I’m feeling a strange kind of pressure about the reunion.  Everybody wants to know what happened, how it went, etc.  But just like the documentary producer who filmed my Korean search for Kim Sook Ja was disappointed I didn’t deliver enough excitement or tears, I kind of feel the same way now:  disassociated.  Despite this, I think I’ve come a long way.  I’ve further to go, but I’m proud of how far I’ve come addressing difficult emotions in the past few years.  (for those who don’t know my story, you can read about it here) You don’t go through something like that and just skip through life, peppering your words with emoticons…

That’s why I really wanted someone else to document the whole journey.  Behind the scenes, pre-reunion, post reunion, all those little moments that say so much more, instead of me just verbally relaying everything, instead of stiff emotionally masked tight me.  And predominantly, what I mostly feel is anger that we were separated and shipped off and abused and the only evidence of our connection lay behind lock and key, collecting dust, denied the light of day.

Here’s two photos I have from the reunion:  it just didn’t feel appropriate to interrupt the conversation to take more.

I’d tell you more about her, but mostly she told me all about her life, and I don’t feel that’s my place to tell the whole world about her life or what her real name is.

Today I’m back in Korea.  I still haven’t put my things away, the apartment is a mess, and as soon as I got “home” I’ve been even more motivated to leave this place than ever before and spent half a day trying to figure out my exit strategy, watched six episodes of the newly discovered “work of art” in a row, and basically been decompressing by totally avoiding all my obligations.

The thing about this place is its clutter, in all ways.  It’s like the difference between dirt and earth.  Korea is dirty.  Washington state is earthy.  Korea is like living in a salvage yard, the remnants of human consumption spilling out over the mini fortress walls and collecting at their base:  the remnants of social oppression junking up everyone’s lives.  The photos of this place are all of the extant past or the shiny brand new, but the vast bulk of it that never makes it into print is this huge collection of waste.  It’s a landscape of things cast off.  I don’t belong here.  I belong on a barge, heading to a landfill.  For an environmentally sensitive person like me, the cacophony of paving textures, hangul signage, trashbags, and grime just makes me want to run for shelter.  And I do.  The shelter of my laptop.

Nothing has changed, not really.  Korea’s the same as when I left.  I still have anxiety the second I wake up until the moment sleep gives me relief.  The adoption industry is still an industry and nobody cares about the damage it does.  I think I’ve just got to embrace this frustration and do something positive with it.  I’ve spent the last several years letting everyone share this journey, seeking justice for myself and everyone that follows, so its already been positive, at my expense.  But maybe it’s time to stop trying to save the world and do something for myself for a change.

I am fortunate that there are many things I am good at, but I don’t want to just do what I can already do.  And I’ve spent my entire life compromising, and therefore sold myself out on what I really wanted to explore.  Even Architecture – I really wanted to major in Art, but my major had to be approved by social services and I knew they wouldn’t approve of Fine Art, since artists’ incomes are so tenuous – even Architecture was a hard sell.   I remember begging my parents in middle school to send me to another city for school.  I cut out newspaper articles about the school I wanted to go to, that studied Shakespeare and the kids were learning to weld sculptures and paint with oils.  They said no, because they were helping my brothers with college.  There was no talk of me going to college.  I knew they wouldn’t support me majoring in something frivolous like art..they penalized me for leaving home at 17 and was forever on my own after that.  My first Architecture job I was hired on the strength of my drawings, and for 15 years I was never allowed to draw again.

My daughter prodded me into thinking about coming back to the U.S. and going to school, only all the majors we looked at had to do with saving the world again or maximizing income outlook over tuition, which is what I’ve always done and it just equals constant dissatisfaction.  I just don’t think I can handle micro-economics and statistics and political science classes, etc., in order to get the opportunity to make decisions to help people, or put energy into being a technician in some repetitive task in a sterile environment, either, just for job security.  When what I really want to do is learn some skills to express myself.  Yes, I want to indulge in my own art therapy.  So we’ll see.  I have at least another year to think about it, think about what I want to be when I grow up, now that four decades of arrested development can be buttoned up.  I want to begin again.  Or rather, begin for the first time, even if my hair is white and I’m too old to wait tables.  I can’t wait for the next life.  I only have this one life to live.

