Dual Citizenship

January 10th, 2007

It’s one thing many adoptees don’t know about.

There is a possibility that you are still considered a Korean citizen even though you are a citizen of your adoptive country.

There are probably several reasons for this situation. Either when you acquired your new citizenship, nobody cared to let the Korean authorities know. Maybe within the Korean system there had been some communication problems. In any case, it happens actually more often than I ever thought. Adoptees arrive in Korea, they apply for the F4 visa and in that process they also get their Korean family registry.

Take a good look at it. If there is a Korean ID number on it, then you’re still considered a Korean citizen. The number is easily identifiable. It starts with your birthdate (YYMMDD), then comes a dash and then it starts with a 1 for male and 2 for females.

Being dual citizen is officially illegal and only under certain circumstances allowed (for example children from an international marriage can be dual citizens up to the age of 20 and then they have 2 years time to decide). G.O.A.’L is trying to lobby for a Korean citizenship for adoptees where we could still keep our adoptive country’s citizenship. And of course the issue of the military service needs to be discussed. There was recently also a discussion on K@W about the pros and contras of a dual citizenship.

In any case, so far none of the adoptees has given up his/her adoptive citizenship and everybody renounced their Korean citizenship, although many after much consideration since it’s not only just a matter of military service or so but it’s also a matter of heart.

Giving it up is actually just a form you fill in and then you hand it in prior to the whole paperwork for the F4 visa.

Posted in Adoption, English | No Comments »

Working in Korea

January 9th, 2007

Ever thought about coming to Korea to live and work here? Many adoptees keep thinking about exactly that. But there are things you should know before you come here. This small guide is intended for adoptees living in their adoptive countries…

Legal things: First at all you need a visa in order to be able to stay in Korea and also to work and make money for your living. For adoptees and overseas Koreans there is the F4 visa. The basis was made back in 1999 when the Overseas Koreans Act was passed. Thanks to G.O.A.’L’s lobbying at that time adoptees were included in that act.

The visa allows to stay for two years. It’s a multiple re-entry visa, which means even when leaving Korea you can return without having to apply for another visa. You can even extend the visa for another two years without having to leave the country. So far there seems to be no limit as to how many times it can be extended.

The procedure is really easy and usually I recommend to come to Korea on a regular tourist visa (the one where you fill in the form in the airplane) and then to do the necessary steps within Korea. Just make sure you bring along your adoption-related documents and especially for American citizens, the naturalization paperwork.

For the rest you can get advice from G.O.A.’L directly.

Accomodation:
Depending on your job situation you might need a place to stay. The main problem here in Korea is not even the monthly rent but the key-money that reaches incredible amounts. I put down for example 20 Mio. Won for my 3 bedroom apartment. Of course you can get the key-money after moving out back but who has that much money?

If you put down even more money, you can even rent an apartment by the so-called “Jeon-se” system (from 50 Mio. Won on up). That would mean that you don’t pay monthly rent any longer. You still get the money back after the contract is expired. The owner basically profits from the interest he gets when he invests that money.

Finding an apartment is relatively easy, depending on the location and your needs, of course. Just don’t expect everything to be like in your adoptive country. If you just come to study, you could also live in just a regular “Hasukjib” which is a boarding house. You basically just rent a room and share the other facilities with your room-mates.

With the Overseas Koreans act, we, adoptees, are allowed to acquire property here in Korea as well. But the fact is that many Korean nationals still don’t know about that law and therefore do not act upon it. Eventually adoptees are still being discriminated. Korean nationals are usually very much against influence from abroad (foreigners). It is kind of funny to see how every Korean family tries to get the best English tutor for their kids but would not treat an adoptee that well.

The working situation here in Korea is really much different from what it would be in another bigsized companies. The Korean society is still very much influenced by the confucianism. That’s why an opinion by the oldest is still very much accepted.

Available Jobs:

When you need a job, about 95% of the available positions are in the education sector. Mostly US adoptees have the advantage that they speak the required American accent. But even those face some discrimination by Korean nationals since in many cases “looking for native speakers” actually should be translated into “looking for a white guy”.

