sukioki@gmail.com

This is from my Seoul sister, about  me and girl 4709, who I believe is my sister, and who I am searching for:

Last night, I fell asleep thinking of you… and this morning I woke up dreaming of you.

You were here to visit me. After I woke up, I went to see you, and I told you, I believe Sook Ja is your sister. I think your real name is Sook Hee, since Korean siblings usually have one common syllable in their names, that’s why you responded to the name Suki. They couldn’t change your sister’s name because she was old enough to know her name. That’s what happened to SunnyJo, they changed her name, but not her brother’s who was older than her. (I just finished reading her book.) I found my thought so logical that I tried to convince you more,  by talking about an article I read on NYT, about the boy whose name was changed by his father’s girlfriend who sent him to the orphanage. I told you they usually don’t change older children’s name, because they would rebel like that boy.  I talked non stop, and you said nothing until I finished talking. Then you asked, what are we going to do today? I said I don’t know, what do you want to do? you want to go swim? and I stayed silent.  I woke up while I was thinking of what we could do, just to realize it was only a dream.

Sometimes it’s crazy how she and I have nearly the same thoughts very close together.  All through the movie, A Brand New Life, I would hear Sook Hee and think it was my name being called, and for the first time I wondered if that was my real name.  And also last week I noticed somewhere that it is common for one name to occur often within one family.  But I’d never put it together before.  But my Seoul sister did, in this nice dream.

It’s so important, this dream.  Like everything having to do with Korea and adoption, we need hope to temper all the tragedy.  As you can see, it doesn’t have to be a lot.  Sometimes the smallest things can be the most significant.

Thank you for the dream.

Do you realize what a little, little man you are to do something so vile?  To do that on top of trying to cheat me and a dozen or more others out of money YOU and the school district promised us?

Do you realize that those blacklists exist not because you are powerful, but precisely because you are impotent and petty.

You are not the only fish in the sea, and this is not the only game in town, and I hope more people become aware of your ugly behavior and do not allow you to profit off of exploiting them.

I just got off the phone with Dan, who I met at the GEPIK orientation, and who has been my shoulder to cry on for the past few months regarding trying to do THE BEST JOB WE CAN DO under EXTREME conditions here in Korea, and he reminded me that I still have some mojo.

Earlier, as a result of my last post, some caring and conscientious reader had alerted me to some unfortunate residue from my previous struggles fighting attempted contract fraud.  It turns out that there exists in Korea a network of unscrupulous and unethical exploiters of foreigners who pass along unsubstantiated information about people they have issues with.  It’s called a blacklist, and it’s a very fascist method employed to ruin the careers of people who do not tow their company line.  It has nothing to do with skills or crimes – it is instead based upon the unsubstantiated vilification of individuals, typically innocent, due to vindictiveness, pettiness, and power mongering.  These lists, closed to the general public, deny the accused of any opportunity to vindicate themselves and are a private ring of libel and slander.  These types of lists have, since the exposure of red-baiting during the McCarthy era in the United States, been outlawed as unethical.

ADDED:

What’s really sad and disappointing is the fact that the public schools also participate in this blacklisting, in collusion with members of the group of recruiters linked to below.  It’s shameful.  And again, disappointing.

I used to read horror stories on ESL teacher forums and found them unbelievable.  But these stories are, unfortunately, very very real.

The entire situation made me question the state of civil rights and ethics in Korea.  It was truly a black day for me. I sent out a distress signal to my friends, associates, and colleagues.  Interestingly, the response from nationals and long-time residents was something on the lines of, “yeah, that’s just the way Korea is” and “that’s just part of the Korean package.”  There seems to be a sad resignation that dirty politics and corruption rules the day.  On the other hand, these responses were also followed by a sincere belief that all was never lost.  I don’t buy the dismissal that this is just Korean culture.  Just like Korean War Baby has said, when the laws change, society changes.  These underhanded practices may reflect parts of Korean society today, but they can change.

Whatever I lack in terms of political savvy, I know I make up for in personal integrity and commitment to living an ethical and honorable life. I have to believe that not all of Korea operates in such a dirty, under-handed way.  If there is one person who came to Korea to do right by Korea, it is me.  If there is one person who wants to lift up the futures and fortunes of Korean citizens, it is me.  And this is not done by seeing injustice and unethical practices and allowing them to continue.

Until Korea can ferret out these unethical practitioners and clean up their ethics, they will never be taken seriously in the court of world opinion.  And I want that.  I really do.  I want to be proud to be Korean.  Just like I tell my students – what you do or don’t do reflects upon me and all Asians in the world.  Koreans must find their way back to true honor and value that above saving face or manipulating outcomes.  Only then will Korea shake the reputation of being dishonest businessmen.  And Korea can not enter the global world as long as they hold onto racism.  And that includes reverse racism.  I must break through this glass ceiling, because adoptees are just as foreign as white foreigners, and just as skilled at our imposed now native languages.

Most Koreans hate the social situation today and want it to change.  And because this is popular opinion, I believe it will, eventually, come to pass.  We need to kill the resignation and instill hope.  Korea sure could use a Korean Obama about now…they adore Obama, btw.