I still feel robbed.  You can never undo abandonment, or replace innocence, or reclaim a lost childhood.  You can seek justice, but since all my protests are just one dandelion seed in the whole planet, and I have tried with a lion heart and gotten nowhere, I need to get the rage out of me and find something to give me peace.

So maybe it’s good there’s no work in my profession, and that I’ve had all this grief and incredible, unenviable experiences.  Maybe I needed to come to this alien country and be rejected like a splinter to get to this point where I can think about finally doing something I want to do.  Maybe finding Kim Sook Ja gave me permission to do that.  I only hope these cold shaky hands and failing eyes are up to the task after so many decades without use.

5 a.m. and just getting to bed – only this time it’s because after the long trek from Eastern Washington to my daughter’s house, we watched the movie, Children of Men, and then I had to blog about the reunion a bit.

Kim Sook Ja is a petite woman, merely four inches taller than freakishly short me, salt of the earth, warm, and sweet.  She talks a blue streak and has a great sense of humor. We had a lot of laughs together! She really was excited to meet and we spent a good five hours together, comparing lives, pouring over her documents, reviewing the documentary about searching for her, and meeting two of her children. Hearing about her adoption experience, which is a lot like many, if not most, of us older Korean adoptees – difficult – it made me feel a great solidarity with her.

There are some uncanny similarities in our stories, down to both of us leaving home at the same time, both of us having children very young, both of us being in cosmetology school at the same time, both of us – well, those are personal – too many to list.

We look less alike than I thought, though that’s not always an indicator with siblings. She’s very interested in DNA testing and staying in contact. She feels the same as I do, that even if it turns up negative, we are still family.  She is not against media attention.

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Photo later, after I get home in two days (where my cable to upload is).

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It turns out that two years ago when I asked Holt to contact her, Holt said okay, and then rescinded their offer after they had reviewed my file, and then reversed themselves again after I went public with my story – they (as expected) did not tell her we were found on the same day at the same place by the same man…  They sent her a letter saying someone thought she was their sister, and to call them. Then they told her not to get her hopes up, because it was not probable. They asked if she was interested in contact, and she told them she was VERY INTERESTED and how about TODAY? To which they told her that it didn’t work like that, that it was a process, and they told her to call back later.  She called back later and reached the wrong Steve, and then put aside calling again, as she was in the middle of her own things she had to deal with.

Contrast this with Holt telling me only that they had spoken with her and left it up to her to decide.  They told me –  since she didn’t call back, that probably meant she didn’t want contact.

Just a few minor (cough) omissions to both of us – no harm no foul – which would be the case if I hadn’t persisted and actually found her, independent of the adoption agency.  (so much for post adoption services)  This is how it works;  what I’ve encountered every step of the way: stonewalling and half-truths.

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In answer to the last comment I removed, THIS is the kind of rotten crap that keeps me up at night, makes my chest tight.  It is NOT feeling sorry for myself.  It is flat out injustice that I have a right to be outraged over.  If I were sorry for myself, I’d have an entirely different response than laying awake frustrated.

The things that keep me awake at night should keep anyone HUMAN up.  The things that keep me awake at night are violations no living person should have to put up with.  So if you think being angry about being sent to another country involuntarily to strangers who abuse you is whining, or that the possibility of being separated from a sibling shouldn’t be exhausted thoroughly, and then having your efforts to find out the truth frustrated isn’t rotten, or that people cheating and lying and stealing from you should just be swallowed silently, and that anytime an injustice is done one should just read the paper about the latest senseless random act of violence and dismiss anything less as drivel, then I can say that I am HAPPY to not be you or to have your perspective.

ETA:  Positive thinking is often the flip side of denial, and denial doesn’t change anything.  Righteous anger, focused on progress does.  This is  called positive action, and the first active step is wiping out denial.

It is only through talking about these violations and giving our narratives about what being violated does to us  – and we don’t do this to ourselves – that consciousness is raised so we may set things right for those that follow.  It is time to stop blaming the victim for not dealing with their trauma in the tidy manner the victimizers would like.  Telling us to take it on the chin and act like everything is okay is NOT strength or positive action, but is intimidation and perpetuation of abuse.  I refuse to be a party to my own subjugation.