In case you have a degree, it might be much easier to get a job and maybe even a job not within the education sector but something more interesting (just my personal opinion). In most cases the most important thing is some level of Korean language skills.

Once again we come back to the legal aspect of the F4 visa. With the F4 visa you are allowed to work all jobs with the few exception of the so-called 3D jobs. This basically means you should get a “white collar” job as Korea is not interested in unskilled Overseas Koreans or adoptees. The advantage of the F4 is important as with that visa you are not bound to one institution. You also do not need a sponsor. With the E2 visa you would be stuck with the one employer. Fortunately the F4 visa is a great advantage…

Coping with the “Korean mentality”

One of the main problems you might encounter here in Korea is the “Korean mentality”. I always picture Korea as an island, it’s surrounded by water and to the north there is North Korea. That certainly had its influence on the development of the Korean mentality since many Korean nationals never actually lived abroad. That means that in most cases a Korean national doesn’t have an idea about different cultures or ways of living. If you come to Korea and think that the Koreans are to shortsighted, keep in mind that maybe that particular person is just a little xenophobic and might not want to change his/her lifestyle just because of some “rude” Koreans who do not know how to “behave”. Of course, as an adoptee, we do not know the Korean culture and will step into all those small traps the Korean culture keeps ready for those not in the know. But don’t worry, Korean nationals would do the same once they are actually leaving their country.

Patriarchal society

All in all, I have been living here now more than 3 1/2 years and have enjoyed my life here very much. But… I’m a guy. For women, it’s yet another picture. Living in a society that prefers male over female is also one of the aspects you should not underestimate before you make the decision to quit your job and make your move to Korea. Will you be able to understand and to a certain degree compromise your freedom you enjoyed in your adoptive country versus the smaller or bigger hindernis here in Korea? Will you be able to cope with the disadvantages?

Some of my female friends here hate their one year they stay here. Others are more comfortable with it and have been living here for quite some time. I think it’s a more a personal decision, for some it’s easy to adapt, for others it’s just not their piece of cake.

And as the last piece of advice…

Whenever you have a question or run into problems, email or call G.O.A.’L. G.O.A.’L is an adoptee organization and will therefore fight for your rights. You have a problem with your employer? Call G.O.A.’L and get help there. It’s always different to move to a unknown country when you know that there is an organization that backs you up.

Posted in Adoption, English, Korea | No Comments »

Poem by nabiya

May 15th, 2006

his presence taunts me

inviting yet distant addicted to the euphoric

frustration of his temporal heat,

i linger in the traces of his last stance,

absorbed in the fantasy that

he and i once shared this elusive space

~ nabiya

Posted in English, Poetry | No Comments »

Adoptee Organizations and Internet

May 10th, 2006

Today I’m sitting in front of my computer. I thought back how everything started, back in 1990 when I first participated at the YWCA Summer School and then in 1994 when we founded Dongari Switzerland. There was no internet, everything went by sending letters. Nowadays I can’t even think about how to organize things without the internet. The internet is part of our daily life and plays a very important role when it comes to networking.

When I grew up I had several penpals from all over the world. There was this Japanese businessman collecting empty beercans. He had more than 5000 at that time. There were other ones I met through others or met at the WWF summer camps or through work.

I had so many penpals that kept me busy writing letters. But the cool part for me was always to return from school and to find a letter on my desk. The farther away it was sent the better. The more colorful the stamp the better. I didn’t care much about what the letter itself said. It was just the excitement of receiving a letter… a sign that I was alive.

I kept most of the letters. I’ve already forgotten most of the names and only rereading the letters can update my memory… for a short while.

When I was in New York back in the early 90s I also wrote letters. But when I returned and was working in the IT department of the same company I soon discovered the internet. At that time it was through Compuserve, the first account the company had and I was the only user of it. It was very interesting and exciting to chat with people from all over the world and to browse through all those sites that already existed at that very early time.

Yet when we founded Dongari Switzerland most of the work was still done the old-fashioned way. We still sent letters, called and my phone bill was every month so huge…

I used mostly the company’s computers and copymachine to edit and print the Dongari newsletters. I still have some copies of those early newsletters from 1994. One big part of the whole budget was assigned to postage. Letters, newsletters, announcements… everything was sent via regular mail and it was really expensive at that time.

