It’s Mrs. Kim and Mr. Kim, my new omma and appa.  “Boila,” she says, “chuah.”  Mr. Kim looks at the thermostat and it is at 40 degrees Centigrade.  “Chuah,”  Mrs. Kim says and Mr. Kim turns the heat up to 50 degrees.  He then turns it down to 47 but Mrs. Kim protests and says “chuah” again, “oh (5) + (whatever ten degrees is in Korean)”  She asks if I’ve eaten and I pat my belly like I’m pregnant and she laughs. I’m just too exhausted to communicate by hand gestures tonight, after being up to 3 a.m. the night before and going to a job interview today.   (now with an hour commute, I get up at 5:30 or 6 am)  I got home, played a game of tetris and fell asleep mid-game…

The temperature thing is hilarious because I had three teacher friends visit over the weekend, and at 40 degrees everyone was sweltering and we had the window open.  (40 is as low as it goes)  But it’s so cold today, that I don’t mind the extra heat, and there’s quite the draft coming from the bathroom.

Korean bathrooms aren’t heated, due to the heating being in the floor everywhere else and the slope and depression needed to drain the floors doesn’t leave enough floor depth to run coils through.  In an apartment, that’s not such a big deal, since the adjacent rooms keep the chill off.  But since I’m the basement of a house and my bathroom is the size of a bedroom, it’s pretty damn cold in there.

The first day in the apartment I was really concerned because I had to psyche myself up to use the toilet, it being so cold.  And condensation was dripping off the ceiling and walls, so it felt like what I imagine a Siberian solitary confinement jail cell would be like.  Damp.  Freezing.  Cave-like, stallagtites should be growing off the ceiling…

Then I realized if I could just heat the room, that would eliminate the condensation (and reduce the growth of mold in the intervening wall).  I bought a little space heater and ran it for a full day and suddenly my bathroom was a livable, usable space!  Now I leave the door open and let the ambient heat from the over-heated floor spill into the bathroom, and only pre-heat the air in the bathroom prior to taking a shower.  And the whole apartment smells less and less musty as a result.  But the floor is always cold, so that’s yet another good reason to have shower shoes.

I’m leaving the ondol heater on all day, and am worried about the cost.  But there’s soooo much floor space I fear turning it off would cost even more to bring the concrete back up to temperature.  I’m worried what the bill is going to be like or if I’ll have enough.  BUT – this place is going to be just awesome in the summer, when it will be cool inside and sweltering outside.  And, because most of this basement apartment is concrete and brick, I think it probably retains the heat pretty well.  I guess that’s why most small buildings you see in Korea are masonry – it just makes sense here, with its extreme climate.  A wood-framed house here would be so thermally uncomfortable and expensive to heat and cool.

Last Friday adjumma (what Mrs. Kim wants to be called) had me up for dinner.  She had a big pot of kimchi chiggae on the stove.  So she served kimchi chiggae with a side of kimchi, rice (pop) and seaweed (laver).  Her cooking is so spicy, even she has to suck in her breath after every bite to cool off her tongue.  I was eating the chiggae (which means stew) like soup, but she corrected me and showed me I must put the pop on the laver and then take some kimchi from the chiggae and add it, roll it up and eat it.  Then she got out some green onions and peppers marinated in vinegar and soysauce and spooned it on her next pop roll.  I copied her and she quickly told me jokum!  (a little!) She was right, it was pure salt.  Next, she wondered if I liked kimchi and she got out a piece, cut it into strips (Koreans do this with their chopsticks, and then fed me by hand like a baby!  Next, she poured her kimchi into her pop and mixed it up and also put that on laver. (Koreans are always mixing everything into an unappetizing-looking red-colored mess) She thought it was weird I ate the chiggae separately, so made me also pour it into my rice and mix it up.  Several times she didn’t think I had enough chiggae to rice proportions and made me add more.  I felt like I was five years old, but it was nice to be taken care of.

After dinner we had a hand gesture conversation, and then she called her daughter in Gainesville, Florida.  She wanted her daughter to explain to me that I should never want for anything and to come get her if there was anything I needed or if I was hungry or needed kimchi.  FINALLY!  The legendary but missing Korean hospitality I’d heard of but never seen!  I told her daughter I was glad she was speaking to me like a 2 year old, since I might actually learn Korean that way, and that actually I was 45.   Her daughter laughed and said YES, her mom was very very friendly and that before I knew it she would be arranging a marriage.  I tell her that would be great.  Except what Korean man would want me – I don’t cook, I’m not subservient, I’m far from a trophy, and I can’t speak Korean.

But I really want to speak with Mrs. Kim so have started looking at Korean again.