In reviewing my situation, I have come to several conclusions:

• 40+ students in the public school classrooms is 10+ students too many, so I am not sad to step down to a smaller class size where real attention can be given the students and I can develop a real relationship with them.
• My skills are much better served in the pre-school to kindergarten age group or the university and adult age groups.  I have amazing classes with small groups of advanced grade 1 high school students and adults, and I provided calm yet intellectual stimulus to my own two precocious children who have grown into fine, well-rounded adults, so I also appreciate the youngest students.  Both of these populations are open and receptive, which makes me love my job.
• the black list of participating large recruiters is of small consequence, and I don’t want to work with people who engage in such unethical practices anyway.  As listed on their website, they’ve actually provided a great filter to screen themselves out.  In essence, they’ve blacklisted themselves:
  • Here are the member recruiters
  • and here is their blacklist submission form
  • Seattle and Portland people beware since they have local offices…
• The jobs for my availability are only beginning to be posted, and I will have more opportunities soon.
• Dan reminded me that losers here manage to market themselves.  I am not a loser, and I can find creative ways to market my skills too.

There are a couple more months before I need to really start worrying.  In the meantime, I just have to believe – because I care about this place and these people.

What more could you want in an English teacher?

…and it’s only mid November!

So I went to my neighborhood today to pick up a winter coat I’d put on hold.  If I don’t dawdle and head straight there from school, I can make it there by 5:30 pm.  Not too bad, and I beat rush hour too, so there’s actually room on the subway.

My last coat looks funeral chic and has 3/4 length sleeves and looks stupid with my hoodie under it, which is necessary to stay warm.  Not a good time to be purchasing a coat, but too late I’d already put money down on it.  The perfect not too dressy/not too casual camel colored coat was, I realized, not practical.  So I took it back and exchanged it for an army jacket (I know how you love those, Willie)  because a) a hoodie looks fine under it, and b)it had a lining that could be removed and c) it was the uniform of my generation.  So hoodie + coat + lining might just see me through February and March.

The shop keeper spoke English with a French accent and let some French words slip out on occasion.  So naturally I figured he was an adoptee, but I was wrong.  Shoulda asked how he came to have perfect French, but I think he was done with me, begging to exchange an item I’d kept off his floor for over a week.

I did the math and I’m going to lose a lot of weight unintentionally this month, but fortunately I can eat at school twice a day if I stay late.  I also bought more lentils.  Let me just say that I LOVE lentils.  So cheap, so yummy, so easy to prepare, and even easier on the plumbing.  All the lentils, fallafel, hummous, and curry a person could ever want in Itaewon, so a person can eat cheap.  And tacos, gyros, fou fou, borscht phad thai and steak…And cheese! so you can eat cosmopolitan and/or expensive if you want to.  And you can buy DEODORANT at almost every market!  So I was buying my lentils at an international market, and there was the middle-eastern shop keeper placing an order with a wholesaler on the phone in perfect Korean.  HEY!  How come he can speak so well and I can’t even ask for the most basic things?  Answer:  because he’s not white or an English teacher, nobody hijacks all his conversations into English practice, that’s why.

Itaewon really is a an interesting place before it turns into Sodom and Gamorrah in the wee hours of the night.  So I can enjoy the multi-cultural atmosphere, have access to the international grocery stores and restaurants, and then retreat two blocks away from it into my totally Korean neighborhood, shut the door, and never have to be bothered by the sights and sounds of the lowest common denominators consuming, imbibing, expelling, and mingling. Humans and their basic instincts can seem so endearing at times, and then – then you have the denizens of Itaewon at night. This is not like Henry Miller in Paris.  Even he would be bored with the obvious and unimaginative social lubricating and connecting going on there.  I sound like a prude, but that’s not it at all.  It’s just not interesting. For example, a gay scene without drag queens…Nothing in the way of entertainment, either.  And the sex shops look like tool sheds.  Military town..

As a side note, I saw a condom ad to prevent AIDS on t.v last night.  Which was quite a surprise, since despite the fetish shoes and hot pants worn by girls here, it’s still a very conservative and puritanical place…and I heard that the sex education was presented in a mechanical way, out of context with the student’s lives and having nothing to do with the kinds of choices they must make.

On the way home, after sending my remittance to myself and my bills at the E-marte ATM, I grabbed about five boxes to pack with.  Like Costco, they have used boxes provided as a courtesy for customers to pack their purchases in.  But unlike Costco, they haven’t had their tops cut off.  So I figure I can stop in every other day and grab a handful.  Also unlike Costco, they provide tape, ribbon, and scissors…

There’s only books and clothes and office/art supplies to pack, so it shouldn’t be too hard.  My easiest move yet.  I’ve got no pots, pans, dishes, bedding, or furniture.  Around the corner from my new place are several second hand appliance and furniture places, though Jane is convinced I should buy new.  Well, having any at all might not even be an option for awhile, but it’s nice to know just two blocks away is everything I need.  This really is a great location:  EVERYTHING I need is a block away – only it’s not in some corporate mega box store.  It’s a real neighborhood without a traditional market, so that means the market is everywhere, in little storefronts or on the sidewalk, which is pretty interesting in itself.  And a lot of the restaurants are super tiny.  I’m going to feel good supporting them.  And if I absolutely must get a latte and a fat bomb, Itaewon is less than ten minutes walk away.

At school, those few who know me have been awesome in offering to help me move and coordinating amongst themselves with their time and arranging to meet me.  So Seven Star and Nine Stones are going to come over on the 5th with their cars.  It’s so nice of them!  So different from the states, where everyone shrinks at the thought and tries to be busy that day and prays to God that you don’t ask them for help.  So unsolicited help from co-workers and Korean war baby was really amazing.