Soon though more and more internet users showed up. Everybody was keen to learn the new technology and to master the howto of emoticons. The old fashioned mailing list was soon replaced by a new technology. Soon our Dongari homepage was designed and ran originally on the geocities website. Of course there were drawbacks like limited webspace and popupads… just like today on certain blog providers.

But then I was part of a team that built a local area network within the student dormitory we lived in. The budget we had was nothing against what a professional company asked for. We provided all our work for free and the dormitory covered the material and the computer. That’s how I became administrator of the dorm’s server. And soon Dongari Switzerland had its own webspace with almost unlimited (at that time) webspace. I also created two mailing-lists, Dongari for our local Swiss users and Urinara for all the others. By using majordomo, one of the common mailing-list servers on Linux, I had many options I could use. But one of the first thing I had to learn is that running a mailing-list is not as easy at it seems to be. Who sets up the rules? Where are the limits? How long should a flame war last? Who should be kicked? How long may a mail be and are attachments allowed or not? Many more questions popped up during the time I ran those lists.

At the same time the topics were also very interesting and similar to today’s discussions. Where do we belong to? What do you think of international adoption? How did you experience it? How much Korean are you? Many more questions, many more flame wars and sometimes it was also exhausting to just go through all those mails. Learning from all those messages and growing, that was the important part.

Soon other mailing-lists appeared in the cyberspace. The biggest list was Sunny Jo’s “Korean Adoptees Worldwide” list on Yahoo!Groups. I closed down my lists after some time as less and less traffic was on it and more and more went to the mailing-lists with graphical user surface.

I think the internet created so much more options for all the Korean adoptee organizations in the world. It is nowadays much easier to communicate through the help of emails, mailing-lists and websites than it was before. But there are also dangers. I realized that when I spoke to other adoptees in Sweden. When it comes to important topics nothing can replace a personal talk. Only when you can feel, see, hear and touch the person you talk to, then you can really know what the person is saying. Well, apart from cultural and lingual problems, of course.

Recently there has been also a surge of BLOG writers in the internet. There are really old ones but many just recently discovered those BLOGs or mixture of various functions…
Especially in the USA there seem to be more and more communities on the internet who function through the internet. Of course there are also new dangers coming with the new technology but I’m certain that especially the Korean adoptee community profited a lot from it.

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Reise nach Europa

February 21st, 2006

Wieder einmal bereite ich eine Reise nach Europa vor. Dieses Mal werde ich die Schweiz, Frankreich und Deutschland besichtigen. Selbstverständlich ist es ein Teil, meine Eltern in der Schweiz zu besuchen. Aber es gibt noch einen anderen Teil, bei der ich in Paris mich dem Planungsausschuß der bevorstehenden IKAA Gathering 2007 anschließen werde.

Es ist immer nett, vertraute Gesichter zu sehen und besonders diejenigen von Uebersee. Normalerweise treffe ich immer alle hier in Korea aber dieses mal, ist es anders. Ich schon lange nicht mehr in Paris gewesen. Tatsächlich 1988 oder 1989, als wir eine Reise mit der Handelsschule unternahmen. Ich erinnere mich noch an diese Nacht, als wir alle auf dem Nachtzug einschliefen. Nicht vom müde sein, nein, vom ganzem Alkohol, welchen wir durch den Zoll und auf den Zug schmuggelten. Damals waren die Zollkontrollen zwischen dem französischen und Schweizer Teil der Basler Bahnstation viel strenger als heutzutage. Aber ich kann das natürlich nicht gut behaupten, da ich seit 2003 nicht mehr in Basel gewesen bin.

