In clarification of my previous post, sign UP,  I thought I’d share this timely Facebook post by Jennifer Kwon Dobbs explaining the differences between single moms and unwed moms in Korea.  I knew this when I wrote my previous post, yet despite the differences I still think social acceptance of one softens the reception of the other eventually.  And the number of single moms is steadily growing here…

QUESTION: Why do the moms of KUMFA identify themselves as unwed? Doesn’t this identification risk entrenching discrimination against them for their unwed marital status? *** ANSWER: Since 2009, I’ve been a transnational ally to the unwed mothers of KUMFA with whom I’ve conducted research for a forthcoming book about their narratives. Moreover, I’ve reunited with my mother, who is unwed, and have personal insight into/experience with this issue. So speaking as an ally and as a daughter, let me share some observations. 1) Difference does not mean teleology. In other words, Korea is not *behind* western moms who no longer identify as unwed. Korea is not North America in the 1950s. Instead, the Korean situation has its own set of oppressions that require a localized intervention rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, which includes the same naming. Self-naming is a form of self-determination. 2) Before summer 2010, single mothers (hanbumo) differentiated themselves from unwed mothers (mihonmo) — a bracketing that might not make sense to foreigners. 12 years ago, the hanbumo, divorced and widowed mothers, organized the Single Mothers Association, which promoted single mother issues across Korea and lessened stigma against single moms receiving child custody after divorce. They’re now in solidarity with the KUMFA moms, but in the past, they discriminated against them. 3) Korean society’s stigma against unwed mothers is much stronger than against divorced or widowed mothers. To make oneself visible as unwed is to bring attention to this stigma in order to intervene in its dehumanizing consequences. The KUMFA moms are bravely identifying their real circumstances rather than pretending to be divorced or widowed even at great personal costs to themselves. Welfare support for hanbumo and mihonmo differs in Korea due to this stigma. For instance, the general stereotype for mihonmo is that she’s a teenage child giving birth to a child. Recently passed legislation intended to support unwed moms proceeds from this sense by giving education support to moms who are 25 years and younger; however, 3 out of 4 unwed mothers in institutional care are 25 years of age and older. If the moms took the U out of KUMFA, then they would not be able to advocate 100% against the oppressions harming their lives and to promote family difference, not discrimination.

In addition to support from single moms as allies, more and more unwed moms who don’t benefit from the limited assistance of the new programs and who clearly are mature and responsible will surely gain more audience as they become increasingly more organized.  I think this is a clever way for the government to restrict their budget instead of their recognition of the social stigmas, personally.  But there is still that stigma of turning anyone unmarried with children into a whore – even though it seems like everyone under 25 is sleeping around.

Editing has its privileges.  While reading one submission, I came across the following and stopped dead in my tracks:

I’ve spent my entire life running away from my past, and chasing something I could never fully grasp.  Whether it was a new girlfriend, a new circle of friends, a new car, or a new place to live, I never seemed satisfied with the things I had and was looking for something more.  In a way, I guess I was chasing happiness.  I kept thinking that happiness was right around the corner, and when I realized that it wasn’t, I continued my search again and again.  I recently read an article that said some people chase happiness while other people choose happiness.  It hasn’t been easy for me, but I’ve finally decided to choose happiness.

Jeremy Martin, Korean adoptee

If that doesn’t sum up four decades of my life, nothing does.  Thanks, Jeremy, for allowing me to quote that.

I’ve only had the privilege of reading four submissions so far, and will get deluged with submissions next week, yet in each one I recognize a little of myself.  This year I’ve also had the privilege of following my personal friend’s inside reunion stories, and they have been nothing short of tilting the axis of the earth, and for that I can only imagine being in that circumstance.