It is only through hope and determination that I could/can persist despite everything against me.  There would be no reunion with Kim Sook Ja without it.

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Tomorrow get on the plane again.

Aside from getting to see my kids for the first time in two years, which was wonderful, I got to meet a living part of my history – I also ate a whole quart of blueberries this week and had authentic Mexican food.  I’m very happy today!

3:16 AM and I’m lying awake, chest tight, replaying all the times I’ve been victimized/helpless.

Like the time I’d paid extra rent every month to have my carpet removed so I could have hardwood floors and how they ripped off the baseboards and never replaced them, and when I moved out the new apartment manager was impressed how spotlessly I’d cleaned the place, but still I got a bill for his boyfriend’s labor for supposedly having to paint the walls and for new baseboards to replace the ones I supposedly removed. Or like the time a co-worker recommended a dentist and how I asked the receptionist if they took Blue Cross and they said yes, only to find out they weren’t a preferred provider and the check-ups for my family weren’t covered. I knew I couldn’t afford to go anyplace that wasn’t in my plan, was concerned when I saw how sumptuous his office was, and that’s why I asked them to begin with. After months of battle, I finally succumbed and wrote them a check. Which bounced. I was $4 short on accident because those three checkups and two cavities were never in my budget to begin with. The rich dentist sued me instead of running the check again, and I lost the case because my check bounced due to some precedent where this was done with no intent to pay. The check-ups for my family ended up costing about $2,000, after debt collection and lawyer’s fees. Everyone in the courtroom had been rooting for me and was silent and solemn after the verdict. The judge even felt bad and apologized, but there was no law protecting a poor person from lying professionals. Or like the time my welfare check got sent to the wrong address and I was accused of welfare fraud because someone else forged my name and cashed it. Or like the time I got a bill for six months of daycare because the subsidized care-giver my children had stayed with continued to bill the state six months after I’d ceased using her services. Or the time a bar tried to collect on bounced checks which my alcoholic husband had stolen from me and forged my signature. Or the time…I have many many more of these stories. WAY too many of these stories. I always fight these things, in the name of justice, but I know too well that justice is fickle and uncritical. Good thing I’m a pacifist, is all I can say.

Sometimes, I think some of us are just marked. It’s like that nursery rhyme where each day of the week describes a child. I am Wednesday’s child, have always been Wednesday’s child: full of woe. That’s the day set aside for orphans, if you didn’t know already. Did my mother realize what chain of events she would set in motion when she left me at the market? Did she know that I would cease to exist on that day, lose my identity and become girl 4708? That I came to America afraid to let anyone out of my sight, or that I guarded my food from thieves and ate every crumb? Could she have even imagined in a million years that white fathers made their yellow daughters bathe them? And call them concubine? At 4 years old? Or that, instead of becoming doctors and lawyers, and obtaining the best education, they instead run away from home and into any arms that don’t make them bathe them and call them my little concubine? That they bounce from job to job, dream to dream, and wander the earth, searching for someone to really love them?

I remember I owe M. an email. M. doesn’t just bounce from job to job: M. can’t hold a job. Her last email was long, rambling; made no sense. M. was homeless, couch-surfing, being exploited at every couch. She was being persecuted. What THEY were saying about her, it just wasn’t true. And on and on it went. I didn’t write back, because what can you say to comfort someone who’s apparently become schizophrenic? And who probably IS still being exploited? This is what happens to abused adoptees. M. was also marked. We were both marked as nice girls, vulnerable girls, candidates for manipulation. Such sweet, beautiful little Asian dolls we were. Only M’s daddy didn’t call her concubine – he called her little lying bitch. I felt so helpless, witnessing M. lose her mind. That’s what being an abused adoptee does to someone. They lose their minds, or self medicate, or unleash their rage on others and sit behind bars, or resist and get sent to special ranches, or act out and get put on Ritalin. I have talked to many abused Korean adoptees. It’s a dirty little secret, that even we can’t talk about to ourselves. Well, I can. I’m not sure it makes me feel any better. But maybe it’s kept me from M.’s fate. I love M. But I can’t help her. I can barely help myself.