Zeit hier in Korea fliegt vorbei. Z.Z. lese ich das Buch „Eindelijk leef ik echt“ von Joey Yoon. Sie ist eine niederländische Adoptierte, die über ihr Leben schrieb. Es ist wirklich interessant, es zu lesen. Es konzentriert sich hauptsächlich darauf, wie sie ihre Essstörung überwand, aber ich habe das Buch noch nicht beendet, von daher ist das Buchende noch offen. Ich muss immer noch Wörter auf dem Internet nachschlagen. Ich verwende normalerweise www.vandale.nl, eine Website, welche mir E.L. vorschlug, eine meiner WG-Genossin. Eine Sprache zu erlernen ist immer ein sehr langer und langsamer Prozess. Besonders in Anbetracht der Tatsache, dass ich jetzt 40 Jahre alt bin *seufz*. In der Mittelschule lernte ich jeweils unser Englisch Wörterbuch auswendig. Aber das war nur zur Unterhaltung. Ich wurde jeweils auch das “Schlafwandelnde Wörterbuch“ gerufen, weil ich in der Schule mehr schlief als wach zu sein. Nun ja, das Leben als Narkoleptiker hat so seine Hürden.

Ich folge auch den Diskussionen auf Mailing-Listen. Ich bin auch auf Listen mit Adoptiveltern. Es ist immer interessant zu sehen, was sie diskutieren. Eine Sache, die ich bald begriff, ist, dass die europäischen Adoptiveltern anders sind als die US-Amerikanischen. Auf einer Liste könnte ich sogar auf Deutsch schreiben, tue es jedoch kaum, weil die meisten Adoptiveltern sich nicht dafür interessieren, was ein Adoptierter zu sagen hat. Sie konzentrieren sich viel mehr den Adoptionsprozess, wie man den verbessern (beschleunigen) kann, was man dafür noch tun kann, etc. und die meisten bereiten sich auf eine Adoption vor oder haben gerade adoptiert. Auf einer progressiven Liste wie I-A-T (International Adoption-Talk) auf Yahoo! zum Beispiel hören alle den Meinungen von Adoptierten zu. Adoptierte haben viel Erfahrung, die für zukünftige Adoptiveltern sehr nützlich sein könnte. Sobald Adoptiveltern ihre Abwehrmechanismen überwinden, könnten auch sie vieles lernen, was letztendlich direkt ihren Kindern gutkommen würde. Zumindestens ist das meine Hoffnung.

Um zu unserer kleinen Gemeinschaft von Adoptierten hier in Korea zurückzukommen. Wir haben unseren Anteil an Drama. Ich verstehe, dass es immer Drama in einer solchen kleinen Gemeinschaft wie die unsere gibt, aber ich hoffe, dass es von nun an nicht mit Gewalt endet, wie es in der Vergangenheit geschah. Und ich verurteile niemand, weil ich weiß, dass manchmal unvermeidlich scheint. Ein Wort führt zu einem anderen eine Handlung zum nächsten und plötzlich ist der ursprüngliche Grund vollkommen nebensächlich. Selbstverständlich spielt Alkohol auch eine wichtige Rolle. Eigentlich sollte ich einem koreanischen Fernsehsender vorschlagen, einfach unsere Gemeinschaft mit Kameras zu folgen…, das wäre die ultimative Adoptierten-Reality-Show, na?

Wir bereiten eine Petition vor, um bessere Unterstützung von der koreanischen Regierung für G.O.A. ‘L zu erhalten. Es ist lächerlich, wie in der Vergangenheit G.O.A. ‘L von Unterstützung ausgeschlossen worden ist, gerade aus dem Grund, weil es von erwachsenen Adoptierten unterhalten wird. Besonders da G.O.A. ‘L Adoptierte hier in Korea repräsentiert, sollte es von der Regierung unterstützt werden. Ich schätze, dass es noch die alte Mentalität ist, die zu dieser Situation führt. Auf jeden Fall hoffen wir, dass wir all Eure Unterschriften erhalten können. Beginn ist im April. :-)

Wenn ich genügend Zeit in Europa habe, aktualisiere ich meinen BLOG. Und achtet auf die Fotos in der Photogallery. Mein Lieblingsfoto von letzter Woche ist dasjenige mit R.S. im Catchlight. Ich benutzte meinen Canon Powershot G3 im manuellen Arbeitsmodus (Belichtung 2s mit einem Vor-Blitz).