I tell myself that I would manage my expectations and control the situation by letting my “new” family know from the beginning that I am not/can not be the daughter they expect: that I have been forged by other people with different values from a foreign culture, that we will have to get to know one another slowly, and that relationship will not be easy so they should be realistic about their expectations too.  But that is not how it goes.  Typically, the discovery is a surprise, even after years of search it never happens as planned or hoped for.  And the pressure is huge and instantaneous to  be the child they always imagined would return to them: educated, successful, full of filial piety, ready to assume their station as if nothing amiss had happened.  For that is/was our duty.  We were always just on loan.  It was their sacrifice to make and they were the ones who suffered and finding us is supposed to be the end of their internal torture.  And like little children, they  lash out when it doesn’t happen like some fairy tale.  The returning child is supposed to fix their pain, and they don’t.  The returning adult adoptee faces their adult lives being erased and discounted in the effort to make them the same emotional age as when they left, and they often face rejection when this process is protested against.  (Jane was unusual in that she embraced being infantalized.  Most adoptees want to be acknowledged and loved as the adults they are) The unconditional love one hopes for suddenly seems very much conditional if one asserts ones maturity, and being forced to relive a second adolescence becomes impossibly complicated due to the barriers of a culture you can’t fully comprehend and barely accept, and a language in which with herculean effort nets you only the crudest levels of communication that lead to misunderstandings and possible rejection.

The Korean families can’t understand what it is to have lost your identity.  Nobody can, really, unless you’re one of the minority who have.

My friend Felecia turned to me, angry.  She said she couldn’t put her finger on it but something was wrong/missing in me and that she had issues too but at least she actively worked on them.  She viewed my not taking self-help measures as being irresponsible, and it pissed her off to see me in pain.  Well great, I thought.  You want me to fix a problem but you can’t even give me a clue what the problem is…I thought it was irresponsible to leave me with that as her parting words.  It was like being given an unsolvable riddle, or eviscerating me and telling me to untangle miles of intestines and sew myself back together and not even giving me a needle or thread.  (I realized later that without Felecia’s help I may have never addressed my issues, painful as it was.  I did the same thing to Jane and have mixed feelings about that, but unlike me she knows full well what the problem is but refuses to take responsibility for it, as it’s easier to blame others than do the more difficult process of self reflection) It made me despair to the point I feared my children would end up motherless, so I sought a therapist.  I told the therapist how she’d abandoned me, and the therapist thought that was an interesting choice of words.  Together we talked about incest, relationships and love, but I found no comfort and was given nothing active to work on to feel responsible over for my own care.  Incredibly, it wasn’t until after I left therapy that it dawned on me that I’d been adopted, that maybe being abandoned and losing your identity and your country and your culture and faces that reflect you just might have an effect on a person.  I was 43 at the time.

What does that even mean, to lose ones identity?

If all we knew that identified us to ourselves was taken away then we were left only with our absolute identity.  To have that sense of self disrupted and replaced with new reflections of ourselves meant having to rebuild our self images relative to those new reflections.  Never mind that we couldn’t grasp what we lost or understand how deep the disruption was.  We are many things created by many people and it is especially difficult to find our absolute identities – and comfort – among so many constructed relationships.

As an adoptee, one is often asked to fill out many surveys, and one question that always comes up is, “How do you identify yourself?  Korean-American?  Adopted Korean? American? Korean?”  Such a simple question for most people, but for the adoptee it creates a paralyzing moment of existential angst.

Part of my therapy (yes, it was of great value) was learning to listen to my body.  As an abused person, there are repositories for tension that have never been fully released, and triggers can cause these areas to knot up, the breathing to constrict, the heart-rate to increase and blood pressure rise, the brow to furrow, the jaws clench.  The vulnerable have been forced to internalize their rage against violation in order to survive situations.  But as an adult, awareness must  be acquired in order to recognize danger and advocate for oneself.  And adoptees go through this to a less dramatic degree, but it pervades everything because its depths are existential and the foundation for everything, because losing ones identity is the greatest violation of all. And yet, once we are aware we can not allow ourselves to let that violation rule our lives.  Our personal journey to peace has to evolve from chasing happiness, to awareness, to choosing happiness.

In my time here in Korea, I have learned what that something missing in me was.  And I have learned that correcting history is no fix to the personal, that finding family will not fill that hole, and that my identity is a product of all I’ve been through and reflected by the good friends I have made.   There is no one thing that will solve me or complete me.  I just have to choose happiness.

