FamiLee Life

Korean Adoption Documentary

You can now watch In-Depth 60 Minutes' program Baby Exporting Nation: The Two Faces of Inter-country Adoption on the web. It was produced by KBS in May 2005. You can view the documentary (along with English subtitles) on Jane Jeong Trenka's website Language of Blood.

Unfortunately, I received this info while on vacation in Europe, so I have not had a chance to view it. Still, it should be a thought provoking program.

KBS synopsis:

A 20-year-old unwed mother asked the In-Depth 60 minutes team to help
her find her baby. According to her, the baby was taken by an adoption
agency without her consent, as soon as she gave birth at an Ob&Gyn
Clinic. The transaction of money in the background was traced between
the clinic and the adoption agency related to this. Why is money
involved to secure babies for adoption?

2300 children are adopted abroad among a total of 3800 adoptions
annually. Human rights organizations criticize the government's
encouragement of exporting babies. Especially, overseas adoptions have
a lot of problems due to the lack of a proper system to provide post
adoption services. This is a shameful portrait of Korea, the world's
10th biggest economy and a member of OECD. In-depth 60 Minutes is
investigating the truth of rumours regarding overseas adoption through
shocking stories of unwed mothers who were robbed of their name of
"mother" and through the voices of adoptees who are returning to Korea.

I'm Back!

I am back in town! Just returned from three weeks in hot, hot Europe. Departed on July 8th for London and returned on July 29th from Amsterdam. In between, we spent time in Paris, Norwich and Cromer in northeast England, and Leiden and the Hague in Holland. It was a wonderful trip. But as always, nice to be back home even though we arrived back in the midst of a heat wave with temperature in the 100s. Thankfully, my home has central air conditioning.

Once I catch up at work, I will try to fill in the details of the trip and resume my usual thoughts about nothing and everything. Stay cool.

Europe!

One of the great benefits of academic life is the opportunity to travel for work! I leave today for Europe for three weeks to attend ICAR2 (2nd International Conference on Adoption Research) which will be held in Norwich, UK at the University of East Anglia. I also will be visiting Leiden University to consult with Dr. Femmie Juffer, an adoption researcher, and her colleagues at the Adoption Research Center (see here for one of her recent studies).

Since I will be out that way, I decided to use some time to vacation a bit too. Heck, aside from a conference a few years ago in Copenhagen, I have never been to Europe! Never had the privilege to travel during/after college, so this is my belated graduation gift to myself. Will be in London, Norwich, Paris, Leiden, and Amsterdam.

So, as you can imagine, I doubt I will be posting for the rest of the month, though maybe if I am inspired and have internet access, I will post brief updates.

Pojangmacha

I grew up eating this stuff on Sundays after church, at every Korean picnic outing, at home with my grandmother. It is kimbop and it's wonderfully healthy, tasty, filling food. In Korea, you can buy and eat kimbop from street vendors, along with other great foods (click here).

It is time for Mpls to move more to the edge of culinary art and embrace the pojangmacha (Korean street food vendors). It seems a similar trend is picking up for Japanese variants on pub food (click here for food review). All of which follows on the heels of the tapas craze.

Two weekends ago, Hapa9 and I made 100 kimbop rolls with help from friends for Andy's wedding out in Osceola, WI. It was an amazing sight (and tasty too). Hapa9 prefers to use the bamboo rollers but I prefer to use just my hands. It must be genetic because I can roll some tight kimbops (same holds true for fresh spring rolls), just like my mom and grandmom. The best part of making kimbop is when you eat the cutoff ends after you slice the rolls. It's a chef's treat!

Were I to open up a pojangmacha (which I am in serious about), I would include some other specialties, such as Korean style chicken wings (my specialty), fried flour battered whole fish on a stick (with edible bones), and of course tteokbokki (or dukbokee) which is a spicy rice cake treat.

So watch out Mpls for my friends and I when we open up our poja joint!

Were I a Taller Man....

Here is my dream bike. Unfortunately for me, this particular bicycle for sale on ebay is 5 inches to big for me (it's meant for a 6 footer). It is a Bridgestone XO-1 which was the top of line for this style of Bridgestone back in 1993 or so when Bridgestone still sold bikes in the United States. I own a Bridgestone XO-3 from the same year in the same color, but its frame and componentry are not in the same class.