Please, God, tell Koreans that people not white can speak English too and help me find a job.

If you go to post a comment on Youtube, which I went to do to defend my best friend in the planet who was being CHASTISED for WHINING when showing people video of herself before losing her Korean language and video two years after where it was almost gone, thanks to international adoption, you get the following message:

본인확인제로 인해 한국 국가 설정시 동영상/댓글 업로드 기능을 자발적으로 비활성화합니다.  We have voluntarily disabled this functionality on kr.youtube.com because of the Korean real-name verification law.

An interesting discussion about Goggle’s stance on Korea’s law.  All of which I don’t really understand, since Google now owns Youtube.

It’s a weird cyber hermit kingdom here.  You can’t post on Korea’s parallel cyberspace.  And you can’t purchase or download streaming videos, etc.  in Korea’s cyberspace unless you have a Korean citizen number.  Registered aliens can’t even post – and they should know our real names…Very irritating…

Sorry I havent’ written:  it’s been a bad week…

It’s so bad I was just fishing 100 won coins out of my piggy bank with a knife so I could go buy a pack of cigarettes so I could calm down enough to write and eat my last lentils.  I am wondering if this is how it will be in March, or worse, if I can’t find a job.

So I’d been vacillating back and forth about staying at my current job and commuting, because I was starting to feel comfortable with it and enjoying teaching a lot.  But then I thought I might as well talk to SMOE (Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education) and get a feel for what they could offer me closer to my soon-to-be new apartment.  Which opened up a whole can of worms.

In America, as you know, it’s not uncommon to go feel out a situation and have a few interviews and then make a decision whether it’s the right move to make.  However, In Korea that wasn’t possible.  SMOE insisted on checking job references BEFORE even granting an interview.  Despite having an incredibly conservative recruiter who was discouraging all the way, upon receiving my resume and cover letter her tune suddenly changed to very enthusiastic and I was feeling very confident I would get a position, and that mostly I should just have the interview and decide whether or not that was a good idea.  Well, SMOE not only called In Kyung’s number that I left but also talked to the Vice Principal.  The next day a letter stating I wouldn’t be renewing my contract was shoved in my face and, shocked, I signed it.  A few days later my recruiter informs me that the list of applicants granted interviews was issued and that I wasn’t on it.  Sorry.

Great.  Just great.  So I must press forward and find a job I guess.  Okay, we will make lemons out of lemonaide and I enthusiastically look for new positions closer to my new place.  Only it is too early since, except for the public school positions, most private schools and academies place their adds just a month or two before the position opens.

Every single one of the few available I apply to I hear NOTHING back from.  NOTHING.

In Korea, a resume must be submitted before you even ask questions about the position – they won’t answer questions at all.  With every resume, a photo is required.  One look at my non-white photo, my Korean-looking photo, and that’s enough to not bother having the courtesy to even reply.  You can’t even get to the interview and wow them with your enthusiasm or looking a decade younger than you are or anything.  Profiled and screened.  OUT.

Korean war baby and all-around decent guy, Don, personally takes me to the owner of the company he works for, a long time friend, and we talk for a long time.  The company is an outsourcing franchise of another company that offers full-time employment, which I was also applying for, explaining that I would be happy to take odd jobs  until a full time position was available.  I at least got a short reply from them, but it was kind of one of those “don’t call us – we’ll call you” things.  Then, I get an email from Don entitled Too Bad You’re Not White.

Earlier, I had emailed In Kyung asking why the non-renewal letter couldn’t just be torn up.  Today I asked her about it.  Seems that despite hearing nothing but accolades about my work ethic, commitment, lesson plans and class preparation from others, the Vice Principal has been soured on me due to bashing by Mr. Lee.  The Vice Principal is extremely unpopular and Mr. Lee is one of the few people who will even give him the time of day.  That I asked for some rotton male student to be disciplined (who I suspect was a family friend of the Principal) was cited as being my fault.  Where was Mr. Lee that whole time?  Did he even attempt to step in and help?  No.  Because Mr. Lee doesn’t believe in communicative techniques to teach students a foreign language.  Mr. Lee criticized anything that did not pacify and entertain the students.  He wanted me to play movies with Korean subtitles and just babysit.  I couldn’t even include Mr. Lee in any of the lessons like I could the other co-teachers, because the students all speak better English than Mr. Lee…

So today I have no job because an old guy about to retire doesn’t like me.  That’s okay.  The feeling is mutual, worthless old sack of…

Lesson learned.  I have been beaten into submission.  But too late for me.  Today I am scared.  I’m in a foreign country with no job prospects because I’m not foreign enough. If I’d have known, I’d have played the boys movies every day.  Who the hell did I think I was, wanting to actually teach them something?

I can listen to those who are white enough or have credentials enough tell me not to worry – you can teach part time and build up privates  (and how do I survive until I build up privates? and what if, like Don’s friend, the part-time places won’t even hire me because I’m not white enough?)

Or I can take my free flight home and try and get a job back in the U.S. (which is not a very promising proposition)  Or maybe I can go teach in another country.

In the meantime, I look at the job boards every day, hoping something comes up that is viable – which means within an hour’s commute, that will hire an aging Korean that they can try and sell as a native English speaker…

It’s not looking too good.

The mojo I’ve always had is gone.  In retrospect, it started to fade about four years ago.  All the experiences makes one over-confident.  Really, I’m just replaceable.