He he, (that’s kind of a Konglish way of saying the signs are improving)

Right now as I type, on Donga tv. (channel 302 if you have Cable & More [C&M]) is a series featuring single women thriving.  It’s called, “Single Mom Story”  THIS is the kind of thing we need to see more of!  And we will…

Here, “story” is used correctly, but here in Korea it’s used to an insane degree and most of the time it makes no sense:  color story, food story, living story, wellness story, beauty story, etc.  I think it’s used as a way to paint a scene and set a mood.  But that’s only a guess.

Sorry again for not writing.  I’m totally oppressed by my editing duties – even though the bulk of the adoptee reunion stories have not come in yet – and I spend inordinate amounts of time avoiding the task in front of me.  I struggle with the authors who add too many commas, don’t use enough commas, use commas wrong, etc.  I struggle to split the difference between correct grammar (though I’m far from an expert on this) and their individual voices, which run the gamut from total non-writers to PhD candidates.  And it’s hard for me because I have always been one who manages to miss something.  And there’s so little time that I know I will miss a lot.  The agenda to focus on the need to improve family search services has escaped most of them as they reflect on their experience, and I have to gently ask them to remind them.  The stories themselves have made me think about the journey we adoptees have to take: the adoption story nobody thinks about.  Which started some post writing but which is still unresolved…

I’m also feeling like a chump because I’m just not a playful person and Momo is starting to act out again by pouncing on me and biting my feet.  She has always had this weird habit of leaving the room and crying.  Attempts to find out what was causing the upset would always stop whatever she was doing so I could never figure out what was going on.  I finally realized she was going into the bathroom for this, and with some stealth I finally managed to catch her.  She lays on or in the bathroom sink and isn’t doing anything special, just laying there lowing/howling/crying.  I tried turning on the water for her, as she likes to drink from the faucet, but that rarely interests her.  As soon as I show up, she leaves.  Twice I’ve heard water running and it seems she has learned to turn the water on by herself but doesn’t worry about the bills and doesn’t have the decency to turn it off when she’s finished.  Just now I heard a downpour and wondered if there was a problem with the plumbing, but it was just the shower which she’d turned on.  As I finish typing this, she’s started her crying again.

Short of getting her another companion (I’ve offered to foster, but people are offended when I say I can’t afford extensive vet bills) I don’t know what to do for her.  I’m not sorry for her company, but I’m sorry she got me as a mom and not somebody more her style.  And it would be nice to not feel like I was neglecting her all the time.

Well, it’s Saturday after payday and I must trek to the next town to transfer money to my US bills and stock up on supplies and give my kitty even more neglect.  Instead of going into Seoul to see the Gwangjang market as I’d planned, I wasted the morning.  I have this sense of anxiety that the next year will be like today:  adoption work looming over my head, wanting to pack in the remainder of my time with excursions to see/learn/do more in Korea and yet staying at home, doing nothing but struggling with my companion pet that doesn’t want my hugs and wants to spar instead.

Approaching a month since my surgery and my distance vision has still not corrected itself yet.  I think it’s supposed to be better than this at this point, though it does take up to three months.  I’m just anxious for it to stabilize so I can determine what kind of reading glasses to get, as I am on the computer all the time and I’m sure the strain takes its toll, though I’m not sure how much.  I’d just like to be finished is all and wish my eyes had been suitable for the one day of discomfort life-is-beautiful, I can see perfectly immediately lasik surgery instead.  Even though I know that’s stupid because I am conservative by nature and was always going to go the safer route.  It’s just soooo slow….

Well, enough moaning from me.  Must get going so I can get home before the sun goes down…

So Monday morning I’m told that the co-teacher has spoken to the principal and my job is offered back to me.  As suspected, they had never once discussed my performance and his judgment was based purely on my lack of socializing with the other teachers.  (never mind that I tried for months before giving up).  So he admitted he had no idea and deferred to whatever the co-teacher wanted, as she would know better than him.