These are the stories network news doesn’t want to hear. They don’t even want to hear about happy adoptee reunions and ESPECIALLY not reunions that were never supposed to take place because the separations were never supposed to see the light of day. Because they were hidden in some black cardboard ledgers in a major adoption agency’s file-room shelves. Because one person’s loss is another person’s brand new baby. Adoption is a wonderful thing. And can never be anything else. EVER. The black book, slammed shut, makes little noise.

Ever searching for the next new thing to move towards, and that thing always losing its luster, and becoming frantic because the time-frame between oscillations of this pattern get shorter and shorter, to the point that I can anticipate losing interest, rendering even trying not worth the energy, I still fix my sights on plan B and C and D, because I’m determined to challenge this mark I can’t wash off, so I don’t end up like M. I mention Africa as next train stop to my daughter, and she’s upset and worried. She knows it’s just a temporary interest, and that afterward I’ll still be in the same situation: running in place. She wants me to start over; maybe go back to school. I can’t see myself sustaining that, either. Interest isn’t the issue to her – my living in isolation is. But she doesn’t understand that this isolation is deeper than physical. This isolation is a place: a defunct market in Wonju, S. Korea, and it turned me into a number: 4708. It has a name, and its name is mother. The world’s biggest adoption agency whispered in her ear – Do it. She’ll have everything you can’t give her…

5:23 AM and I’m lying awake, chest tight, replaying all the times I’ve felt helpless/victimized by my adoption agency.

I am over 50% gray now. Actually, it’s pure white. It’s really quite lovely. The one pure thing about me. My hair grows 3/4 of an inch or more every month, requiring dying of roots every two weeks or less. There is a box of American hair dye sitting on the vanity, so I can look put-together for meeting Kim Sook Ja, as too much time has passed and my roots are exposed. I fear it won’t match my Korean hair dye. I fear I’ll be a two-toned mess. My video-camera only shoots in red.

It’s wonderful to not be in Korea. It’s wonderful to see cheap, healthy food I know what to do with. We’re talking TRADER JOE’s here. Just drinking in the sight of the aisles of food without Korean signage makes my heart jump with joy. It’s wonderful to have friendly chit-chat with the cashier. It’s wonderful to be able to understand what everyone is saying. And we went to Olympia’s Old School Pizza and I had a salad with artichokes in it, and pizza with sun dried tomatoes…and we watched movies and I ate fists-full of kettle corn. And for one meal my daughter made pasta and grated fresh parmesan cheese over it. Heaven.

It’s wonderful to be in free-standing houses not hidden behind solid masonry walls, shut behind gates, or soul-less apartment buildings filled with people who don’t talk to each other. It’s wonderful to see real woodwork and walk on carpet and see furnishings and household items that have unique character. It’s comforting to see some of my old belongings being used, that didn’t get liquidated in the move to Korea. It’s wonderful to see my daughter’s face and see her do things that are all my fault, and to see that yes, there is some continuity to llife, even my life, even if indirectly.

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Kim Sook Ja called about 10 pm! Says she’s been working crazy hours and it’s been the hoidays, and there is also the newborn grand-daughter to attend to. I am feeling silly for being insecure, but then again 9 days can do that to a person.

She has a Northwest accent! I have a mid-west accent. (I’m sooooo glad we both speak English!) Said it was good to finally hear my voice. I laughed and said, “Yes! We HAVE voices! We are more than texts and emails!”

So we meet on the 9th. Me, my two kids, my daughter’s boyfriend, and her and probably two of her three kids, their spouses, and two of her four grand-kids, both babies.

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Tomorrow we probably go to Seattle, and the following day to Kirkland/Redmond to stay with my son for a few days. Then back to Olympia because my daughter starts school. Then my son will join us and then we’ll head to Eastern Washington to meet Kim Sook Ja, and then back to Kirkland because my son starts school, and then back to Korea. The schedule is actually more complicated than that because of my daughter’s job and my daughter’s boyfriend has a friend also visiting from out of town.

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Everything’s going great now, except my first experience conquering jet-lag. So I must succumb to that, and I’ll keep you up-dated when I can.