The goal was to be able to work more for TRACK.  But without means of support I’m no good for anybody.

from JongAng Daily

Some hanok owners against city efforts to preserve their traditional homes November 10, 2009

A shot of aging traditional Korean homes in Chebu-dong, Jongno District. The residents of the neighborhood have voted in favor or a redevelopment plan that will bring more modern buildings to the area. Ikseon-dong and other neighborhoods might face similar fates. By Ahn Seong-sik Stroll through the tangle of alleyways in the Ikseon-dong neighborhood of the Jongno District and you’re transported to another world, one where quaint wood-frame homes with ornate roofs line the streets alongside boutiques selling colorful clothing from a bygone era. Ikseon-dong is one of only a handful of neighborhoods in Seoul where traditional homes, called hanok, still dominate the landscape, harkening back to Korea’s not-so-distant past. The country’s rapid march toward industrialization in the second half of the 20th century often trampled cultural preservation efforts. With Korea now firmly entrenched in the developed world, however, some city officials are trying to shelter areas like Ikseon-dong from the continuing push toward modernization, setting aside large chunks of money to help hanok owners renovate and upgrade their homes. It’s a noble goal, as the homes represent a unique cultural asset for the city and provide a window into its history. But these efforts are being met with resistance from a surprising segment of the population: the homeowners themselves. Some owners say they’d rather have the government tear down their homes and build modern apartments on the land, provided they get space in the new residences. Hanok, they claim, are relatively uncomfortable in this day and age, as they have poor heating in winter, antiquated bathroom facilities and other drawbacks. These families, many of which have lived in the homes for decades, would rather reside in a modern apartment than a historical house.“Although these houses might be inconvenient in several ways, it is important for us to preserve them,” said Lee Hak-won, a researcher and associate professor in the department of traditional architecture at the Korean National University of Cultural Heritage. “We need to look at the bigger picture. A combination of old and new architectural structures is necessary. And many cities around the world have successfully been able to incorporate both. read the whole story at JoongAng Daily

So much thoughtful stuff to read at Conducive mag:

Mirah Ruben has commented extensively on my adoption survivor blog.  Haven’t read her book, but here’s a joint editorial by her.

REVERSE ROBINHOODISM Pitting Poor Against Affluent Women in the Adoption Industry

Shannon Gibney collects and comments on groups who have a vision for a more respectful consideration of race and adoption.

TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION Some Visions I Have Seen…

Post, author of Romania For Export Only; The Untold Story of the Romanian Orphans moves the International Adoption discussion back where it belongs, back to basic fundamental human rights:

INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION Child Protection or a Breach of Rights?

Vietnamese adoptee Kevin Minh Allen discusses the economic incentives written into U.S. law which promotes adoption, and what the human cost is.

THE PRICE WE ALL PAY Human Trafficking in International Adoption

Today I returned to school after taking Monday off with some, what I believe to be, awful but mild case of food poisoning.  (I have no idea what I ate that was bad, but it’s clear I ate something bad) And then, after having fasted an entire day I decided to take Tuesday off as well, since I didn’t want to be in a super weakened state in a germ-filled school where kids were dropping like flies due to the swine flu outbreaks.

Upon my return, I am informed that the second half of the school day I can go home, as there will be school – wide meetings on how to conduct testing in light of the swine flu pandemic.  The following day is the Korean SAT’s, and except for test proctors and seniors, everyone else gets to go home.  Did I pick a great week to get sick, or what?

Here’s a little post I didn’t finish on exam fever from last mid-terms:

Next week is mid-terms.

I know, I know.  We haven’t even been back from summer vacation for a month, and it’s already mid-terms coming up?  This is because of the college entrance exam in November.  I believe the entire school gets that day off.  I heard all of Korea has to be quiet on that day.

Something I may have forgot to write about last time, due to other dramas, was about last semester’s mid-terms and finals.  It’s kind of crazy.  The parents’ association sends gift boxes to all of the teachers.  (they also sent kim bop to the teachers during summer classes because the cafeteria was closed) In the recent past, parents sent bribes to teachers, but I guess that was outlawed.  Supposedly these bribes continue to vice principals and principals, but who can really say…In all of the classes, the parents send pizza to the classes afterward.  Last time (and this time) home room teachers are asking me to switch around my class schedule so they can best optimize their student’s cramming.

For the last two weeks, the teachers have all been staying late preparing the tests.  Occasionally they will come ask me to verify the correctness of the grammar.  The tests are very hard and sometimes.  If, for example, I tell them that the question doesn’t make sense, I am sometimes told that the question was made by someone else and can’t be changed – is this answer good or bad?  There doesn’t seem to be room for me to tell them it’s irrelevant if the answer is good or bad because the question doesn’t make sense…Anyway, these tests are then put under lock and key and the answers (at some point, don’t know when) are entered into a test card reader.  The card reader is also under lock and key in its own special room.  Each and every test has to be counted, again and again and again, to make sure not one has disappeared…

On test day, each class is divided in half and sent to different classrooms and each class gets students from different grades, to discourage cheating. The rows are grade A, grade B, A, B, A, B.  The students are put in numerical order as well.  The teacher’s podium is removed and put in the hallway so the desks can be spaced further apart.  The rest is typical – we must have tests prepared for instant distribution the second the PA announces the test is to begin.  Every score card has to be stamped with the instructor/test proctor’s stamp.  Students can raise their hands and get a blank score card should they make a mistake, which we must immediately destroy.  Most students wait until the final five minutes before filling out their cards, to leave room for the possibility of changing their answers.  But like the Monte Python bridge question, “what is your favorite color?”  I’ve seen indecision kill a student.   He kept trading in his card and then, finally happy with his choice, he made a mistake filling in a wrong circle and the test had ended.  I’m sure you could hear his scream of anguish across the entire school…Fortunately, the kids get the afternoon off of school, but they will go home and study from the time they get home and all night.  By the third day of the week, they are falling asleep during their tests.  By the last day, some of them no longer look human.