********

So I’ve gone from grammatically fascinating and way too difficult learning Korean books, and ended up discarding them, since I’m just not academically disciplined and have too much else going on.  Each successive trip to the bookstore I got simpler and simpler books. I’ve now settled on what I feel is the easiest to digest and yet most culturally informative, practical and useful.  Still don’t have my head in study mode, but it’s a great read, and when I do find time for it, this book is really THE most concise and helpful thing I’ve found .

********

Seven Star saw me today and wondered if I was wearing make-up. No.  That’s just raw skin that’s been exfoliated too much.  Last week I left the officetel immediately after having taken a shower and walked to school.  (because I didn’t know how to turn the hot water heater on at the new place)  But it was so bitter cold that by the time I got to school my hair was frozen crispy and my entire face was chapped.  It’s taken a whole week and daily cleansing, rubbing, and moisturizing to get back to almost normal.  The only thing remaining are my eyelids – yup, my EYELIDS are chapped, and it’s too delicate an area to rough up like the rest of my face.  So it feels really weird to have crocodile skin on my eyelids!  At least the burnt dry irritated look is gone from my face and now replaced with newly exposed pink skin.

I haven’t experienced cold weather like this since I was a kid growing up in Detroit.  But I think it’s windier here or something, as it feels colder to me.  The Koreans I speak with all swear it was much much worse ten years ago, but that global warming has made the winters more bearable.  Can’t imagine what our ancestors had to live through.

*********

School is nearly finished.  This last month I’ve only been a babysitter instead of a teacher, and that makes everyone happy.  After watching the Chronicles of Narnia 14 times, I never want to see it ever again!  Class 1-1 was just a nightmare yesterday, like litle kids tanked up on sugar, they couldn’t even sit still for the movie they screamed for and talked so loud that you couldn’t hear ANY of the movie.  (let me add that even though I mention 1-1 and 1-3 a lot, these are my only two bad classes – they just get the most mention because they totally confound me and I need to vent)  So I told the worst offenders to go back to their room.  And they just sat there and stared at me.  I told them again, and they didn’t budge and some said no.  Total insubordination.  I told them again and they just refused to move.  So I screamed “get out.  GET OUT of the English zone.  Now!”  Finally, they left.  I then apologized to the good boys and played the movie.  After a few minutes I went back to check on what mayhem the bad boys were creating, only to find them ALL STUDYING in total silence.  They all wanted to see the movie, only as an excuse to let out some of their pent up aggressions.  But really, these are all the worst students, so with final exams coming tomorrow, they knew they should use the time to study.  It was totally shocking to see what a few moments earlier were total animals, all self-disciplined and studying like monks.

The girl’s classes were given a choice of movie or self-study, and they all chose study, whereas none of the boys chose self-study.  I told Gi-Sook “only in Korea.”  I then explained to her how when I was growing up, the only study hall we had was detention and that it was a punishment:  certainly nothing we’d choose over a movie.  I think she was kind of proud when I told her that.  I walked around the classroom with her and every book was a confusing sea of highlighting and underlining;  almost unintelligible, there were so many colors and layers.  I explained how American students don’t purchase textbooks until college and how we aren’t allowed to write in our books.  She wondered how we studied, and I told her we learn to take notes on separate sheets of paper.  She found that fascinating.

One more week of school.  Then two and a half weeks of extra classes for winter camp.  I’m only teaching one class two days a week, and the rest of the time I have to come in to school and produce SOMETHING.  So because nobody told me I was supposed to write my lesson plans down before,  which I did think was unusually liberal at the time, I have to write up a year’s worth of lesson plans.  Oh well.  I guess that beats being totally bored, but the way the school district has treated me, I also don’t feel I owe them any good ideas.

I did deliver a little farewell address to the students.  Quit about halfway through the week – everyone, myself included, is a little burnt out.  I told them I’d read a lot about Korea before I came here:  about how rude people were, how cold, how Korean business men were dishonest, about corruption, dirty politics, xenophobia and racism.  I told them I’d read about Korean history and respected how they’d survived centuries of oppression and occupation.  I told them that I wanted to learn about Korea and love Korea, because I carry Korean blood in me.  But then I told them that everything negative I’d heard about this place was true, that I’d seen corruption and been cheated, lied to, and mistrusted.  I also told them I learned to like Korean students and that I respected the suffering they had to go through.  I told them I was sad I couldn’t see them more frequently so I could get to know them better.  I told them I’d not only tried to teach them English, but also about western culture.  I told them it was important to learn English, not only because it well help with their economic survival in a global world, but also because half the knowledge in the electronic world is written in English and that new worlds will open to them if they are able to tap into that.   I told them I was concerned, because many of the things about the west they love are not good things, but that many of the negative ideas they have about western culture are all wrong, so they need to choose wisely.  I  told them that they were the future, and that I believed they could change Korea for the better.  I told them they HAD to change Korea for the better, because the adults aren’t doing it.  I told them I hoped they would grow into fine people, and I asked them to do their best to balance their lives, be kind, be open and to make the time to explore what they love.

