Santoki's World

Synopsis:
Many Korean adoptees experience difficulties in the development of their own identity. This is one of the reasons why many Korean adoptees only return to Korea after a certain time. Every adoptee has his or her own pace. This explains why Korean adoptees return at different ages to the country where they were born. I can see a difference between older generations and younger ones. The younger generations tend to return to Korea in their late teens or 20s. In contrast to this many older generations return in their 30s to Korea.
After a first visit many Korean adoptees experience problems with the re-adjustment to their lives they led prior to the visit to Korea. The problems can vary from short episodes of sadness, grief, excitement and other emotional instabilities in best cases versus onset of depression like symptoms which may require treatment or even hospitalization. The symptoms may vary very much with every adoptee. There are also documented cases of adoptees who committed suicide after returning from their first trip to Korea.

Analysis:
Identity forming is a very complex process. Korean adoptees who grow up mostly with Caucasian adoptive parents have additional layers to resolve in contrast to their peers who grow up with parents of the same ethnicity. A visit to the country of origin opens a new perspective to the Korean adoptee. All of a sudden the Korean adoptee realizes that there are other persons around who just look like him/her. Being in the majority and not sticking out like a sore thumb is a new experience which helps many Korean adoptees to further comprehend their own identity. Especially those who happen to be reunited with their biological family will go through more layers. Juggling the Korean and the western identity around, finding the family means also that sooner or later the adoptee needs to consolidate the various identities into one. Post-reunion development shows that there is a need for further development. Various stages can be passed within a short period, but some of the stages will take more time, months, maybe even years, until the adoptee is able to process all stages. Grief is an important part of the process, where the adoptee can grieve the past, the loss of the biological family, the loss of the lives they never lived, the loss of the culture and language.

Conclusion
It is very important to understand the complexity of the situation in which many adoptees all of a sudden are when they are reunited (many times completely unexpected) with their biological family. In light cases there needs to be just enough space and time for the adoptee to process the whole events. Many times it helps to have close friends who listen to the adoptee. In other cases it is recommendable to seek the help of a professional therapist/counselor. Ideally the counselor would be specialized in adoption issues. In severe cases we recommend hospitalization with stationary treatment (if needed in closed environment and with support of antidepressant or similar drugs where use is indicated, especially in case of suicidal tendencies). A thorough briefing prior to a visit to Korea would be highly recommendable but is not possible due to the fact that the adoptee is in most cases not aware of the consequences of his/her visit. It should be in any case included in the counseling of the adoptee at the adoption agency. But there are limits to this, too, due to financial constraints and due to the fact that the countries where the adoptee lives is not the same as where the adoption agency is located (Korea).
We also recommend the use of so-called peer-to-peer counseling. Connecting the adoptee to other adoptees in his area who went through similar experiences is highly recommendable. A list of the existing Korean Adoptee Associations is available at G.O.A.’L.

Dae-won Wenger

- added 2010-01-27
One action plan could be to develop an international network with the existing adoptee organization and try to locate local resources for counseling/therapy in order to fight the difficulties adoptees experience. This would require financial resources not only from the Republic of Korea but also from all other countries that are involved in international adoption from Korea.

The Korean Adoptee Community here in Seoul has constantly changed since I came to Korea. Back in 2003 there were some groups, mostly Americans and Europeans who tended to hang out separately. After the Gathering 2004 many adoptees decided to stay longer and during fall/winter that year we had a development into one large group of adoptees.

I still remember how we used to hang out in groups with at most 50-70 persons. All 2005 it was fun to hang out and the only fights were those between someone from our community and someone from outside. But already towards the end of 2005 there was a new trend visible.

More and more adoptees decided to come to Korea and to live here for at least one year. Naturally our community grew larger and larger. Towards end of 2005 there were maybe 150 adoptees living here and connected to each other through our text message list. That was the beginning of a big change. As soon as more than a certain number of adoptees arrived from one country they formed another group.

I guess this is natural and is called group dynamics. On one hand I miss those times when we were in such a large group. On the other hand it’s just a normal development. I wonder where the community will go to in the future. Of course we are still connecting all adoptees – irregardless to their background and affiliations – to each other as I think that the community is a very important thing here in Korea. The community is for many adoptees the only network they can rely upon since as adoptees we are foreigners in our own birthcountry.