The SAT’s tomorrow are the apex of the student’s entire time in high school, and actually their entire time in school.  Period.  The entire nation will be hoping and praying for someone they know taking the exam.  Social status STILL hinges on the prestige associated with what university you attend, and there are only about three universities in Korea that have any credibility in the world stage.  There are actually a lot of minor technical colleges too, but for the most part, Koreans tell me there aren’t enough schools for everyone applying.  So a foreigner would then ask – why?  Why not open more?  (but I’m learning that sometimes, just to keep from being angry, it is better not to ask why)  They only thing I can figure is the fierce competition preserves the class screening process, but I’m hoping I’m wrong and it is something more pragmatic.

Tomorrow the school will be open.  The schools swap students to eliminate the possibility of  test corruption between teachers who have been bribed by parents, or teachers who show favoritism.  Taxis and policemen will be on alert to ferry late students to the test on time.  I heard that all flights are rescheduled during the exams so as not to disturb the students!

If my stupid video camera was working, I could go down and film the cheerleading going on at the entry gates of my school, but unfortunately, it’s been filming everything red for some reason.

No matter, here is some other footage of the madness other foreigners have taken in years previous..

This one has some really thoughtful comments from the students:

If you can suffer through the trite first few minutes, this is an interesting collection of interviews with Koreans about the national college entrance exam pressure:

Korean supporting/cheering each other on the most stressful day of their lives:

FIGHTING!!!

The temples are inundated with moms praying for their students good text scores

(boring to watch & not recommended, but just documenting)

That would be today’s date, and that would also be the subject of much blogging by anybody who has a blog and is living in Korea. But, since my friends and family presumably aren’t reading all the blogging about living in Korea, I will elucidate what the 1111 means.

No wait. Others have done it before and better than me, so here’s the post from blogger, the truth thus far:

Pepero Sticks!

I don’t know much about it except that it’s a genius marketing ploy by the Pepero company. Apparently 11/11 looks like Pepero sticks, and so everyone gives away a crap ton of Pepero on the day.  It can be romantic (as many of the boxes are shaped as hearts, etc), but you can also give it to friends, coworkers, anyone…. Some of my students said they’d bring me some either today or Wednesday so I’m pretty excited because Pepero is frickin delicious. Ne way. I’m copying and pasting what Wikipedia said below…

Pepero Day is an observance in South Korea similar to Valentine’s Day or Sweetest Day. It is named after the Korean snack Pepero and held on November 11, since the date “11/11″ resembles five sticks of Pepero. The holiday is observed mostly by young people and couples, who exchange Pepero sticks, other candies, and romantic gifts.

According to one story, Pepero Day was started in 1994 by students at a girls’ middle school in Busan, where they exchanged Pepero sticks as gifts to wish one another to grow “as tall and slender as a Pepero”^{[citation needed]} (Pepero means “thin like a stick”). However, it is more likely it was initiated by Lotte, the company which produces Pepero.

In Japan, a similar Pocky Day was held on November 11 in 1999, which was the 11th year of the Heisei era. The date, 11/11 of the 11th year, resembled 6 sticks of Pocky.

Lotte, by the way, is as ubiquitous in Korea as Samsung, LG, and Hyundai. From candy and gum to hotels, apartment complexes, department stores, oil, credit cards, an amusement park to a baseball team, it’s everywhere…a jaebeol (conglomerate) of over 60 companies, all run by one family.  The anti-multi-national corporation rebel in me has a hard time finding any candy or junk or gum or anything without Lotte on the label.  So I prefer to buy the  – I can’t remember what you call it – from the hippie lady street vender:

(she’s usually so cute and bohemian-looking, but today she has on sportswear)

anyway, these toasted rounds of hearty whole wheat goodness from the back of a truck are so crisp and warm, and then you bite into them and voila!

you bite through one layer which cracks off in your mouth like a super hearty croissant flake, and it MELTS in your mouth because inside is coated with -i-don’t-know-what – but it’s sweet and sticky and super yummy and then hit another layer and they land in your mouth all warm and you collapse them with your mouth and they continue to expose sweet goodness as you crunch away.  Much better than those too soft and mushy sweet bean paste filled fried fish shaped things, or the walnut and sweet bean paste filled too soft and mushy fried walnut shaped things.  Highly, highly recommended. Too bad I can’t remember what they’re called…

The horrible thing I have recently realized is my own capacity for taking the path of least resistance.  At first I would fret about not knowing what something was called or that I didn’t know how to do something and felt helpless.  But the horrible thing is that, instead of learning how or investigating more, I simply learned to work around the problem or do without.  Basically, I stopped learning.  And I’m really really skilled at it.

