Blue House bungles by banning foreign tourists

On Dec. 5, the blog Gusts of Popular Feeling wrote that the Blue House was closing tours to foreigners and to young people under the age of 18, though the tours were still open to Koreans. A pop-up on the Blue House Web site said in English that tours were closed, but the pop-up in Korean simply listed safety measures for its Korean visitors. Readers rightly questioned why all foreigners were being excluded when they are not at a greater risk than Koreans of having the disease.

“Closed for healthy foreigners but open for Koreans who may have the disease?” asks JSK. “How can this be considered a health measure and not an senseless xenophobic spasm?”

Phi154 offers a creative outlet: “This is fun to do at work with the Koreans that understand enough English to listen to you tell a story: Tell one of the stories that you heard or read here, but change the origins of the people, example, change Korea/Korean to Germany, and the other country to some other Asian nationality. Then when they see the illogical nature of the situation ... Bang, let them have the truth!”

“I wonder if they are lumping all ‘foreigners’ together,” writes Ryan G. “I mean I have lived here for over two years and I haven’t left the country for the entire time.”

The policy of keeping out foreigners actually started on Sept. 1, but not until it was covered by the blogs was it reported in the English-language press. A Blue House representative told the Korea Herald: “The policy was made to prevent foreigners from contracting the illness considering that they would have difficulties dealing with the illness in a foreign country.”

“Nice spin, but if they really mean that they need to work on that a bit harder,” writes King Baeksu. “After months of swine flu hysteria here, I still can’t ride the subway in Seoul without half a dozen fools coughing, hacking and sneezing without covering their mouths every other minute.”

“So are they saying the Blue House is a hive of infection?” asks Darth Babaganoosh. “Why would anyone, much less foreigners, catch it there than the subway or movie theaters or anywhere else there is a throng of people?”

“Does the response by the Blue House representative indicate that the government has no faith in its country’s medical system to cater to the health needs of foreigners?” Schplook asks. “Those who would like to see Korea become a medical tourism destination might have some issues with that statement.”

“I wonder if a foreigner could file a discrimination lawsuit after being turned away,” writes Chris in South Korea. “Imagine some corporate bigwig wanting a tour, being turned away, going back to his Fortune 500 legal team and raising hell.”

The representative also said that Korean visitors would have to wear masks on the tour. King Baeksu responds: “In other words, it’s much actually much, much safer for non-Koreans to be at the Blue House than out in the rest of the city where most locals are not wearing face masks, and the first quote is total BS.”

It’s no surprise that security at the Blue House is tight, but if the goal is actually to prevent the spread of H1N1, perhaps security ought to require a passport of all guests, and keep out those who have left the country in the past week or two. In the early months of swine flu in Korea it was considered a foreigners’ disease, and preventive measures were aimed exclusively at them, especially foreign English teachers. Thankfully most seem to have moved past this misunderstanding, but the Blue House’s policy shows there are still pockets of misinformation.

By Brian Deutsch Contributing writer