One boy said bitterly, “Korea will never change.  It’s impossible.”

I told him it has to.   Do you want to live under laws that don’t protect you?  Do you want to mistrust everyone around you?   Do you want your children to spend 16 hours a day in school? No, I didn’t think so.  You must change things.  Only you can do it.

I’m going to be sad not having a captive audience of high school kids.  Forty at a time is too many, but I think in recapping the year they might see some value in my attempts.

*********

God, I’m tired.  Can I retire now?

I just want to sit around the yarn shop with the other women knitting and crocheting.   There’s one by my house, and they sit there for hours on the heated floor gabbing and knitting and crocheting.  I got a real kick out of it.  I guess knitting is universal.

I need to find time and money for leisurely pursuits, find interest groups where I can meet people.  But right now I have to wash clothes by hand and don’t have a refrigerator or stove, so that will have to be my focus for the time being.

This year has been nothing but incredible stress, and I haven’t written because the past few weeks were just too dark to even describe what has transpired.  As soon as I find a job, things will get better.  There’s nowhere to go but up.  Plus, I live in a great neighborhood and have Mrs. Kim in my life now, and I’m really motivated to get to know her.

Christmas season in Korea. Tonight is the first ASK/TRACK (Adoption Solidarity Korea / Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea) Christmas party for unwed moms and their children.  We support them in their efforts to increase social services to struggling families, in an effort to reduce the supposed need for adoption, and we wanted to ease their struggles for an evening by hosting a party and providing gift items that might be beyond their reach.

I get to Koroot (an organization that provides connection to Korean society and temporary living quarters for visiting and returning adoptees) late and the party is in full swing.  Little children are running around chasing each other and playing sock’em with balloons. One toddler sits at the piano banging at the keys – Jane Jeong Trenka slips in a Christmas song then slips away – the entire room claps and the girl is amazed she played so well and grins from ear to ear at the applause.

A smorgasbord is laden with ham, turkey, cheese, a heavenly high calorie casserole, bulgogi and lettuce wraps.  Cookies and tangerines are omnipresent, and wine flows.

Everywhere the children have taken over the floor, the table legs, and people legs.  I watch the adorable kids playing and watch the families interact and eat the western food, my mind freezing each image of mother and child hugging indelibly in my brain.

Each of the moms introduce themselves and their children and say something thankful.  The children ham it up for the momentary spotlight or turn to their moms and almost knock them over with the enthusiasm of their affection.  It’s almost unbearable, separated from my family, to see so much love and affection.  The little abandoned girl in me is envious. The women are not teenagers, but in  their 20’s to 30’s.  One is a hairdresser.  One is fluent in Russian.  Another is fluent in English.  Smart, capable women all.

Then to my horror it is our turn to introduce ourselves. I tell the mothers I think they are brave and strong, and that they help adoptees (end international adoption) by being a success.  Being a success meets some difficulty being translated.

Mads the Dane says something in perfect Korean, which is because he’s been in Korea fifteen years, and then the typically ebullient and irrepressible Alice follows.

Alice tells the women in Korean that she was adopted to the Netherlands, and that she thinks the women are very brave.  Then she switches to English, her voice cracking, her eyes filling, and she says she wishes her mom had been so brave.

Both Mads and Alice have reunited with their birth families.

And there we are, all of us adoptees, attempting to hold back a flood, dabbing our eyes with napkins.  I’m not sure the unwed moms are aware of how affected we all are by the evening, but it is hard to make small talk after that.

I tell Alice – how can it be possible to feel so heart-warmed and heart-broken at the same time?  “Yes,” she says, “and to think all these children were to be sent away.”

All of these women were pressured by their families, significant-and-now-absent others, and the maternity homes to give their babies away for adoption.   Some were outright coerced into giving their babies away, and had to fight to get them back.  Most of them are totally estranged from their families because they chose to keep their babies.  All of them face job discrimination, social ostracizing, and economic disadvantage.

To see these brave pioneers forge ahead in spite of these odds is inspiring. To know that this is just the beginning of feminine empowerment is encouraging.  They are telling other unwed mothers that they have a choice, and that choice is love.  And love does not mean having to send your baby away.

