I’d like to add that I have come to decide that Myung-Sook is right. I’ve just been in denial all this time, feeling that I needed to discount that abandonment was part of Korean culture in order to continue fighting. However, the sick thing is that it really does permeate everything here.
I do believe it is a new phenomenon, post-war, and that it was jettisoned into the Korean psyche by the self-promoted cult of Holt.
Did you know that Bertha Holt received a STATE HONORED FUNERAL when she died? Probably why Molly walks around wearing hanbok…so a little canonization dust will guaranteed decorate her path wherever she goes. Koreans who helped Holt give away Korean children and who continue to help give away Korean children speak about their involvement with this process with pride. I set them straight whenever I meet one.
And, as I found out with my class of highly educated and thoughtful Korean teacher conversation class, send the baby away is the defacto response to even the most compelling story of mother and child in hard circumstances. SICK.
I, too, have been horribly disturbed by the prevalence of this topic in film. So disturbed I took to entering into a spread-sheet every film I watched on MySoju.com, and also that has mentioned adoption on Soompi.com. The list is too huge…and I don’t watch Korean movies or dramas much.
I am convinced that the whole revisiting of this pain validates their conviction that they are the most suffering people on the planet. I am so sick of Han…
But, what Myung-Sook showed me is that even though this is part of contemporary Korean culture now, it doesn’t mean it’s good, right, or can’t be changed.
Fortunately, Korea IS adopting the Hague Convention and that means legislation will soon follow to at the very least protect the identities of Korean children. About freaking time…
So, I will clarify my position. I like most Korean people individually. I hate the Korean collective. I like traditional Korean culture. And I hate, hate, hate this post colonial culture of capitalizing on being exploited by imperialists in order to support an easier path to self promotion through the abandonment of women by the expulsion of their children.
Hello Korea ! 
Abandonment is not part of Korean culture however abandonment is a byproduct of a Korean culture.
Culture is the set of customs, traditions; shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices; intellectual, artistic and religious manifestations which characterize a group of people.
Culture is difficult to change — if not difficult to change it, that’s because it’s not a culture — but it is possible to change it.
Once it’s accepted that a part of a culture is bad, the best way to get rid of it or change it is by making law.
For example, the food binding in China was a custom practised for about one thousand years, but it was made illegal at the end of half 20th century.
If it was possible for Chinese to eliminate that undesirable
part of Chinese culturebyproduct of Chinese culture that lasted one thousand years, then Koreans should also be able eliminate that byproduct of Korean culture(thanks to their abandonees)…I hope so.
“Fortunately, Korea IS adopting the Hague Convention and that means legislation will soon follow to at the very least protect the identities of Korean children.”
Other than protecting the identities of Korean children, what are the differences that the Hague Convetion will bring?
A country that doesn’t import, nor export children doesn’t need the Hague Convention.
So what’s the use the Convention for Korea now, if they planned to end IA in 2012, unless they want to start adopting children of other countries or want to keep sending their children after 2012 and forever?
Or is did they adopt the Hague Convention only for the two remaining years, such that they won’t be allowed to put a quota to IA and they will be able to send as much children as they want to?
You’re right, the Hague Convention does nothing to end International adoption. It’s a step in the right direction, though, to at least recognize that children have the right to have their identity protected.
The protecting of identity will help domestic Korean adoptees (whose identities are totally obliterated and they don’t even know they were adopted) and children caught between two parents in custody thefts. (a pressing issue with all the immigrant marriages, children, and divorces happening right now and crossing international borders)
It also may help us already adopted people get our freaking records, since an independent third party is supposed to handle that because of the conflict of interest.
But it doesn’t end International Adoption and it doesn’t force Korea to keep its word. I guess they like being the #1 exporting country for infants.