Lonely Seoul : Adoption

I have decided to split my blog posts (however infrequent) into two categories: Potato in Seoul and Lonely Seoul. "Potato in Seoul" will focus on the more fun things about Korea from daily life to places I visit and cultural differences, etc. Lonely Seoul will focus more on the "inner workings" of my head: things I may not normally talk about.

Being in Seoul, South Korea has stirred a lot of thoughts up in my head. These two months here have been emotionally, physically, and spiritually trying. Seoul is an amazing city, but these six weeks have tested me in ways I thought I was ready for but found I wasn't.

As most of you know, and some of you may not, I was adopted from South Korea as a 5-month-old baby. I was born in a Seoul hospital (name unknown) to a 16-year-old girl who then turned me over to the Korean Social Services (KSS) for care and eventually adoption. I was given a Korean name, 강수정/Kang Su-jeong, by a social worker and was taken to the KSS orphanage/care center until the adoption process was finalized. I was boarded onto a plane on February 26, 1997 on my way to my new parents in the USA.

It kind of sounds like a movie plot, you know? A movie that starts out really sad but has a really happy ending. Everyone cries but leaves feeling satisfied leaving behind their handful of snotty tissues. But, really it's so much more complex than that. And I'm not the only one who's had this experience either. Here are some basic numbers on South Korean adoptions.



-From 1953-2001 there were over 99,000 South Korean children adopted into the USA with a total of over 150,000 worldwide in that time period.
-From 2001-2005 there were about 8,600 adoptions just to the USA.

This means that there are currently over 100,000 South Korean adoptees in the USA alone. I actually know quite a number of other South Korean adoptees, thanks to social media. The amount of pain and bitterness that's visible in their lives is overwhelming. Adoption sounds like an always-happy-ending. But it's not. There are a lot of deep, personal issues surrounding adoption that I believe many adoptive parents are not prepared to deal with, despite their good intentions. Adoption is not something that should be taken lightly.

You could say I was a "lucky" one. I was blessed with amazing parents and amazing siblings (two of whom are also adopted). However, I know many, many adoptees who have not had the same wonderful life I've had. I know adoptees who were physically and emotionally abused by their adopted parents. I know adoptees who struggle to find their place in the world, always feeling like an outsider; lacking purpose and direction with too many ways to justify their situation. There was a news article sometime last year about a 2-year-old adoptee who was murdered by his adopted father.

I guess this can sound harsh, but it's the honest truth. Despite having the world's most supportive parents and siblings, who even supported my decision to dye my hair purple, I struggled a lot with my self-identity and self-worth as most adoptees do, not just ones from South Korea. I honestly still do. It's not an easy thing growing up being part of the approximately 1% of "Asian only" people in your town. "Asian only" encompasses all "Asian" people who stated they were of only one "Asian" race on a US census report. I can count on two hands the amount of "Asian" people I knew growing up. One was my sister.

The hardest part about growing up in a rather non-diverse area is that people don't know what to do with us "Asian" people. There are certain questions that Asian-Americans and Asian/other adoptees love to joke about hearing, but that can actually raise a lot of questions and damage a person's self-esteem. These questions often come in a type of rapid-fire succession. They include, but aren't limited to:

1) "Where are you from?" followed closely by "No, where are you really/originally from?" or "Where are your parents from?"
-As if Ohio is not a suitable answer to this question. If I asked you where you were from, you wouldn't tell me your great-great-great grandparents came to the US on a ship through Ellis Island. You'd tell me you're from Pennsylvania. Or Seattle. Or that you grew up on a ranch in the middle of Oklahoma.

2) "Do you speak any Korean?" and/or "So, do you remember anything about Korea?"
-If I tell a person I'm adopted from South Korea, I'm usually asked something along these lines. People still ask even if I've told them I was only a baby when I came.

3) "Do you miss your real parents?"
-This is a question that adoptees struggle most with, I think. What is the definition of "real" parents? Are my adopted parents not my "real" parents if they're literally the ONLY parents I've ever known? Are my adopted parents not my "real" parents because they didn't conceive and give birth to me? Is this concept of "real parents" tied only to the physical then? If that's the case, then I don't have any "real" siblings because none of them are blood-related to me.

4) "Do you want to find your real parents?"
-I just mentioned the "real" parents wording issue. But this question is not the same as #3. Not at all. The only thing that #3 and #4 have in common is that they are both extremely personal questions that are treated by people like talking about the weather. I'm not sure when this became acceptable, but people seem to think it's completely okay to ask an adoptee about their adoptee life: about "real" parents, birth searches, identifying as whatever race, etc.
          You would never just go up to a black person and ask, "Do you miss Africa?" Because what if they're not African? What if they've never been to Africa? Somehow, it is okay to ask these questions to adoptees even if you've only known them for 5 seconds. It frustrates me to no end that people think this is okay.

I know this post is not really as cheery as others I've written, but this is a topic that's obviously very important to me, as it's a part of who I am. It's a social issue that I have never found amusing, and I think that while many people don't have bad intentions behind these questions, it's learning the when and where about whether it's okay to ask these questions: social tact, if you will.

Despite all this, it is not something that is limited to the USA. I have been asked several times by Korean people these same questions. Perhaps it is because many people are just ignorant of how adoption works. People are unaware of the psychological, emotional, and mental chaos that adoptees often go through as they grow up trying to find their identity and place in the world. Hopefully, I, along with the growing voice of adoptees around the world, can better inform people on how things related to adoption really work, but for now, here are my ramblings.

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