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Masks

December 12th, 2005

it took me years to realize how many masks i once wore, how many i used at that time. it took me years to realize that all the hurt, the anger, the fears won’t subside behind the masks. i had to discover all the masks and had to get rid of them one by one before i realized what life might actually be. but i still don’t know what life is. how many more masks are there? is life itself a mask? what if i take off one mask too many?

my hurt, my anger, my fears have receded but will never totally disappear. the shadows of the past will always loom in the background.

Posted in Adoption, Daily | No Comments »

Public Hearing at National Assembly

December 12th, 2005

G.O.A.’L invites you to:

National Assembly Seminar for Policy making:
Why should we discontinue overseas adoption out of Korea? What are the realistic obstacles in accomplishing this?

Organizer: Congresswoman Jang, Hyang-sook
Date: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 – 10:00 a.m.
Place: National Assembly Memorial Hall, 1F. Grand Seminar Room (http://memorial.assembly.go.kr/)

Schedule:

Part I. 10 a.m – 10:30 a.m.
Opening Address: Chang, Hyang-sook (Congresswoman)
Welcoming Address: Kim, Deuk-kyu, Kim, Choon-jin (Congressmen)
Introduction of Guests

Part II. 10:30 a.m -12:30 a.m.
Moderator: Kim, Do-hyun (KoRoot)
Interpreter: Han, Ji-sun (G.O.A.’L Volunteer)

Speakers:
Boonyoung Han (Danish Adoptee) – “My own experience in Korea and Opinion about International adoption policy”
Jae Kauffman (American Adoptee, ASK member) – “Moving away from overseas adoption towards domestic solutions”

Discussants:
Hong, Seung-joon (Representative of Anti Baby Export Civil Movements)
Shin, Young-chul (Director, Department of Children and Population Policies, Ministry of Health and Welfare)
Yang, Seung-joo (Director, Department of Family Policies, Ministry of Gender Equality and Family)
Kim, Don-young (Manager, Department of International Cooperation, Holt Childrens’ Services, Inc. )

Part III. Further Discussion with Audiences. (12:30- 13:00)

Purpose

For the last 40 years, South Korea has lived with the stigma as a child-exporting nation, is still sending many of its children overseas for adoption. South Korea is the only OECD country that keeps sending children for overseas adoption. Even though South Korea’s Gross National Income per capita is more than US$12,000, its level in terms of adoption and social welfare issues is actually same as those nations with a GNI per capita of US$3,000.

There were 13,857 South Korea children adopted between 2002 and the early half of 2005. Among them, 8,204 children were sent for adoption internationally, comprising 59% of the total number of adoptions.

During the annual Inspection of Governmental offices by the National Assembly this year, many congressmen made inquiries on current adoption policies. Kim Geun Tae, the Minister of Health and Welfare, answered that overseas adoption will be banned in the near future.

With regards to these facts, we would like to raise awareness on the reasons why South Korea should stop overseas adoption, and to find out what difficulties exists in the process to implement this policy by discussing this topic with specialists and the people in-charge of making these decisions.

Posted in Adoption, English | No Comments »

ruminations

September 21st, 2005

the daughter of a nameless womb
contemplates the choices invisible women make
to walk among those with names and families,
money and dicks.

her reflection mirrors her existence in subway windows,
ghostly and detached, floating amidst images without mass,
crammed together in the belly of steel dragons,
tunneling through the underground darkness
towards random destinations in the forbidden land
of her unscrupulous past.
families surround her, mothers and daughters, mothers and sons,
fathers and daughters, fathers and sons,
threesomes and foursomes of nuclear envoys
on their way to homes and churches, schools and shopping centers.
holding hands, smiling, laughing, whining, scolding, loving, hating,
torturing each other in a way only those bound by nature endure.
oblivious to the breaths shared with the nearby specters of genetic kin.

a proud grandmother transports her progeny
swaddled against her elderly body despite her age,
her hunched back, her bowl-legged legs,
caring only that her son’s name lives on.
that he finds immortality through a myriad of proper descendants
and that their combined posterity be pure of public sins.
her wrinkled face, haggard yet harboring hope,
locks truth behind honor, locks birthright behind social mores,
locks broken families behind saved faces,
locks bastard children behind history revised.
locks progress behind 5000 years of expendable women.

