I think the following poem should be required reading by anyone considering international adoption, and it’s a fine companion piece to John Raible’s spoken-word piece on transracial adoption, Better Off, Better Smile.  It was written by my KAD sister, Myung-Sook, from her unapologetic and profoundly heartwrenching blog, Holt Adoption Product.

It was Myung-Sook who heard my small scared voice three years ago and comforted me, and it is Myung-Sook who holds my hand today when I am frightened or alone.  If I hold your hand too, it is because of her.

Please read her blog, but as an intro, please enjoy this poem presented in the same manner she did and be sure to start the music while you are reading. (each line of the poem corresponds with a phrase in the song, so that will help with the pacing of the accompanying music)

당신은 사랑받기위해 태어난 사람 means
You were born to be abandoned,
because 사랑해요 means I love you.

You were born to be abandoned
Because you were born to a wrong father
You were born to be rejected
Because 사랑해요 means I love you

Do not worry
There is a married woman whose womb has been closed by God; her name is Hannah.
Hannah has great faith in God and she is praying hard to have a child

You were born to be abandoned
Because your were born to a poor parent
You were born to be tagged with a price
Because you were born in a poor country

Do not worry
Hannah lives in a rich country.
And she’ll pay any price to have a child

You were born to be abandoned
Because you were born to a sinner
You were born to be sold
Because you were born in Korea

Do not worry
There is man who heard Hannah’s prayer; his name is Eli
Eli will fix your mother’s mistakes in the name of Jesus

You were born to be abandoned
Because God placed you in the wrong womb
You were born to be shipped off to strangers
Because you were born in the wrong country

Do not worry
The followers of Jesus will fix God’s mistakes.
And the followers of Confucius will send you off with an escort

Be grateful that you are not useless
Hannah’s is happy now, because of your existence in this world.
Followers of Jesus made huge sum of money, because of your existence in this world.
And the followers of Confucius will be happy, the day you’ll visit your birth country to spend your money.

당신은 사랑받기위해 태어난 사람…

The Contemporary Christian use of adoption for personal gain obliterates the fact that we international adoptees are a product of social injustice, and both Myung-Sook and John Raibel’s pieces give voice to the children who were silenced during this process.  International adoption capitalizes on social injustice and benefits from its continuation:  it is no charitable act.

…for now…until the next one…

And good thing, too, as all life comes to a standstill as I sweat it out.

Woke this morning at 4 a.m. with the word grieving on the tip of my mind and realized the past few days of hitting the pathos button was all about grieving.  (the obvious always escapes me)

After the boy abandoned me, and each of my friends, one after another walked away, (perplexed by my love for him and the mistrust / disconnect / negativity I have with people at large and their anger at me because I wasn’t opening myself up to their mundane and simple-minded analysis, and for questioning my coping mechanisms – each of which is pretty precious under the circumstances, I should add.)  I found myself forced to choose between checking out or therapy.

I told the therapist I needed grief counseling, and asked her how one goes about that.  She told me it was only through relationship that we can heal.

Great, I thought to myself.  I’m fucked.

Because she knew I didn’t appreciate psycho babble, she was very respectful and instead gave me source research material to read about the effects of early trauma on the brain and studies about negative feedback loops and post traumatic stress syndrome, etc.  She focused on all the empowering things I have done in my life and the empowering things I did not realize I did, such as not acknowledging Leanne as my new name.  She also catered to my intelligence by talking in a poetic manner about where we derive meaning from life.  She gave me a beautiful non self-help book to read, entitled, A General Theory of Love. Yes.  We need relationship to be human.  She was a lovely person.

Her specialty was incest survivors, but she never really understood what it was to be adopted and perpetually abandoned.  In regards to the boy, she told me that sometimes love isn’t enough, and I disagree.  I have to believe that love can conquer all or what is the point.   And she never really told me how to grieve.  And with my pocket book hemorrhaging and still in mourning, I said goodbye to her.  I needed three of her to deal with this huge pile of losses.

All these losses.

And I realized last week that I’ve lost two mothers, which I will be writing about on my other blog.

So I guess this is my process.  This is how I grieve.  I shunt the pain off onto the page and hit replay again and again and again until there are just no more tears left.  I guess the page is the closest approximation of an intimate relationship I have.