Only – she gave me only until that evening to make up my mind!  Meanwhile, I’m starting to get interviews to more desirable jobs that would put me in friendlier environments and I had started hoping to get those instead.  I complained about being bounced up and down like a ball, and told them that I would stop looking for jobs, but felt it only fair to see what the other prospects had to offer, since I wasn’t in this situation due to any fault of my own, and it was only fair to allow me to have choices. But the following day I did some math, and I realized that no other great job would give me the pay scale or benefits that staying at the same job would, so I signed.

Well, things could be worse.  I had a long talk with the teacher about my neglect, and she is making a conscientious effort to be more inclusive and informative and helpful now.  Plus, the other co-teacher will be leaving, so a big source of stress – writing the broadcast book and the daily broadcasts will no longer face me every morning.  I got the equivalent of two class hours for that, but I put in more like four…In exchange, I will teach after-school conversation classes again.  It also means I won’t be going home for a visit (wah!) because I need the cash equivalent of the airfare more right now.  And, it will allow me to get a new computer, as with the adoption reunion book my old macbook is once again overheating and dying.  I dream of ten hour batteries so Momo can no longer pull out the break-away safety power cord…It also means I can wrap up my adoption work locally instead of remotely. I also get a nice vacation renewal incentive and get to carry over 6 days, totaling 45 days next year.  So I’m going to have a school-free summer and maybe I can afford to rent a car and go on a road trip finally.  I also get to spend a little more time with old friends and get to know new friends a little better.

Last night I began unpacking.  It was good to begin, as I edited many things.  Too many things in some cases.  But now I have another year in which to edit and/or collect what I’ll bring back with me.  And, hell or high water, this is the last year.

I had hoped to get Momo a friend (she’s >almost< a normal cat now) as soon as I moved so I could get some arts & crafts done in peace, but now that I’m not moving I don’t know if I can afford to ship another pet home next year.  But I’d really like that…

A year is short.  We can do this.

as in not-ready-for-takeoff…

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Sorry I haven’t written.

My days have been occupied almost non-stop fielding correspondence [squint] for the editing project for adoptee reunion stories in Korean, [insert anti-inflammatory eye drops] desperately searching [squint] the want ads at the Korean ESL job boards, [insert moisturing eye drops] looking for affordable housing situations, [insert moisturizing eye drops] pulling together resume packages, [insert anti-inflammatory eye drops] sneaking interviews [where did i put those drops?] and pondering middle age [insert moisturizing eye drops] while reflecting on all my wrong turns, [insert moisturizing eye drops] and missing all those people who were right turns [natural eye drops] and at this second feeling kind of angry how little Korea appreciates me, [red face, runny nose] and wondering if I have anywhere I can call home.  [I need a bucket of anti-inflammatory drops so I can insert my whole head into it]

Anyway, due to a lot of complications I won’t be coming home to the U.S. anytime soon.  Nor will I be able to keep my current job.  Nor know when my U.S. job will finally materialize.In less than 3 weeks I must be reviewed, interviewed, vetted, and approved in time to find a place to live and move.  I’ve already encountered bias against my Visa, which says I’m either worthless as a foreigner or, since I can’t speak Korean, I’m worthless as  a Korean.  And I don’t get to come home even for a visit.

This is no kind of life for a person my age, where every year is uncertain and every day is uncertain and your skills and experience are not appreciated.  No.  It all hinges on how that guy you wondered who he was and nobody bothered to tell you was the new principal and nobody bothered to tell you that the other principal had left and who has never once walked into your classroom or spoken with you other than the one time he was drunkenly making a pass at you at the semi-annual teacher’s dinner suddenly decides you aren’t lively enough.

Today I went and had lunch with the two teachers on duty today as I desk warm daily and watch them all cycle through.  It is my only chance to speak to any of them one on one.  I engage them in conversation at lunch.  I have to ask their names and what subject they teach, because in two years NOBODY has ever bothered to introduce me to anyone.  Ever.  So I have had to use previous year’s yearbook photos just to get a sense of who they are.  They were gracious and sweet.  They had one word answers to my questions.  And then they turned and ate and conversed, as always, as if I didn’t exist.  Because that’s what they were used to before I came, and that’s as much effort as anyone at this school is willing to do, aside from pushing sweets on me because it is an obligation necessitated by culture.  Of course one insisted on buying lunch.  Koreans do that well.   I have spent two years eating lunch surrounded by colleagues who never speak to me.  I guess I’m supposed to be lively in spite of that.