the motherless daughter, the unclaimed seed, the superfluous heir,
roams through a world where she is simply a memory repressed,
hazy and non-descript, searching for scraps of information
to prove her birth transpired. to prove her arms and legs,
her hands and feet, her breasts and womb, her voice and heart,
are all concrete, are all relevant, are all real.

a child of no mother and no father knows her bounds.
life has taught her that love is finite. place is not assured.
there is a brokenness about her that is beyond repair
no matter how well she adjusts to life in the arms of others.
at her core lies a void thirsting
for something more than friends, more than lovers,
more than bonds secured by law, more than shackles by paper,
more than deeds to her nameless body paid for by the vanity of foreign faces.
a longing that pierces, that absorbs, that overwhelms.
a connection severed seconds after her first breath
to preserve the façade of a perfect society,
a perfect family, a perfect line…

in solitude she considers her fate and her future.
she resists the myth that love transcends time and circumstance.
she constructs walls around the little girl inside her who still
screams for her mother – a name she may never know.
she lives the lie that children fear…
the hollow identity of being disposable, of being disposed.

like mother. like daughter.
two women live parallel lives in separate worlds
trapped by the secrets they must keep
and the truth they cannot share.
invisible. anonymous. expendable. chastised. alone.
ironic for all the sacrifices made.

~ nabiya

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Family found – and then?

August 22nd, 2005

How many of you out there wonder what happens once you find your family? Of course the chances of finding depends on the circumstances of every single case. Were you abandoned, relinquished, how much information did the parents leave? But here I’m talking about things that happen after a reunion.

A reunion with the birthparents can be very joyful, sorrowful, happy, ugly… but instead of just trying to generalize I rather tell you from my personal experience.

I started to search back in 1984 and did that out of respect for my adoptive parents secretely. I know that our adoptive parents wished to adopt orphans so that they wouldn’t have anyone else to fear. Unfortunately for them we were not orphans (my brother got adopted together with me) but that’s a fact I discovered only 10 years later when actually meeting our birthmother.

The search and reunion was a short story after all. Through a newspaper article in the Chosun Ilbo on August 16, 1994 I was reunited with our family. Our birthmother remarried though and had two more daughters and one son.

The first time after meeting them I was in shock. I can’t describe any feelings during that time, all was numb and even back in Switzerland the only time I had feelings was when I told our adoptive parents about what I had found in Korea and that I actually travelled to Korea which they didn’t know either at that time. For our adoptive mother it was a very harsh blow. She felt threatened by the sudden “competition” from far east, as she put it. I felt kind of torn in between my adoptive parents and our birthfamily. It took me not much time though to wish to go back to Korea in order to get to know our family better.

So I packed my stuff and went one year later to Korea and enrolled at the Yonsei Korean Language Institute. I managed to go straight to level 2 so all the Korean lessons I had previously since 1984 paid off…

Yet the communication with our birthfamily was still difficult and I had the feeling that our birthmother still had some dark secrets in her closet. Every time I went to see her I was completely frustrated at the lack of communication. I wanted to tell her so much of my life in Switzerland, about my life in the U.S.A., about what happened to me and about my hopes and wishes.

At that time I thought all she wanted was to see my brother who is older than me. She always mentioned him and almost the only thing she told me was to get married and to have children. The latter she still mentions although she probably has given up on me…

It was kind of difficult to understand as to why my older brother was so much more important to her than I was. The first born son is the one who takes care of the parents. That’s the tradition here in Korea and our mother longed so much for our older brother, to see him, to actually touch him. But he hasn’t travelled to Korea yet. And I doubt that he will. Anyway… for me it was also kind of difficult to get along with the stepfather here in Korea. Everytime I couldn’t phrase what I felt, what I wanted to tell them, I felt such a frustration that I ran out into the rain and to the next phone booth. Fortunately my friend T. was also in Korea and he usually visited his mother in Pusan. So we called so many times and I got rid of so many things off my breast. I was so happy to have him here and was able to talk to him. And I also envied him so much for his strong connection he had to his mother. I don’t have any memories whatsoever from Korea although I got adopted at age 5. That’s why I couldn’t recognize our mother at all. It made it also more difficult to kind of bond with her.