What I’ve done, by coming to Korea, is more than just handicap myself socially.  In this rarefied and isolated environment each and every one of those unattended losses is exacerbated and magnified, while more pile up.  Each loss is relived anew in the negative image I see in the vitality of every relationship, every mother tongue spoken, every esoteric unattainable cultural legacy, every mother with every child,  every couple holding hands, every…everything I see that I am not a part of;  that I am excluded from here or discriminated from.  There is no way to escape from negative thoughts here.  Because there just aren’t enough possibilities to balance them out.

I have one thing I can be thankful for, though, and that is that I am aware of what’s going on with me.  Because if I wasn’t, I’d be one of those KAD suicides that you don’t get to read about.

Does this mean I feel sorry for myself?  Not at all.  It means I am grieving.  It means I’m handicapped and frustrated and it’s all hidden and unacknowledged and I’m weary as Atlas.  But not sorry.

And today, freezing my ass off at this school, in so many ways, it means I’m really really pissed off.  I am so done with Korea.  And it’s nothing against Korea or its people.  It is that it no longer has anything to offer me.   Except its money.  And I resent that.

Thanksgiving dinner was great, yet also a reminder of what a social retard I am.

Some of this is in reality due to a generation gap, but I have always been awkward in social situations, behind in what’s current, my brain like molasses, my thoughts always out of sync with the conversation, and my tongue saying the wrong things.  I am reserved.  It is a reservation I remember since my very first year in America where I stood, hiding behind the legs of my adoptive father, whenever I found myself thrust into a new situation.  People might call this being shy, but I am not afraid to be judged:  it is more that I am observing how the rest of the entire planet manages to interact and how I can possibly fit into it.  It has always felt more like everything people-related is just insurmountable.

I’ve consciously spent my entire life trying to overcome this, but I’m always one step behind.  I missed every right of passage given by my North American culture:  prom, high school graduation, open house, a circle of friends, spring break, dorm life, youthful trends, pop culture, campus life, student travel, etc.  While others were learning to be part of society, I was working on not imploding, too busy picking up pieces, cleaning up messes.  A decade late beginning college, a decade late starting a career, working abroad like people two decades younger than myself, my company has mostly always been that much younger than myself.

Seeing my young expat friends interact, their witty banter, their intricate relationships, the commonalities they share, etc.  and putting myself out there as much as I can possibly muster, always reminds me how out of step I am, how many precious moments were lost;  only to find myself a middle-aged social virgin among a population who feel challenged here, despite having a conspicuous sub-culture and a Korea that caters to them.  And though I love that they will include awkward me, it is still bittersweet.  Especially those moments when I touch what could have been:  A moment of bonding in the kitchen, a moment where somebody wants me before I tell them I’m not just a little older but old enough to be their mom, a moment of alcohol fortified dancing where my dislocation with pop culture is rendered meaningless.  I can be peripheral to their world, but I can’t fully partake, because this is their time, their time to grow together.  For me, it is always:  oh, this (or that) looks fun!  I KNOW I could do that (current thing) if I could just get a little practice…  But the reality is I can’t, even if I want to badly.  This is not a mid life crisis:  I don’t want to recapture my youth.  I want a youth I never had.

The reality is that is the realm of youth, and my youth disappeared early.  For laughing out loud.  My adoptive mother would wistfully remind me how I would do that when I first came and watched cartoons.  And ever since has been a futile effort to be like that little girl lost and the youth that got arrested by these things done to me.   And don’t talk to me about not working hard enough or not finding the will.  It’s all I’ve done, fight to be joyful, passionate, and appreciative of this life.

********

At the train station tonight I want to be instantly home and rush to get one of the two taxis waiting before someone beats me to them.  I get in the car and say, si ti bil.   HUH?  Ok.  I’m not gonna touch that with a ten foot pole.  I fall back on what should be fool-proof.  I say, Nong Hyup Bank, jusayo. HUH?  Nong Hyup.  Bankuh. HUH?  Defeated, I bang my forehead on the seat back in front of me.  N o n g   H y u p   B a n k uh.  The guy looks at me blank, with no attempt to listen at all.  No attempt to try and eliminate the non-possibilities.  I can read his mind.  You piss ass excuse for a Korean who can’t even speak Korean.  Say it to me right. My forehead and the seat back  in front of me are one.  Never mind I say.