My co-teacher apologized by email.  She takes full responsibility for my neglect and knows it’s not my fault.  But it’s too late for that, won’t save my job, and why would I want to put up with more of the same anyway?  So the ever-changing verdict of whether there will be a position or not or if it will be me or another teacher just seems kind of pointless.  I’m not a clown.  I don’t do slap-stick.  I get lively with exciting ideas or talking about society or fixing things.  To not be able to do so is depressing.  And to be out here in the country, the only foreigner around is deadly.  So I carry on with this search knowing I’ll have to take anything that comes my way.  Again.  Not ideal.

Fortunately, I have made a couple of priceless friends here in Korea who are here for me.

OK.  This blogging is taking precious time when I’ve got to not be destitute and homeless in a foreign country.  The irony of it is my prospects are better here than back at home.  It’s funny, you know, as I remember back when I was 18 and I agreed to get married primarily because I longed for someone to care for me.  And I’m still in that same place.  Older, rougher around the edges, a little worse for wear, but that’s all I’ve ever wanted.  I suppose this is emblematic of the adoptee.  But you know, we have to put one foot in front of the other and not give up hope.

(I’m a little late responding to this because of my computing problems, but since I happened upon it just recently, I’d like to respond.)

In an article entitled Adoption Scapegoats, Jenny Na recounts how the speaker at a conference (the First Single Mom’s Day Conference) was quoted as saying, “Adoption from Korea continues today because single mothers are promiscuous”  Jenny’s article points out how this is a prevailing attitude in Korean society.  Actually, I think it’s a prevailing attitude in any society that collaborates with the adoption industry.

This is being spread around that government people have said that unwed moms are nothing but ignorant whores…  so I want to clarify that it’s not a current government person but a past government person.   Way way past.  And past adoption agency person.  Again, way way past.  Not having attended the conference, because I had quit TRACK during the planning phase, I can tell you the unnamed speaker was Mr. Youn Taek Tahk, because it was my suggestion he be invited.   I believe he is something like 89 years old…  Mr. Tahk didn’t want to be bound by reading from a prepared speech, but I bet he wishes he did now.

I heard another account from an eyewitness that, during the near lynching that followed, he kept pleading, “please don’t misunderstand me!”  Knowing what I do of  Mr. Tahk, and knowing what I do of unwed mom and adoptee activists, I’m not so sure he didn’t have a slip of the tongue or  wasn’t misunderstood…even if, being a feminist, I too am offended by the implication that women who are amoral are the ones to blame for causing adoption.

Adoption is a complicated business.  Most of the unwed moms I’ve met have been bright and articulate.  The majority are good citizens, good people, and either were taken advantage of, abused, betrayed, or abandoned by their partners.  But you better believe that there are also some girls who are ignorant selfish bitches.   Just like what we learn from reunion stories:  most of the immediate families were/are dysfunctional, most of the moms are great people and yet some moms are just not that nice.

I’d like to say I like the old guy a lot.  I spent an afternoon with him and BBC correspondent Ellen Otzen and was allowed to interview him about his tenure as the president of  Social Welfare Society of Korea (SWS), from 1965-1986 it was the main Korean body that oversaw adoptions out of Korea.  It’s a gripping interview and still fascinating to listen to, and it’s too bad I can’t share it ’cause it’s property of BBC radio.  Mr. Tahk joined SWS before it was an international adoption agency and still part of Korea’s own social services.

A big part of me sighs in frustration, imaging how different the world would be for me and all my adoptee friends had it stayed part of the government and not been privatized.   Imagine families and adoptees in search would not have to negotiate through four adoption agencies, two NGO’s and a weak so-called central authority in order to access their files.  And maybe instead of 200,000+ sent away over 56 years,  maybe international adoption would not have been regarded as the first and best solution to solving Korea’s problems, because when we get processed out of sight and out of mind, then the source problems are easier to ignore.

