Life in the time of coronavirus
Heart and Lyam Breen playing Rummikub / Courtesy of Michael Breen
By Michael Breen
It seems like years, but it was just a few weeks ago that life changed.
At first, family abroad were concerned about us here next to China. But now, it's us looking, mouths agape behind our masks, at Europe and America, wondering whether the conviction we had that they do everything better in those advanced countries was insecurity.
For me, change did not happen at once. Being optimistic and being one of those annoying people who needs to be persuaded that something is right before I do it ― two attitudes which may account for the fatal delay in precaution-taking in Western countries and subsequent illiberal lockdowns ― I couldn't see the point of masks at first.
When I did wear one, it was to avoid being seen as the ugly foreigner. Talking of which, I've noticed I get more looks. Maybe covering half my face makes me better looking. There's a lot to be said for modesty.
Work has not suffered so far. I drive places instead of taking buses and taxis. Otherwise, the changes are small.
It's my wife and children who have experienced the much bigger changes.
As the children go to an international school, where the academic year starts in August, they were well into the new term when the school closed. At first it was for just three days, but by this time of writing it's already been three months with only a month to go till summer vacation.
Our school has responded as if its leadership had run simulations for this type of crisis. The virtual learning started immediately and has been refined and improved as we've gone along.
What's it been like for my children? To find out, I did what a parent doesn't often do, but what a reporter is supposed to do, and asked them.
“Actually, it's fun,” my son Lyam said. He is eight and in Year 4 at Seoul Foreign British School, which is the equivalent of grade 3 in the Korean and American systems. What's fun about it? I asked.
“Well,” ― I'm editing here to make him sound more articulate ― “I don't have to get up so early to start at eight o'clock. I get up at 7.40, eat breakfast, get dressed and go to the computer.
“I do a call with my teacher and my class, and we talk about how it's going and play games like 'would-you-rather.' Like, 'would you rather eat pizza for one month or ramyeon for one month?' Then I do math and English and other assignments all day.”
“At 10.10 to 10.30, I have an extra lesson. He's teaching me English because I speak Korean at home with my mum and my sister and I went to a French school. I only speak English with my dad, so I need to improve it.” He knows I know this but he's warming to the idea of being interviewed and is on a roll.
“I do art and sport. For sport, I do skipping, which I've just learned. My record now is 36. And I do dancing and things and make videos and post them on Seesaw.” (For the uninitiated, this is a digital education platform for uniting teachers, students and parents).
A lot of this happens with the humming of the new 3D printer in the background. Lyam has made some Avengers-related things with it, like Thor's hammer and a Tesseract.
“I made a Guardians of the Galaxy orb which took 15 hours to make,” he said. I'd wondered what that was. The contraption was buzzing through the night.
Of course, in contrast to other countries, in Korea, besides being advised to avoid crowded places, we're not actually restricted. We've been to their grandparents and Lyam had a sleepover with his friend and goes to the local playground.
“I play football in the house with my dad,” he reminds me.
“And guitar,” I prompt him.
“I've started to learn guitar. I can play A minor, E minor, and G.”
All in all, Lyam prefers school. Why? “There's less homework.”
My daughter, Heart, who is 12, misses her friends and teachers and the physical change of location that makes for a varied day.
She corrects me on my first question. “We're not doing online teaching,” she points out. “It's online class meetings for a few minutes in the morning and then it's assignments.” The assignments take all day, she says. That may be because she listens to music at the same time ― a habit I could never develop because I either don't hear the music or can't focus on the work. Multi-tasking isn't my thing.
I realize I don't know her favorite music because she listens on headphones. It's Billie Eilish, she says. I confess I had to Google.
“I've learned map reading skills. I've learned about cells. In math, I've been calculating areas, perimeters and volumes,” she says. Having been schooled in more useful subjects like Latin, I actually don't know what she's talking about.
She also has been learning about the eightfold path and the four noble truths of Buddhism.
“One of the eightfold paths is about right concentration,” she says. “It means to practice concentrating. I need to focus on my work but find it difficult sometimes, so I like that. One of the four noble truths is that to live is to suffer. That means that in life you're going to suffer more than once.”
“Who, me?” I interrupt her flow.
“Anybody. Everybody. It means you'll suffer poverty, hunger, love, divorce. Things like that.”
“Oh.” I'm thinking that children are always a year or three ahead of where their parents think they are. She doesn't need a teddy bear. She wants me to listen to her perspective on the four noble truths.
“When you suffer, you have to think that this is how you grow and learn things,” she says. I don't say anything but I wonder if she'll drop this and become a socialist when she's older and think that her suffering is other people's fault.
“I've not suffered yet,” she adds.
What about the coronavirus? I ask her what she knows about how people are suffering from that around the world. She knows Korea is okay now. “We can go out when we like because we don't kiss each other like the French,” she says. She knows Boris Johnson was in hospital and that America is suffering the worst. I'm curious about how she knows this. Does she watch the news?
“No, dad. Our TV doesn't work.” Oh, yes. We haven't watched TV for ages.
One of the nice things to see during this unprecedented time at home is how well my children get on. They play board games together and read and do regular stretching and meditation with their mother. They've started baking bread and posting stuff on YouTube. They also create games. One is “hakwon nori,” where they teach each other things.
“I've written up ads and put them on the wall around the house,” she says. “I don't need to because I only have one customer. I teach him English, science, math, Korean, reading, art and PE. One lesson a day on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
“Is he a good student?”
She thinks about this. “He is and he isn't. He listens but he doesn't do his homework because I'm his sister.”
Michael Breen is the author of The New Koreans. He interviewed his two children for this article.