For example, getting cash out of a Korean ATM machine.  Someone showed me once.  I didn’t take notes on what hanguel meant what, or which buttons I should push, so the next time it was too overwhelming and I said to hell with it.  Now, if I can’t get money from an English ATM, then I just don’t even try.  And I forget it’s something I should make an effort to educate myself on.  When I remember, I realize how LAME I can be.

But on the other hand, it’s also amazing to me just how many things most people do every day that they feel is essential that really isn’t.  So in a way I really like being the deaf mute person with little connection to anything and little vocabulary to communicate.  It makes me feel basic and easily content and whole.

See what my heroes in Korea have been up to…it feels good that I can call them “comrade.”

So damn proud…

Six Korean adoptees filed an appeal with the Anti-corruption and Civil Rights Commission last year to request a probe into irregularities in their adoption documents and possible illegal procedures at local adoption agencies.

Now, they’re involved in a full-fledged battle to reform adoption laws and procedures, and they’re getting help from some heavyweights.

Adoptee rights and community groups as well as unwed mothers, the public interest law firm Gong-Gam and Democratic Party Representative Choi Young-hee have joined forces with the adoptees in an effort to convince lawmakers to revise the Special Law Relating to the Promotion and Procedure of Adoption.

The National Assembly has now taken up the issue and is exploring changes through a series of hearings.

The latest hearing took place yesterday.

If their efforts succeed, the groups will drastically change the landscape of domestic and international adoption in Korea, a country which lawmaker Choi said at yesterday’s hearing said “still has a stigma attached to it as one of the major exporters of children.”

It would also rank as one of the few cases in the world where adoptees returned to their original country and changed adoption practices through legislation.

False records

When they started this quest, the adoptees, hailing from three different countries, said their adoption records contained contradictory information.

	Adoptee Jane Jeong Trenka

In one case, an adoptee only identified by her initials, SIA, said her adoptive parents in Denmark were informed by an adoption agency in 1977 that it did not have the records of her birth parents. But when SIA came to Korea in 1998 and asked for information about them, the agency did in fact have information about her birth mother. SIA also found that the adoption was done without her mother’s consent.

In another case, an adoptee only identified as PYJ said her adoption agency created a new identity for her when she was sent to Norway for adoption in 1975.

Their initial attempt to delve into the issue hit a brick wall when the civil rights commission dismissed the appeal, citing a lack of proper administrative procedures in Korea at the time of their adoption.

Taking on the law

The adoptees, however, did not stop there. Instead of filing another petition or begging for the release of their records at adoption agencies, they decided to try to revise adoption-related laws to find out the truth and improve the system.

According to the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs, 161,588 Korean children were sent overseas for adoption from 1958 through 2008. Korea is the world’s fifth-largest exporter of children behind China, Guatemala, Russia and Ethiopia as of 2007, according to World Partners Adoption Inc.

“Most Korean adoptees are growing up in foreign countries and facing confusion over their identity. Even though they come to Korea to find their roots, there are few cases in which they are given accurate information on their birth or succeed in locating their birth parents. To improve the situation, we decided to hold a hearing on revising the Special Act,” lawmaker Choi said.

Need for stricter regulations

The proposed bill starts with the idea that foreign, and even domestic, adoption is not the best option for children and that public assistance should be given to mothers to help them raise their children, a concept that follows international adoption practices. It also incorporates the notion that adoption processes need to be more strictly regulated to prevent possible abuses by adoption agencies.

“The government wants to push domestic adoption, but all the children already have mothers,” said Jane Jeong Trenka, the president of the Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea and one of the adoptees who filed the appeal at the commission. “The children can stay with their mothers. Single mothers should be given resources to raise their own children. It is still a matter of social prejudice in Korea.”

	A National Assembly hearing was held yesterday on revising Korea’s special adoption law. By Jeon Min-gyu

Trenka added that a number of adoptees had families but were reclassified as orphans before they were sent abroad for adoption. “Because their records were manipulated, only 2.7 percent of adoptees succeed in locating their birth parents,” she said.

The majority of children relinquished for adoption in Korea are the children of unwed mothers. Of the 2,556 adoptions in 2008, international and domestic, 2,170 were the children of unwed mothers. Others were from low-income families or broken homes.

One of the biggest obstacles that prevents these women from raising their children on their own is the social stigma they face as unwed mothers. Another is the lack of social welfare services available to them should they choose to raise their child.

Trenka was adopted by a couple in Minnesota in the United States in 1972 when she was six months old. In 2007, Trenka and other Korean adoptees founded TRACK to help get the government to fully acknowledge its past and present adoption practices.

Reverend Kim Do-hyun, who is the director of KoRoot, which provides accommodation for Korean adoptees returning to the country, echoed those thoughts.

“Behind the Special Law is an idea that adoption needs to be encouraged,” Kim said. “But adoption is not something that we should promote. Rather than pushing adoption, we should reinforce the original family to prevent further separation between mothers and their children.”

Adoption as a business

One of the major changes proposed by the bill drafted by the public interest law firm Gong-Gam is that it would require court approval for all types of adoptions – currently they’re needed only for domestic adoptions – and increase government intervention in matters dealt with mostly by private adoption agencies.

The adoptees say there needs to be more government involvement in adoption because as more adult adoptees reunite with their birth parents and gain access to their records, examples of dubious international adoption practices have surfaced.