There were about 2 years of hardship in Switzerland during which I didn’t call or write our birthfamily at all. The family was very upset about that but I just needed that at that time. I felt that everything had come too soon and I just needed time to digest all the experiences and also to work on some of the issues before I could continue a relationship with our family. At the same time the relationship to our adoptive parents was also one thing we had to work on.

I had to make clear to our family that I just needed more time, more space and distance because the relationship was so important to me. Furthermore with all the Korean traditions and customs it is sometimes also not easy, to get together with a Korean family when you were educated in a western society. There were so many misunderstandings due to cultural differences and there will still be as usually Koreans have no idea that other concepts than the Korean one exist in this world. I don’t blame our mother on her ignorance. But I blame the Korean society for being unable to take responsibility for their own children, for relying on a practice that came from abroad.

Being an adoptee is not an easy thing. Sometimes I wonder how much Koreans understand of what adoptees go through just to meet their family. How much I had to suffer to actually see them from person to person. To be able to hug her, touch her. She’s there now, she’s not a ghost in my closet any longer.

There will be thousands and more stories of this kind as there are so many adoptees out there who come back to Korea, to search for their roots, for their families. There will be good stories to hear, bad ones. I wish all adoptees a good future and hopefully a good reunion with a good relationship afterwards.

I still mourn my friends who left me because they couldn’t stand life. I wish you were here today.

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G.O.A.’L’s 6th Conference

August 11th, 2005

If you’re still indecisive as to attend the conference or not… here’s the list of our workshops…

Workshop & Presentation Descriptions

Friday, August 19, 2005

International Adoption Between Coloniality and Modernity

Presenter: Tobias Hubinette

This paper looks at international adoption from a different perspective, conceptualized as a trade and trafficking in children taking place between the twin projects of coloniality and modernity. International adoption will be put in relation to a particular Western mode of adopting children, compared to other previous and contemporary child and forced migrations of non-white populations on a global level, and set within the history of European colonial empires and within the context of the emergence of American world dominance after World War II. International adoption will also be connected to Korea’s brutal modernization process, and seen as a regulating and disciplining method of social control and biological purification, to control women’s bodies and reproduction and cleanse the country of impure and disposable outcasts in the name of developmentalist thinking, social engineering and eugenics.

Learning Korean and other University Programs: What Opportunities are Available

Moderator: Jonathan Wright
Speakers: Mr. Hyun Yong Cho, Kyunghee University
Ms. Hyung Jung Kim, Sogang University
Mr. Chang Ryong Kim, Inje University
TBA – Ewha University
TBA – Geumgang University

Representatives from various universities that currently offer language and advance study opportunities to adoptees through scholarships will talk about their specific programs and how their efforts are helping the adoptee community. Learn about how to apply for the various programs and decide which ones best fit your needs.

Two Life Stories: Between Home for Children and Adoption

Moderator: Mirim Kim
Speakers: Hong Il Kim, Cody Winter

Two men share their life stories beginning with childhoods in orphanages. One was adopted to the US and later returned to Korea as an adult. The other has remained in Korea, but had two younger siblings that were sent abroad for international adoption. Both have remarkable stories to share including current jobs, citizenship status, and birth family search.

Worldwide Adoptee Organizing

Moderator: Jane Jeong Trenka
Speakers: Ami Nafzger, G.O.A.’L founder & former Secretary General
Sunny Jo, Korean @doptees Worldwide
Mee Hyun Gerstein, AKA-NY

Learn about the efforts that three ambitious and dedicated women are making outside of Korea in the international Korean adoption community. From online adoptee networking groups to initiating cooperative projects with other international adoption communities, to publishing directories and creating new organizations, come listen to these women share their knowledge and experiences.