Mr. Tahk became a social worker because he was concerned about the plight of rural families who were not benefiting from Korean economic development in the years following the war.  It was through him that I found out children were abandoned in direct relationship to increases in the cost of fuel.  He never liked the idea of international adoption, yet felt powerless to stop it, because it got political, and has spent many a sleepless night knowing he sent children away who would have been able to stay if only there had been more resources distributed to the poor.  My understanding is he is one of the few in the industry who was willing to criticize what was going on, and he retired as an outcast.  He still speaks out.  He donates money to unwed moms & orphanages.  Devoutly religious, he only ever wanted to help the welfare of children.  He is, surprisingly, (and unpopularly) adamant that men bear financial responsibility for their offspring, married or not, though being part of the patriarchy he doesn’t go so far as to criticize their morality.

So because of all this,  and admittedly not knowing the context, I believe Tahk was probably trying to talk about (because I’d heard him talk about this before) the different reasons for international adoption over time.  First it was saving mixed-raced children from a life of abuse and  providing homes for real war orphans, then it was because the adoption agencies were here promising a better life for children abroad so poor families started abandoning their children en masse, and then it was because the Korean nuclear family structure got destroyed when the young were called to the cities to produce factory goods to create Korea’s economic miracle.  And today, the children up for adoption are mostly those born out of wedlock.  And children born out of wedlock are due to  ever-relaxing attitudes about sexual relations from those early factory days to now.   So what he was really probably saying was that adoption didn’t stop because promiscuity produces babies that society rejects.

As an adoptee, a single mom,  and a formerly promiscuous woman, I’d like to say, “Yeah?  SO WHAT?  Even ignorant whores deserve to raise their own kids if they want.  Adoption didn’t stop because the adoption agencies were here long after their disaster rescue services were no longer needed.  Yet I also can’t fault the deduction that more promiscuity produces more babies.  Which is, curiously enough, something Korea desperately wants more of.  But yeah, the way that sentence read as quoted definitely points the finger at only one of the many many parties to blame.  There is also the adoption industry for being omnipresent at first whiff of a human being conceived out of wedlock, there are the moralists of which Tahk is one, there are the ever absent fathers, there is the superstition and ignorance of Korean women being afraid of taking the pill, there are the ajummas perpetuating the patriarchy by regulating their daughters, and there is the youth who embrace libertine excesses with no exposure to the consequences or training in its responsible practice.

When we parted ways, he said to me, in perfect English, “I hope you get what you want.”  And then his face clouded over with something like love and caring for me and he said, “But don’t get your hopes up, as it won’t be anytime soon.”   And you know what?  He was telling me the truth.  He wants us to be right about improving social services and ending international adoption, even though he’s not fully convinced because he believes in a society that upholds his Puritan view of family values.  He knows it takes changing hearts and minds to change society.  He knows this doesn’t happen over night.

I just wanted people to know that about him before they go and impale him on a stick.  Like all things adoption-related, it is always more complex than what the debate wants to acknowledge.   I thought he would be a good person to have at the conference because to me he represents what was, what is, and why.  He taught me that I can not hate the people and country that threw me away, and that he and people like him are people we should be having dialogue with instead of beating up whenever they choose the wrong words or make a Freudian slip or have different opinions.  He’s not fully right, but he’s not fully wrong, either.   He and most other older Koreans regarded adoption as a terrible necessity, they had good (if not misguided) intentions, didn’t know what the consequences would be, and have a hard time comprehending them even now.   But they’re not the enemy.  I was disappointed when I heard the conference was a near brawl.  I am frequently disappointed with the behavior of adoptee activists, which is another reason why I opted out.  To me, Mr. Tahk also represents what could be:  the older generation trying to understand and at least willing to have a dialogue, but our anger destroys the good work we want to accomplish.  We lose the battle of winning their hearts and minds when we behave this way.

If I had more time, I’d run up to Paju and ask if I could spend the day painting water color landscapes of rural Korea with him, which is his retirement past time.  This is a much better way to change the world.