Everyone considering international adoption from Korea should witness this love and these women and these children and what they have between them.  They are struggling, but they have each other.

In the adoption solution scenario, these women would have been left grieving.  They would be glorified for loving their children enough to get rid of them, and at the same time vilified for being harlots or concerned only with themselves.  Their children would grow up to be like us adoptees – also grieving.  Silently, because we are supposed to be grateful for a better life.  It is a solution which benefits adopting parents, but it is a flawed solution, when the real solution is to help these women keep their children.

One chubby little girl who looks a lot like me, the same age I was when I was shipped to America, has lost sight of her mother.  She is standing at the door, distraught, hitting it and wailing, “Omma!  Omma!”

I run and tell Jane.  And then I have to leave.

Week two of playing The Chronicles of Narnia to my students.  At over 2 hours long, it’s going to take four weeks to complete this film.   I stop the film (with some complaining) whenever I encounter vocabulary I think needs expounding upon.  For safe quarters, I told the students that quarters were private spaces where one was free to talk openly.  Despite stupid comments from stupid people, that’s what I consider this blog to be.  All my friends and family and one irrelevant jerk.

I hate moving.  I used to love it – I used to love reinventing myself and my environment, but now after TWENTY SEVEN addresses, it’s wearing a little thin.  At 45 and 27 addresses, (I have 25 and there are 2 missing) you come to realize the grass is not always greener and you can’t really reinvent yourself:  the scenery may change, but you, with all your traumas and your broken heart still remain. (come to think of it, if you include the orphanage and my first family, that would make at least 29 addresses)  In my defense, I did live in the same state for 24 years, and Seattle for 17 years.

The worse part is the packing and unpacking.  I’ve played tetris too many times to count this week, procrastinating.  And I’m still not over 100 points and never will be.  And I procrastinate because the only way I can pack is to music, and the only music I have stabs my heart, reminding me of people I’ve loved and how when they listen to this music it reminds them of me but their hearts are fine and their eyes are dry.   And this is why I haven’t listened to music in two years.  And I love music.

Jonathan’s Korean counterpart sits across from me one table removed at lunch.  He’s the new biology assistant teacher, and I try hard not to stare at him.  He’s like this damned packing music.  So I stay at my desk and look at the job boards again, and come down to lunch late so I don’t have to sit in silence in a group of people talking Korean to everyone but me, or have to see that boy/man and feel like the old heartsick fool I am.

Miwha canceled our dinner date yesterday because her body and mind were sick.   She hates her life as a housewife and hates her typical salary man Korean husband, so I’m imagining the worst and sent her Tom Waits’  You can never hold back spring to honor her melancholy yet remain optimistic.

At the Thanksgiving dinner for adoptees and unwed moms, Jane comes in with the KBS producer, and he and his interpreter make a point to meet the cover girl from Hankyeoreh 21.  Embarassed, I mention how awkward that article was for me, and in so doing, create another awkward moment.  Fortunately, the children of the unwed moms and the children of adoptees are playing adorably and I am off the hook.  Jane, Alice, me, (the senior female adoptees in Korea, me being the oldest) and Jane’s boyfriend wrap Christmas toys  for the unwed mom’s children before the evening officially begins.

Afterward I speak with a volunteer helping cater, and we have a long in-depth conversation about coffee culture in America vs. Korea.  He tells me young Korean girls spend an average of 200,000 won a month on coffee.  That’s $173.  Which is probably the same as many in Seattle – except in relative terms, I would give it a value more like $250.  This is because you can eat a large meal here for $5.  He talks about conspicuous consumption.  Random Koreans have amazing vocabularies like this, in a language that is often their second or third, and sometimes even fourth.  He is unusual in that he is not embarrassed to speak and make mistakes.

As opening time passes, a wall of adoptees approach and the KBS interpreter gasps, “so many!”  I explain to her and the producer how thousands return every year to search, but then leave, and how meaningful it is for me to see all those gathered here who have stayed, separated from their families.  I tell them that those who stay are special, because they care about Korea and hope to change it for the better.  The producer asks if he can interview me and I say sure, when?  “How about now?” he says, and in a flurry of activity I am suddenly having a camera and mike in front of me again.  As always, I’m less than satisfied with my eloquence and berate myself for not having sound bytes prepared or being more facile on-the-spot, but Jane and everyone else seems happy.

Our food is cold because of the interview.  We sit and eat and the producer tells us entertaining stories about how ludicrous his job can sometimes be.  I go back for seconds of mashed poatoes and gravy.  The interpreter loves gravy too, as she spent six years going to a private school in Portland.  After dinner, they make their rounds saying goodbye to everyone .  “Be happy,” the producer says to me as he leaves.  I smile and nod and for a moment I love him.