Korean TV Reunion Shows

Moderator: Nicole Sheppard
Speakers: Achim Madang (KBS) – Ms. Kyung Mi Go, Mr. Kun Park
Happy Sunday (KBS) – Ms. Eun Joo Lee, Ms. Jee Young
Just Once (MBC) – Ms. Soo Jee Kim
Letters to Mother (YTN) – TBA

Over the past decade overseas Korean adoptees have been featured on many different Korean television programs including regularly broadcasted shows and special documentaries. Representatives from KBS, MBC, and YTN will talk frankly about their respective programs, past reunions and how adoptees are selected to be on their shows.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Why International Adoption is Political

Presenters: Tammy Chu, Sarah Dankert, Jae Kauffman

In the past, a large part of the dialogue concerning international adoption has been centered around the emotional effects of the adoption experience and the personal stories of adoptees. At the same time, adoption agencies and many adoptee groups have tended to focus upon strengthening post-adoption services for adoptees and their families. While certainly valuable, what’s missing from this discourse is the question of why international adoption from Korea has continued, along with an examination of the root causes of international adoption from this country. What are the conditions within Korea that have continued to perpetuate the adoption industry?

This presentation will focus Korea’s existing social welfare system, support for single mothers/families, domestic adoption and other alternatives, adoption agencies, and international policies affecting adoption to show that adoption, is indeed, a political issue. A short documentary film will be shown followed by a brief Question and Answer session.

ASK (Adoptee Solidarity Korea) is a politically active adoptee organization based in Seoul, Korea, whose mission is to raise awareness of the systematic problems of inter-country adoption out of Korea and the socio-political solutions that are necessary to bring it to an end.

Adoptee Service Organizations in Korea

Moderator: Ben Hauser
Speakers: Ms. Mee Jung Park, GAIPS
Ms. EunYung Fairbanks, IECEF
Ms. Aie Ree Jung, InKAS
Pastor Do Hyun Kim, KoRoot

Various adoptee service organizations in addition to G.O.A.’L have opened their doors to adoptees returning to Korea from overseas. From birth family search assistance to comfortable affordable accommodations, post-adoption counseling programs to insurance assistance, learn more about what each organization has to offer and how they are supporting the growing adoptee community in their efforts to become reacquainted with their birth country.

Relationships: Dating and Marrying Koreans

Moderator: Cory Tomcek
Speakers: Tim Butler & Jeong-hee Lim
John Hamrin & Seung Joo Lee
Ken Ohlen

As the number of overseas adoptees returning to Korea increases, so does the number of adoptees who decide to permanently reside in Korea. Adoptees who have experience dating native Koreans will share these experiences including some that have resulted in marriages. Spouses will also join in the dialogue and each will describe how their separate cultures have shaped their current lives.

Not Just Another English Teacher

Moderator: Sarah Randolph
Speakers: Don Roelofs, Shilla Travel
Mike Stensen, US Embassy
Just Han Pereboom, LG Philips LCD

We all know that many adoptees returning to Korea can usually find a job teaching English in some capacity as a private tutor or as a language institute instructor. However, finding employment in other sectors can be a bit more challenging. Listen to how these adoptees have secured non-teaching jobs and describe in detail what their work entails.

Representations of International Adoption and Overseas Adoptees in Korean Media and Popular Culture

Speakers: Tobias Hubinette, Su-yoon Ko and Jenny Na

This panel will examine the development of the Korean adoption issue, namely how international adoption and overseas adoptees have been imagined and represented throughout the years in
Korean media and popular culture. With a history stretching back to well over half a century, international adoption and adopted Koreans have naturally surfaced now and then in the Korean media. However, the massive international adoption of Korean children was for many years silently taking place in the shadow of Korea’s rapid transformation from a war-torn and poverty-stricken country to a formidable success story in the postcolonial world. It was not until the beginning of the 1970s that the adoption issue for the first time came to be treated and discussed as a distinctive and independent subject in itself. Ever since then the adoption issue has been haunting Korea, the #1 country in the world having sent away the largest number of its citizens for international adoption in modern history. Except for portrayals and depictions of adoption and adoptees in Korean media, the panel will give special attention to the appearance of adopted Koreans in popular cultural genres like television dramas and soap operas, cartoon and comic strips, plays and musicals, and popular songs and feature films.

Successful Reunions: Adoptees Reunited with Birth Families

Moderator: Mee Hyun Gerstein
Speakers: Yun Jin Carson, Sarah Dankert, Todd Heckert, Sarah Randolph

Adoptees that have successfully located and have been reunited with their respective birth families will share their stories. Come learn about their search stories, the reunion and post-reunion relationships.

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