I haven’t had a shower in two days – I keep forgetting, when I get home, to leave the water running at a drip, and the pipes are frozen solid. It’s not something I’m accustomed to. One wouldn’t think that a four floor apartment building one would need to do these things. A single family home, maybe. But individual apartments? I have just enough water to make cha (tea) and brush my teeth afterward. Necessary because Korean tea (except green tea and barley) is incredibly sweetened, which I don’t like. But I do like it’s cinnamon aftertaste and how it has walnuts and pine nuts floating in it. Despite it being cold enough to freeze pipes, two fruit flies circle around my head, here because I forgot there were persimmon seeds in the sink strainer. Even in winter, one must keep their food waste in the freezer.
The days of avoiding work are falling into a routine. I come home, nap, check my email, it’s always about adoption, cut up a persimmon (the light, hard ones) or peel a mandarin orange, turn on the boob tube for sound/company, and spend time surfing, and it’s usually about adoption. Just when I’ve taken care of all those electronic loose ends and am ready to tackle some adoption-related work, the computer sounds like it is in its death throes. Sometimes, ten minutes after I’ve turned it on, it will race like a motorcycle being run through its gears, and it gets too hot to have on my lap. So I close it up and watch t.v. Sometimes I get sucked into a movie. The other day, it was Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, which was incredibly engaging, despite one or two really implausible scenes. Then I try again, starting all over again, email, more adoption, writing, about living here in adoption land, getting in the mood to do some adoption work, only to fear the computer will blow up. Adoption adoption adoption. I hate that it’s my only company. I wish it would go away. But there is nothing to replace it.
About this time I look at the clock and the whole evening has disappeared and I feel like a total waste of human life. And then I want a snack, but am already in my blanket sleeper (I keep the thermostat low to save on money and because the floor heating is too oppressive) and going to the store would net me nothing healthy to eat, if the store is even open, and it’s certainly not worth piling on the layers for the trip. I look for snacks, but of course I have none. Sometimes I make toast. It’s really frightening how long Korean bread lasts without going moldy. It must be 1 part preservative for every part flour. One time, I forgot and left some cooked lentils, covered, in a pan. It seems Korean mold is orange. A rusty, burnt orange color with a crust of white. I wonder what Korean sourdough bread would end up like. I remember Alaskan scrapple and wish I could have some. I remember home canned salmon and wonder if I’ll ever get to experience that again. I wonder if fermented soybean tastes different in Korea than other countries, as a result of cultures in the air that turn lentils orange and white.
I wonder if Kim Sook Ja has eaten scrapple. I remember I got a possible relative’s email. I’ve been so caught up in my adoption OCD that I totally forgot I need to email him and begin one of those, “you don’t know me, but…” letters. I want to do this right now, but the computer is laboring again.
*****
6:00 am. I wake up early because the faucet is running. I return to bed, thinking about my up-coming open class and how there is too much practice and not enough new lesson, about my up-coming teacher exchange at a friend’s all-girl school, about what I’d like to change about my presentation, and how I should add about having to write the “you don’t know me, but…” letter. I think about Steve Kalb telling me they had to protect Kim Sook Ja from me. I think about Oregon adoption law, which states only the adoption agencies can make contact and they must do it by phone. I wonder if that law was written about siblings trying to find each other and doubt it. I wonder how much Holt had a part in writing that law. I think about all the LIES Holt has told me over the years. How they had given me EVERYTHING. And then how, OOPS! I didn’t have everything, but what I didn’t have WASN’T IMPORTANT. I think about how that WASN’T IMPORTANT has affected the rest of my life. And I don’t even believe anything Holt has told me. I don’t believe they’ve called Kim Sook Ja, or if they did they didn’t tell her the whole story. And they don’t want to protect Kim Sook Ja. They want to protect themselves. From me. Because I’M PISSED. Because I believe Holt International was/has/is obstructing justice. My justice. A crime was committed against me, and the criminal holds all the cards. And if this crime isn’t against the law: it should be. I need to talk to a lawyer.
Hello Korea ! 
I can think of no more basic a human right than to know who the blazes you are!