The kind of person I am, you know, is to minimize anything big: to never allow myself to get excited over anything, because all one has to look forward to then is big disappointment. And I have known much disappointment in this life. And so I must be, have always been, a don’t-care-bear.

Returning to visit my children and being quite helplessly immobile and far from the few remaining friends I may have makes my visit less my own, yet I am also strangely thankful for it for the above expectation management reason: I don’t need to feel disappointment at things not being the same / relationships not weathering absence as well as I’d hoped. I’m not free to wander the city I’ve lived for two decades, and talk about how this has changed, or that has changed, and how it doesn’t feel the same. I’m not free to drop in on the boy and show him how my loss was his loss. I’m not free to waste one precious minute of this visit on anything but family, and that’s fitting, because people are shitty and they forsake and betray you.

I can concentrate instead on spending time with my children and relaxing with them. And yet, looming over my head is the frustration of this meeting with Kim Sook Ja. Frustrating because there’s been nothing but obstacles to this meeting, the greatest of which is Kim Sook Ja herself, as I haven’t heard from her in 3 days, then 6 days, now 9 days. And with each day that passes that I don’t hear from her, I start to realize how much I really do care. And that really disturbs me, because I feel impending doom on the other end of this hope and expectation. That disappointment is looming. It’s huge.

The day before I left, I was in a bookstore with a friend, picking out a present to give to Kim Sook Ja, and the English-speaking Korean proprietor started asking about Korean-looking me and about my lack of language skills. I explained how I couldn’t take classes due to my location in the country. “Why, you just need to find yourself a boyfriend!” he said. I told him that wasn’t easy in Korea at my age. Asking how old I was, he chuckled and told me I was only a 4th grader, and that there was still a chance for me. And that he was a 5th grader and he knew of 6th graders and 7th graders who spoke of finding new love in their twilight years, and how after the marriages and divorces are finished they hope to begin again. Ah, I told him, but they can at least speak the same language. He discounted that. “It’s like the paeres in Peter Fan,” he said, “You just gotta believe!”

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, on a bitter cold day in winter, two faceless, nameless, ageless little girls – tiny hands, almond eyes, jetblack hair, rosebud mouths – were found together and plucked out of a dirty marketplace, saved from ignorant barbarians and savages, catalogued, erased, cleaned up, and shipped to live separate lives of privilege with beautiful abusive white people. Four decades later, we see the face for the first time, we try to paint what has been erased, we try to remember being together, being brave and holding hands. We try to believe that we existed then and that the faceless, nameless, ageless girl #4709 once felt the reality of faceless, nameless, ageless girl #4708.

And so I wait. I lie on my daughter’s couch in the darkness, illuminated by her laptop, her phone by my side, waiting for Kim Sook Ja to call. And now that I have crossed the threshold of don’t-care-bear into the land of Peter Pan, I can only wait and hope and try to believe: believe that there are full circles and closure and ties that bind and love and goodness and rewards for effort and…

Don’t be afraid of me, Kim Sook Ja! Please don’t reject me. Say my name. Say my name.

Had to go retrieve my U.S. driver’s license today from the Ansan Driver Licensing, and it was my opportunity to try out the new high-speed train from Chuncheon that is now part of the subway system and replacing the Mugunwha train that’s been running for years and that Koreans are so nostalgic about.

There weren’t any new maps or train schedules at our train station, and Korail’s way-finding signage is always text-based and not as well coded as the regular subway system, so it’s initially confusing.

As always with Korail, they number by the sides of the platforms and use the names of the destinations in text to differentiate the routes, whereas the regular subway system uses the numbers to indicate the routes and are intuitively color-coded. It’s especially confusing because once you get to the platform you can’t tell which side to stand at, because each side of the platform says a stop that should be on the same route – still haven’t figured this out – maybe it’s just anticipating doubling the cars in the future? Because right now, the trains are only running down the middle, between the two platforms. But anyway, you get over the confusion of not knowing which side to stand at once the train appears. And it wasn’t just me – I watched Koreans who, of course, aren’t illiterate like I am, also confused.

Heading towards Seoul isn’t an issue, as there’s only one train possible to get onto, the one heading to SangBong. I’d heard rumors earlier that the train would go straight to Seoul Station, but that’s not true. You have to either transfer to Korail’s Jungang/Yongsan line or transfer to line 7;. But heading back from Seoul WAS an issue, because there are two lines to choose from.

