It’s a national holiday here, so parents can actually spend time with their children.  It’s kind of like Christmas for the kids, as this is their major gift-receiving holiday.  My high school kids feel kind of jipped, however, as they already were getting the time off because they just got done with midterms, and because they stopped getting presents in middle school.

So today was made to celebrate and honor Korea’s progyny and future.  I guess this is the one time I wish I were volunteering at an orphanage, to let the kids there know somebody wants to celebrate and honor them too.

Speaking of charitable acts, Willie and I were talking about how nobody in Korea wears old clothes and we were wondering where they went, because a lot of children in third world countries could use these well-made, barely used clothing.  Anyway, I noticed in the vestibule at E-mart a drop-box for clothing donations, so that’s awesome for me, since damned if I’m going to attend one of those cult-like Korean churches…(the cult description is no joke – people literally hand over their lives and most of their money to a lot of these churches, and some of them have ideology that is WAY out there…

Next week is national adoption day.  I guess it was made to promote domestic adoption.  And as long as there is that quota of 1:1, then I am sure Holt and other International adoption agencies want it to go well.  What will it take, I wonder, for them to close up shop and go back to the west and stay the hell out of Korea?

It’s going to take Jane getting her degree in managing an NGO.  It’s going to take TRACK getting domestic and international laws re-written with the National Assembly.  It’s going to take OAK creating programs for unwed mothers.  It’s going to take the voice of all of us 500+ returning adoptees.

Maybe if the current unpopular president takes international adoption on, just like he took on importing American beef last year, then there will be rioting in the streets and demand for an end to it.  (there was a protest Saturday commemorating the one year anniversary of the beef protests, which shut down the Hi Seoul festival. While nobody here trusts American beef, the protests were more about the president’s close ties with the Bush administration)  Ack!  That’s just wishful thinking.