Banwoldang station. This means increased danger of getting incredibly lost. If you follow the different coloured arrows on the floor, however, you should find your platform. It’s a little like following breadcrumbs, especially if you’re not exactly sure what the name of the direction you’re going in is. The directions are indicated based on the name of the station at the end of the line (in that direction). I’m getting better and now know that the line I usually take – the green or number 2 line – runs between Sawol and Manyung, so I just have to figure out each time which way I’m going. Luckily, there are maps of the subway lines, with English, on the walls.

The following day I rushed down there during lunch to go and pick up my results from the hospital. Of course, as a result of not paying attention, I found myself, now with limited time, frantically wandering around the underground mall trying to figure out which exit to take. Eventually I took exit number 5 at random and popped up on a corner I didn’t recognise at all, so I rushed back down and – hoping that my sense of direction hadn’t abandoned me completely – attempted to cross under the road and come up on the other side. This time things looked a little more familiar but I was still not in quite the right place. The underground mall area and subway are not just under a road, they’re under a major, large intersection (one road is 6 lanes, the other I think 5) and I was now on the right side of the main road, but on the wrong side of the smaller road that crosses it. I went back down and walked further along until I came to exits 22 and 23 – at which point, of course, I remembered that the one I’d come down was 22 – and headed upwards. This time I was in the right place and happily collected the precious piece of paper I needed to hand in at the immigration office. I even got back to work with time to spare before my next class.

The sequel to all this is that, when I saw my boss later in the day, he was taken aback that I’d gone off on my own and fetched the results. I didn’t even realise that there was an option. Go figure. Oh, well, no harm in him thinking I’m competent. I also noticed this morning that one of the buses that stops at my home bus stop (where I leave from to go to school) also goes to the downtown/hospital area, so if I need to go to the hospital for any reason again, I won’t need to risk getting lost in the still rather terrifying underground mall at Banwoldang.