TRACK has been documenting these cases through interviews with adoptees and their birth families. They found that in some cases an orphan hojeok (family registry) is produced for a child sent for international adoption, even if the child has a family. Contradictions were also found between the records held by adoptive parents and those kept by the adoption agency. In one case the child was malnourished at the time of adoption but the records sent to the adoptive parents overseas stated the child was healthy. In another case, a child was given up for domestic adoption but was sent abroad for international adoption.

The adoptee coalition believes such irregularities occurred because adoption agencies manipulated records to push international adoption, which is very profitable.

According to the Health Ministry, the four adoption agencies authorized to facilitate international adoptions charge 13 million won ($17,211) to 20 million won for each child sent for international adoption.

Pressure on moms

Another proposed revision would give women a minimum of 30 days to make a decision on adoption, which is standard in Western countries. There is no set period for this in South Korea.

Observers say women are often forced to sign an agreement on adoption almost right after giving birth. If the mothers change their mind, the agencies charge them for all expenses they’ve incurred, from child delivery to the shelters they run. They said adoption agencies tend to encourage adoption rather than telling the women that there are other options available such as raising their child on their own.

“Adoption agencies pressure you to give up your child,” Choi Hyang-sook, a member of the group Miss Mamma Mia, which is also part of the adoptee coalition, said at yesterday’s hearing.

Access to records

Third, the agencies would be obligated to provide adoptees with all information on their birth parents, with the exception of name and registration number if the birth parents do not want their identities revealed. Kim said adoption agencies are often reluctant to share information with adoptees who are looking for their birth parents and vice versa because they are afraid that past abuses could become public knowledge.

“Adoption agencies provide adult adoptees with only partial information, citing the protection of their birth parents’ privacy,” Kim said. “The agencies have often falsified data to suit adoptive parents’ taste or to abide by the laws of the country to which they are sending a child. There were cases in which adoptees were classified as orphans when they were not. The more information they reveal, the more their reputation can be damaged.”

One adoption agency disputed the accusations. “There are records we can open but there are those we can’t,” said Choi An-yeo, a manager at Holt Children’s Services Inc., the biggest and oldest adoption agency in Korea.

Choi said things were different a few decades ago. “Then, it was possible to send an abandoned child abroad for adoption. If someone brought in a child and lied that he or she was a legal guardian, there would be no way for us to find out. We only have followed the laws and we will continue to do so,” she added.

Unifying adoption bills

Democratic Party Representative Choi is sponsoring the proposal while the Health Ministry is also drawing up its own bill. It is not certain how the government bill is going to be shaped but Park Sook-ja, the director of the Office for Child, Youth and Family Policy at the Health Ministry, said she generally sympathizes with the adoptee coalition. “We share similar ideas in general, but we need to take it one step at a time,” Park said.

The ministry has already held two hearings on the bill, however, Park said it is too early to talk about the bill as the final version has not been made yet.

Choi said the differences between the two bills will likely be ironed out before a unified bill is presented to the Assembly early next year.

Based on ‘lies’

Dozens of adoptees including Trenka attended the hearing yesterday in the hope that the bill Choi presented can transform adoption practices here.

Trenka commented, “Adoption may be an act of love, but all adoptions are meant to separate children from their mothers.”

Trenka started writing to her birth parents regularly when she was 16 years old. Her adoptive parents did not like her keeping in touch with her birth parents but one day she found letters from her birth mother in her adoptive parents’ mailbox. Her birth mother had found her adoptive parents’ address and kept sending her letters. Trenka said she still remembers the time she reunited with her birth mother.

“My mother was so emotional. I’d never seen a person so emotional,” she said. “She sat on the floor and poured her heart out.”

Trenka reunited with the rest of her birth family in the 1990s.

“Adoption is a big lie. Its success depends on everyone believing in that lie. They [my adoptive parents] wanted to believe in that lie but I could not do that.” Asked why she is devoting herself to creating the law, she said, “For my mother. My mother died but if I don’t try to change things, my suffering has no meaning.”

By Limb Jae-un [jbiz91@joongang.co.kr]

Holt Adoption Survivor

Especially happy about the introduction of the law bill presented to Korea’s National Assembly.  Written by adoptees, because we care about Korea’s future children…

First, the listings at koreamovietimes.org are not current… which is too bad, because someone took the time to translate them into English for us…anyway, always double-check, but I’m not sure how to do that…

I got to the theater in Gangdong and there were only three of us watching.  :(   The usher boy was really nice to me, and got me from the lobby and found my seat for me, because he knew I couldn’t speak Korean.

Glad I went by myself, though, as I was sniffling from almost the very beginning. (things that wouldn’t make anyone else but maybe me tear up, because I know and love an adoptee who went to St. Paul’s Orphanage and was there at the same time as the main character Jin-Hee, which was based upon the life story of the director, Ounie Lecomte)

It’s a beautiful movie, I loved the period 70’s clothing, and it was shot entirely from the perspective of a child, I guess in the manner of Truffaut.   It’s also a very Korean piece.  A lovely image then rip your beating heart out of your chest and slowly shred it kind of Korean film.  I have learned, with my talks with the Korean documentary director and the artist Jeong Ae, that it is CRITICAL for Korean audiences that there be something beautiful in every sad story.  This is why adoptees have a hard time relaying their struggles, because the amazing beautiful people we are gets lost in the relaying of a difficult story.  So this is why Lacomte’s rendition is important for us, as a model.