Alice seems happy.  She tells entertaining anecdotes of the trials and joys of her extended families in her humorous and engaging Dutch manner, and she has a huge family.  Two adoptees who’ve married and each found their natural families, each with their adoptive families abroad, and two children tying all of those families together.  Alice’s mother found her two years after she’d given up searching.  Miwha, the same age as me, reminds me that her mother is still very active and that my mother is probably alive and doing well somewhere in Korea.  I forget these things, as my adoptive parents were over forty when they adopted me.

The SBS producer emailed me yesterday, wondering if I’ve found Kim Sook Ja.  I wrote who I think might be her last month, but no response yet.   Other adoptees tell me sometimes it takes a year for those contacted to come around.  I don’t have my hopes set, for if her transracial adoptee experience was anything close to mine, it might take a near death experience before other identities are considered or reservations set aside.

I told the KBS producer that no Korean children should have to suffer like we did, but what I meant was that no Korean children should have to go through the confusion of having a family that isn’t yours and which is obvious both to you and the entire society around that matches them, but not you.  This disconnect is too deep for gratitude or stoicism to touch.  You have to lock it up and throw away the key, or render yourself totally dysfunctional.

In that world.  In this world you have to pry it permanently open in order to live again.  I could use some grief counseling, but keeping busy manages to keep demons at bay.  I know these things I’m feeling are growing pains, and that they’re good for me.  I just wish things were less significant all the time.

The question always crops up, “how long will you stay in Korea?”  The answer changes each time, from moment to moment.  I want to love Korea.  I want to forget the losses.  I want a new soundtrack, and struggle because that soundtrack is black or white, not yellow.  I want to quit moving.  I want a sustainable life.  I want to be with my children.  I want every child to know its mother.  I feel torn between two continents and dream about a third.

I tape up the boxes, count my blessings and marvel how so many of my teaching friends, endearing characters all, have set aside tomorrow to help me move.

Today is Thanksgiving day.  Of course, this doesn’t mean anything to anyone around me.  On Cheusok, Seven Star asked me if I was okay, and I said of course I was, why do you ask?  “I heard foreigners were very lonely on Cheusok.”  No.  Not Cheusok.  Thanksgiving.

So today I was not okay and the English teacher across from me at lunch asked me what was wrong.  He’s very good at English and also a very good listener and I don’t know his name, because he sits in another office.  Most of the English teachers are in another office.  He tells me that the year he spent at the University of Michigan was very hard on him, and that he prayed to God every day to make it through the next.  He talked about how there were no Asians and how, though everyone was very nice to him, nobody was really open to him either.  But, he said, you have it much worse than I did.  It’s different as a student in campus life.  But to work here?  You have it really bad.

I told him I grew up in Michigan and how there were no Asians in my town.  I told him how adoptees expect to see a white face in the mirror and are disturbed when they see an alien in the mirror, and what that does to a person.  He nodded solemnly.  I think he’s the only Korean I’ve ever met who really comprehends this.  And then I went on to tell him the rest of the story and he was truly upset.  He tells me I have had the misfortune of working with very bad men.  Yes.  And I found myself saying, “I came here to love Korea, but Korea doesn’t seem to love me.”

Sound familiar?  Yes.  It sounds like Mr. S.  I think I got in 9 months a condensed quick tour of what Mr. S. has gotten  his whole life.  You can fight for justice and go to jail and be a hero of the downtrodden, but you’re still on your own and everyone is too concerned about their own tenuous existence to fight with you or for you.  They all say I’m sorry.  There’s nothing I can do.  (which of course, is totally not true)

Earlier in my teacher conversation class, I asked my adult students how Korea can stop corrupt practices, and there was silence.  I asked why these things continue to happen, and the self-proclaimed adjumma told me that they were trained to obey.  Even bad men?  Yes.  Especially bad men.  They can make your life hell.  Then how is Korea ever going to change, I ask?  The discussion class falls silent.

Last month there was a dinner for the progressive movement I was invited to go to but didn’t.  It was in honor of a worker who immolated himself for the cause of worker rights and his act was pivotal in reducing the exploitation of workers.  He’s a popular culture national hero now.

Maybe I have to immolate myself, both as a foreign worker and as a reverse discrimination adoptee.  That would make Mr. C. very happy, I am sure.

If anyone happens to have that blacklist, could you please send it to me?  I won’t reveal who sent it.  I just need it if I am going to defend myself and the others against what is a violation of Korean law already on the books. The laws will continue to be ignored until someone sues for damages.  As soon as it could mean money out of their pocket, things will change.  I have nothing left to lose…

Got this today…