Trying not to hyperventilate, I quickly grab my bags and backpack and move on to the other taxi, where we go through the same routine.  This time I also think to get out my bank card and point to the bank’s logo and say, Nong Hyup!  Nong Hyup bank! and he just looks at me.  It’s like I’m in the Twilight Zone and every taxi driver is the same old guy.  They even look the same.  I point to the logo.  I try again, and again, and finally I just say That’s just great.  ok.  I’ll walk.

And I get out of that taxi, my fists clenched, and just stand there for I don’t know how long, and something just broke inside me and somewhere out of the very depths of my being came a long, loud, primal scream.  Out loud.  Just standing out there.  This crazy lone woman, screaming out loud.

People are wrong.  It did not make me feel better.

And I walked through the rice field, my mind only comforted by the thought of smoking a cigarette, and I wait for townspeople to pass by and disappear into the train station, and I sit under the 200 year old tree and smoke and wonder how the hell I am ever going to make it here.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve asked students to write something down, and a small chaos breaks out as people search for some writing implement and there are one or two who just fail at procuring one.   Um, and I’ve no idea if the six sleeping had pens or not…

At which point, incredulous, I ask the title of this post.

Even at the grim and studious Baekyoung, this would happen.  When the English Zone was built and I finally had my own classroom, I asked for a hundred pencils and a pencil sharpener and at first was denied because of the expense!  But I persisted, and somehow I got pencils, and it was wonderful – no more lame excuses from the students!

Here in Cheongpyeong’s English Lab/Zone there are the iconic dual-ended black and red combination test form markers.  Which I keep seeing my students pilfer…but which I don’t do anything about because, just like if I called 911 (119 here) I wouldn’t be able to do more than dial, I similarly know if I cause a commotion, nobody will feel any grief or anxiety but me.  But then I was really dismayed last month when, at the close of an evening conversation class, one of my favorite students lifted a marker and then tried to present a decoy by reminding me to not forget to lock the door…”Why,”  I thought, “so students like you don’t steal all the markers?” The pens are too fat for most work, so I think they just want them to mark on themselves, each other, the desks, etc.

Today my co-teacher and I walked to Alpha office supply to purchase some materials for the open class I should be working on right now.  Atypically, I included one competitive portion to the lesson plan and a prize was required.  I asked what would be an appropriate prize and expected stupid candy as the answer.  “Chocolate?” she said.  Of course.  Let’s make them do tricks for treats like dogs.  So much candy given out.  And these kids actually sometimes will only perform for candy, and then they’ll line up to collect.  So sad.  Not in my class, damn it.  So I belabored the topic again how we don’t really give prizes for just participating in what should just be part of being a student’s studies.  “How about pens?” I suggest.  (if I absolutely must give a prize, let it at least be something with more value than a five minute sugar high)  The co-teacher’s eyes get big.  She thinks it’s a good idea.  She explains how many kids don’t have pens.  “Really?  Are they that poor?” I ask.  She says no.  They don’t like to study.  They think if they don’t bring a pen, then they can’t study.

Six hours later, and I still can’t wrap my head around that.

Yes, Korea’s pressure cooker produces students outperforming the world on tests which Ivy league schools rely on.  But this is what is happening on the other end of that glory.  Unprecedented apathy, and an aversion to the joys of learning.

I ask her, aghast, “but aren’t the kids concerned at all about their futures?  What are they going to do for a living if they can’t even bring a writing implement to school?”

“Oh”  she said, “They have no idea and don’t think about that.”

Today I had the privilege of hearing Christy Namee Ericksen’s spoken word poem entitled, “What would Harry Holt Do?”

I need to find a way to contact her and get permission to share it or link to it or something, as everyone on the planet should hear it.

In the meantime, get thee to THURSDAYS which is a Korean adoptee poetry collective.

 

They’re awesome.  And I normally can’t relate to poems, but I feel these.

And they’re good.

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.