Last night, the temperatures in Northwest Gyeonggi province were forecast to drop to -15 C. The government sent out some kind of mass safety notice that showed up as a message on my phone. It said,
[국민안전처] 안전안내. 오늘 23시 경기북부 한파경보, 노약자 외출자제 건강유의, 동파방지, 화재예방 등 피해에 주의하세요.
I wasn't sure what it was, so I did what I normally do when I get texts on my phone in Korean that look important but where I don't quite understand them – I popped the text of it into google translate.
Google translate was not up to the task. Here's what it told me,
[National Security Agency] Safety instructions. Today 23:00 Gyeonggi Gyeonggi North Korea alert, the elderly people go out of control health care, prevention of frost, fire prevention, etc. Please note.
This looks really alarming – the mention of "North Korea," for example. The phrase "prevention of frost," however, clued me in to the fact that it was probably just a safety warning about the cold. So I made the effort to more laboriously translate a few of the individual words. The part about North Korea actually is referring to the northern part of Gyeonggi Province, where I live, and the part about "elderly people go out of control" actually is just advising the elderly to exercise special caution. Just a typical government advisory.
The image of a bitterly cold night-time invasion of out-of-control old people from North Korea will stick with me, however. It might make a good premise for a B-grade Korean horror movie.
[daily log: walking, 7km]