Thanks.
Some days, some days I feel like I’ve been reduced to a caged animal. I hope all those that did this to me AND CONTINUE TO DO THIS TO ME burn in hell.
Just give me the truth so I can move on.
Correction: I totally was confusing my midwest with my northwest.
Alaskan sourdough is called Herman and Herman bread and Herman cake are awesome.
Wait, what? Steve Kalb is not being helpful? Seriously. I thought, as an adoptee, he was an ally.
First, Steve Kalb works for HOLT.
Second, any adoptee working for HOLT has their head up their arse.
Steve is really really gifted at double speak. A conversation with Steve is the nicest, friendliest snow job you’ll ever get. The guy should sell beachfront property in the desert. He sounds infinitely helpful, like a long lost old buddy, as he does his henchman duty, as he follows HOLT protocal which systematically stonewalls adoptee attempts at searching for their FULL histories.
Dealing with the Holt machine breaks down like this:
Holt International in Eugene does the minimum they are legally bound to do for adoptees in search. But boy, do they take credit for that minimum, making it sound like they’re bending over backward to help you out.
Finding kool-aid swigging adoptees who want the whole world to live their delusions to be their poster children success stories is the most obvious tool HOLT has to vindicate their baby acquisition the world over. At the front of their PR stands adoptee Susan Cox. At the helm is another newly appointed adoptee. But at the front line are caseworkers like Steve Kalb.
To be fair, Holt International isn’t half as blatantly evil as Holt Korea, which is on the defensive and in protectionist mode and obstructing justice whenever they possibly can. But Holt International, as I can quote Steve Kalb as saying, takes the position of “we have to defer to our partner in Korea.” Now if your “partner” is not forthright or forthcoming, or is rude and insensitive, and has a history of and continues to thwart adoptee access to their identities and history, then doesn’t allowing them to take the lead on these things make one complicit in their – what I would call – violation of basic civil rights? And excuse me, they don’t “have” to do anything. They CHOOSE to not FULLY and PROACTIVELY facilitate our searches and instead assist Holt Korea in their subterfuge because they’re still getting babies from their “partner.” Where the partner ends and Holt International begins is anybody’s guess. Particularly since one was born from the other…
And it’s not like any of these abuses against adoptees is a secret or anything. Just ask my friend Emily, who had to persist for two years, always being told she’d been given everything. It was only her tenacity that finally got her ELEVEN additional documents.
Steve travels to Korea and deals with these horrible people regularly. So I’m not convinced he is any adoptee’s ally. He’s thick like thieves…
The ONE TIME I emailed Steve in a personal manner and asked him whether or not this stuff bothered him, I got a registered letter from Holt International saying my emails were “not helpful” and that I should cease and desist. I consider this a scare tactic as the beginning of documentation set up to establish a legal case against me. Obviously, a person can’t hit too close to home with Steve, or he runs and tells mommy. (since I was communicating with him exclusively the last 3/4ths of my dealings with Holt International, it stands to reason that either HE started proceedings against me or someone he was reporting to decided it would be nifty to play hardball) I am also happy to publish all of my email correspondence with Holt (mostly to Steve Kalb) and anyone reading it would see nothing harassing about it – only reasonable requests and frustration escalated by Holt double-speak.
So I advise all adoptees to do as I have done and not allow Steve to speak to them on the phone – he’s that gifted. Everything should be in writing and documented. Because he’ll turn you around, send you away with warm feelings, and it won’t be until later that you wonder what happened and why did you make no progress? So I’d call that the opposite of helpful; the opposite of ally.
Only I’m wise to being manipulated. I can thank my adoptive dad for training me well to recognize that. They picked the wrong person to shine on and patronize. Where once Steve Kalb was an anonymous happy-go-lucky adoption angel, he is now revealed for the slimy (and probably deeply confused) individual he really is.
I guess I should thank him. Because help like that turned me from a naive and trusting typical adoptee gingerly and tentatively inquiring about that scary unknown thing called identity, to someone very very aware. So thank you, Steve, if you’re reading…thank you for a job well done.