Corona, Daily Life, Ho Chi Minh
If it is the way it is, as soon as my child goes on Easter vacation, he has to fly to Korea. For a health check-up scheduled for Saturday. I got a text message a few days ago. ‘I have a health check-up scheduled for this Saturday.’ Oh… I thought this was my original daily life, so I missed the ordinary life that I would have been living without Corona. I decided to give up my medical checkup. Not only is there a traffic jam on the way to Korea right away, but it is not easy to make a comeback again. Even if I can enter Vietnam, I am not confident of staying with children if the facilities are isolated.
When can I live my normal life again? Every morning, I used to comfort my child, wake him up, feed him, and take him on the school shuttle bus. He said he doesn’t go to school tomorrow because it’s Saturday. When my child goes to school, I have to work quietly. Snack time when the kid came back and talked about what happened at school. Even nagging me to go to school every night and tomorrow. I want to meet all my daily life again.
These days, more nagging than friendly words. The 24-hour child who is stuck at home is now excited as if he is playing his own game by constantly taking out various household chores.
“Where else did you get that?”
“Not a toy. Put it back.”
“Will you please stop calling Mom?”
There’s a lot of scuffles. I understand the position of a child who has only a mother to call even if he is bored a hundred times, or more, but I can’t help being tired of the “mom, mom, mom,” which he calls all day. Before the birth of the child, the feelings of wanting to be a mother, or being called a mother, are desperate to be able to go somewhere and stay away for a moment. I still love my child a lot, but the Corona virus makes me feel terrible.
But I guess I’m not the only one. I was comforted by a word from my close sister that said, “The kids are at home because I need some alone time, and I’m drinking a cup of coffee at a coffee shop in front of my house.” I thought it was this hard to raise an only child, but it’s strangely reassuring that my sister, who raises three children, ran away just before the explosion.
Even if I can’t go far, I want to go next door and see people, have a cup of coffee, and breathe for a while, but I can’t do that. It’s because the closed apartment in Ho Chi Minh is starting to come out. For the best defense, the Vietnamese government is shutting down the entire apartment, even if there is only one suspected case. Under these circumstances, there may be a situation where you can’t come back home after being quarantined while drinking coffee next door. No one can easily tell you to come over to my house because I know from the news of Korean residents that it has already happened.
No one knows when or which apartment will be closed. The apartment complex I live in now also has a closed line, which makes me more psychologically intimidated. You’ve already had one self-isolation, so you can’t… I also know that the idea ‘I’ll be fine’ doesn’t work at all.
It doesn’t matter much if you stay in my house and be quarantined by closing down your apartment. You can get what you need delivered, and just in case, I bought enough daily necessities and food. It’s frustrating, but you can just stay at my house. But if the isolated place is not my home, the problem becomes serious. There are no exceptions to the apartment closure. Even the police who went to check their passports and residence cards couldn’t get out, so everyone in them is locked up until the closure is over. You can’t cause inconvenience to others for 15 days, so you have to be careful. No matter how close they are, they’re just passing each other around in front of the house, and unfortunately, they’re walking away.
Currently, the number of confirmed patients in Vietnam is close to 150. Hospital facilities are poor, but the increase does not seem to be significant due to the extreme precipitation of entry ban and isolation of all inbound facilities. Recently, the Vietnamese government has banned the entry of its citizens abroad as the number of confirmed students and ethnic Koreans returning from Europe and the United States has increased. The situation is the opposite of Korea, which sends chartered flights to bring in Korean residents abroad. Currently, we can’t come to Vietnam except for special circumstances. That particular situation… It’s Samsung and LG.
Even now that self-isolation has been lifted, most of the time is spent at home. We went to the park, which was open to residents only, once in the evening, but now it’s completely closed. Restaurants are closed, minimal transportation is available, and no transportation to other cities. In this hot country, the air conditioner was not turned on, and even set it at 27 degrees. You can’t even play in front of your house. I’m getting frustrated. The uncomfortable and gloomy mind of this period is called ‘corona blue.’ It’s also comforting because I’m not the only one in the situation.
There’s also news that Corona has been charged $8,700 in Vietnam. As I live in another country, I hear only more disturbing stories. I feel like I’m losing my mind to Corona. I don’t know if it’s a daily life or a daily life. Even if I try to write, I can only think of corona’s daily life, so my head seems to have stopped. I will live up to what I have to do in a global crisis, but I will try to push Corona out of her daily life and regain her lost life. I just realized that.
Many of Ho Chi Minh’s things have stopped now, but I still have to live my daily life with only my heart and thoughts. I need to find my daily life. So that the child can keep his heart where he can answer with a smile even if he calls “Mother” a hundred times.
In daily life… in daily life… In daily life…
common and uninteresting I will be happy every day if I face the days I thought of again.