If you want to read more about Bridgestone bicycles, click here. Maybe some day, I will travel to Japan and pick up a new Bridgestone. Here is the current Bridgestone website. It's all in Japanese, but you can click on the left column to see the wide variety of bikes still being produced.

Back Home :: Part II

I returned to Mpls yesterday after a long weekend with my father in Connecticut. It was good to spend time with him and to help him with the exhibit installation. I was surprised by how smoothly it all went. My dad has painted furiously over the past couple of years and, in the end, he had 55 paintings jam packed into the space. It was an impressive feat, although about 10 paintings actually did not fit on the walls and were leaning against the wall or put up on easels. I still think there were too many paintings but he really wanted to show everything. It's his show, so I conceded. The opening reception will be on Thursday evening.

While in CT, it was great to visit with my 93+ year old grandmother who, in fact, did ask me about my romantic life and made sure that I was going to church. She also asked what I did during the summer because school was not in session. Do I still go to the office or do I have the whole summer off? Ha! I wish!

At some point, my grandmother and I - using simple Korean to communicate - moved on to the topic of adoption. It was an interesting conversation because she did not know the korean word for adoptee - ibyang (side bar - My father explained to me that the Korean word for adoptee is based on Chinese characters and this might explain why she didn't know it). I then went on to explain that some Korean people are not raised by Korean parents. Instead, they are raised by "American" (i.e., White) parents. Her response was interesting. She used a Korean word that was not familiar to me. She said, "Oh, bool ssang ha da." I asked my dad what this word meant. He was fairly roundabout in his translation, due largely to his own English vocabulary. He said that bool ssang ha da is said to someone who is an orphan or a child without parents. Rather than a noun that describes the person's status or role, it connotes pity or sympathy for the person because of his/her life situation as an orphan.

I am not 100% on this translation of the word but it got me thinking. Specifically, it gave me another perspective to help understand Koreans when they meet adoptees. Often, I hear from adoptees that they do not want sympathy or pity from native or immigrant Koreans but often are treated in this manner during interactions. I also observe this type of exchange whenever I see adoptees and immigrants/natives getting together. At least for my grandmother and perhaps for others of the older generation, the strong neo-Confucian value on family and a person's role within the family defines a person's identity. In the absence of this lineage, a strong feeling of loss and sadness emerges and is expressed as bool ssang ha da.

Well, let me research this term/concept a bit more before making any stronger commentary.

[UPDATE - My laptop will not convert Korean text for some reason, so I asked Holly to do an online English-Korean translation of the word "pity" and it indeed came back as bool ssang. The translation for orphan was not bool ssang. Instead, it was a longer phrase that literally means "without parents."]

I also had a chance to meet up with some old high school friends of mine who also were in town for the holidays. After dinner with my father, his wife, and old family friends, I went over to Sean's parent's house. Sean (aka OD) and his wife, Jackie (who is 9 months pregnant), were up from NYC to enjoy a quiet weekend away from the city. Chris (aka Spanky) also was coming back through town from a week spent on the Cape. Dave still lives in CT and had an opportunity to join us for the evening because his wife and 4 kids (!) were away for the weekend. It was a great, relaxing time. We caught up on other friends' lives, gave updates on our own situations with work, family, fun, and talked about everything under the stars from genetics to fantasy baseball.

One of the most unusual yet great things about my childhood is that my high school friends have all for the most part stayed in close touch and have remained friends. There are probably around a doxen of us, now living all over the United States (CA, MN, SC, NC, IN, MA, NY, CT). We still attend each other's weddings (tho' fewer and fewer of us are not married) and some even get together for shared vacations. On holidays, we try to see each other at least for a night of revelry.

So, it was the perfect ending to my brief visit home. Although the trip came at a busy time, as I prepare for a three week trip to Europe, it was a good reminder to appreciate all the good people in one's life. Friends and family help to ground us all. Without them, perhaps people would look upon us and say bool ssang ha da.

NATURE: Beautiful Mount Gumgahng

To read about my father's exhibit, including a brief biography and artistic statement, click on the NATURE link.