They’ve split/staggered the stops up, to reduce travel time. So I got on the Maseok/Chuncheon train thinking – it’s heading to Chuncheon, so it must be the train I need since it’s going in the right direction. Wrong. Fortunately, at the Maseok stop I heard them say the next stop would be Gapyeong, and I realized it would be PASSING my town altogether. Also fortunately, it is possible to transfer at Maseok in case you also make this mistake. So I got off at Maseok, switched to the other platform, and took the Daesong-ri/Chuncheon train. Nowhere did I see an easily intelligible map showing how the stops were distributed among the two lines. I guess you just learn by experience. I was able to pick up new subway maps indicating the new line while at Sangbong, but it is represented as one line and indicates all stops; not differentiating how they are split up.

The trip is every bit as gorgeous as it always was – they’ve only cut a couple corners on the rails, and you can barely tell, though towards Seoul of course you see some different urban scenery as you head to meet the Jungang line. I do wish they had enclosed the train platforms, though, as it was only about ten degrees Fahrenheit today with a bitter wind, and because the route is split in two, the wait between trains is about twice as long as your typical subway wait.

But, altogether it’s a great change. Total travel time for me was about 40 minutes, down from about 55 minutes, and it gives you a couple more options for transfer that are deeper into the center of Seoul. Plus the Jungang follows the Han river, so it’s a little more pleasant on the eye. And, because the Jungang itself has always had less stops on it, I was able to make it to the driver licensing office in Ansan a good half hour earlier than would have been possible previously, and it runs about an hour and a half later, which means coming to Seoul is less rushed. And being able to use my T-money card and pay about half the fare I used to is pretty awesome as well.

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Had to take taxis to and from line 4 to get to the licensing office. The Gojan stop I took there cost 2,000 won less than the Ansan stop leaving.

So to get your Korean license you have to give them your foreign license and they hold it until you should leave the country, whereupon you can get it back. Since I only want my license for I.D. purposes and to drive temporarily while in the states, I wanted to see if they would just swap the two licenses and hold my Korean one in the same way, until I got back.

Well, this is kind of a complex thing to explain when you can’t speak Korean, so once again it was BBB Translation Service to the rescue! So here’s the p.s.a.: You can’t get your American license back unless you bring them your passport and your plane ticket! Great, I thought. I’ve just traveled three hours for nothing. But, thanks to the translator, we figured out that they have two computers for the public there, and the lady at the counter let me email her my e-ticket and a scan of my passport that she could print out. And – here’s the best part – Once you do that, you are finished: you now have two driver’s licenses, one for each country. So I’ve absolutely no idea why they make that rule that you have to leave your foreign license in hock when you can get it back and keep both.

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I can’t remember being so cold in my life. I had forgotten how your Toes feel double the size and are in pain. I am picturing them frostbitten, black with necrosis, and I know it can get ten degrees colder or more. Gotta stop watching the history channel, as there were some photos of frostbite of American G.I.’s during the Korean war. I’m not remembering being this cold last year. According to wikipedia, Chuncheon once had a low of -18 degrees Fahrenheit! I am learning to dress better. Commuting, if you over-dress, you can sweat and then freeze and then sweat, etc., so it’s counter-intuitive, but better to not over-insulate your torso, and instead keep your extremities warmer. Extra socks would be nice (must remember that) and legwarmers (must remember that, too!) and arm warmers or long half gloves. Also, mittens are better because your fingers warm each other. And if it’s really cold, then both. If your coat has a hood, it’s better to wrap your scarf around the outside of/including the hood, as if you don’t, the air finds its way past your neck and down your back and shoulders. And those surgical masks? I still haven’t bought one, but I’m thinking about it. It’s a great way to keep your nose warm without steaming up your glas’tses like a scarf over your nose will. And the hat. Not wearing one is just stupid. And long underware. Musn’t forget that.

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I never did dye my hair or drink that Guiness, so I think I have to do that before I figure out how little I can pack for my trip.

No word from Kim Sook Ja about the DNA testing suggestion. I’m sure she’s got a lot to process right now, and that’s just too big too soon.