The story isn’t really about adoption, though.  It’s about abandonment and loss.  Which is part of adoption, yes.  But it’s not critical of adoption or Korea or political or anything.  It just relays how Jin-Hee faces each new unknown while haunted by and holding onto the memory of her father.  We follow her as she tries to deal with her anger over being so powerless and as she develops relationships with some of the other “orphans.” (I don’t consider abandoned children technically orphans, since they have living parents)  Some have hope for a better life.  Some have resignation.  Some have unbroken spirit and defiance.  All are hurting in their own way.  All must sing a farewell song as the ones who are chosen get sent away to foreign countries.  Especially heart-breaking is the device of Jin-Hee and her best friend Sook-Hee’s interest in caring for a broken bird.  I won’t spoil it, but only say that little people are fully formed humans and experience trauma and heartbreak in all the same way adults do.  Their souls can be crushed.  (it’s not what you imagine) They also think about existence and what that means.

All of the above without benefit of English subtitles, so I’d like to see it again and be privileged to eavesdrop on the children’s conversations one day.

Part of me would like to see a sequel, but then I think no, this is where it must end.  For us, there are three chapters in our lives:  chapter 1 – prior to our separation with our original families, chapter 2 – in transition and prior to our second separation, and chapter 3 – adapting to our new and not always better life.  We adoptees long to have our birth country understand chapter 3, and to rediscover our pre-amnesia chapter 1, but nobody has really portrayed chapter 2 before and what THAT did to us. It’s more powerful standing alone.  I just wish all Korean people could see it.

I looked for my friend Myung Sook, and there were two or three that I imagined could have been her.   Myung Sook’s amazing recall of her life before adoption, her life at St. Paul’s, and her horrific post adoption life will, I hope, one day be in book form.   Unlike most Korean adoptee memoirs, all the chapters are there.

Mr. Lee wants to write a book about my life, but fears too much will be lost because he isn’t confident in his English skills.  Maybe I should let him…

Some snippets of Q&A where I let the kids practice their asking skills, from the last day in regular classrooms.

S.  Teacher, do you know my name?

T.  Awwwwwww.  No.  I WISH I did.  I’m sorry. I remember all your faces! (and then I had to explain how I see over 600 of them, but only once a week, and how I wish I saw them all more so I could remember.)

*****

S.  Teacher, are you going to leave?

T.  Yes.  I will be leaving.

S.  Don’t you like it here?

T.  I like the students.  A lot.

S.  We’ll be better!  Please stay!!!

*****

S.  When you read a newspaper, what is the first page you turn to?

T.  Whoa!  You are amazing.  That is an amazing question. (teacher applauds)

I turn to the world news section, but honestly I don’t read the paper much.  Friends tend to send me links to interesting articles.

*****

S.  May I ask about your t.v. documentary?

T.  Of course, thank you for asking.

S.  What do you hope for finding your sister?

T.  I think she deserves to know that her story has more information too, so that’s the main reason.  I also know that the adoption agencies lie to adoptees and their Korean families, so if she is my sister and I can prove it with DNA testing, then I can prove adoption was not done ethically in the past.  I want to improve things for Korea’s future children.

S.  (nods head)  Thank you.

*****

S. What would you become, if you could be a student again?

T.  I would combine anthropology and  documentary film, because I think people and cultures are fascinating and I would like to record them before they disappear.

(students all gasp with amazement)

*****

S. What do you think about our school lunches?

T.  You know, someone in every class asks this!  I think they are not great.  But they could be worse.

S.  What could be worse?

T.  Well, there is an awful lot of what we call “mystery” meat…

(students all murmur ” mystery meat” hoping to remember it)

*****

S.  What do you think of our principal?

T.  To be honest, I’ve only spoken with him twice, so I can’t judge his character.

*****

S.  What games do you play?

T.  (is that a cute question or what – and they’re so serious about it!)

Well, I don’t have much free time, so I can’t spend all the time it takes to play RPG games or most games.  So I only play quick games once in awhile like Tetris

(student nods his head as this seems acceptable)

*****

S.  Why are you chewing gum?

T.  (busted!  the ONE time I do that, and I’m called out on it)

I just ate something I didn’t like and didn’t have time to brush my teeth.

(student nods his head and is satisfied with the answer – phew!  close call!)

*****

S.  Teacher do you love me?

T.  Of course.  I LOVE YOU!

*****

Photos from last month before the English Zone was completed

Don’t ya just love the message over the door???

To encourage a more studious environment, the window shades have been printed with various Ivy League schools.  Korea is OBSESSED with Ivy League schools.  OBSESSED.

It’s kind of bittersweet for me, since that’s a photo of Yale in the middle – my almost alma-mater.  Oh, you don’t know my Yale story?

The Yale Story

Ten years after I graduated, with two kids and on welfare, I enrolled in college.  Five years later, after working half time, going to school full time and raising two children, working round the clock too many all-nighters to mention, I got accepted to Yale’s Master of Architecture Program.  It was such a huge personal accomplishment.  Despite being estranged from my family for over 17 years, and despite foundations paying for everything financial aid did not, Yale’s admission required my parents to fill out a statement about their finances.

The financial aid form came on a CD which was delivered to my slumlord house.  Only it was dropped on the porch in a derelict portion of the house that was never used, so my generous time frame to fill it out was cut short because I discovered its whereabouts so late.

I called my parents asking them for the information in writing, and my parents said that would take some research on their part.  Meanwhile, the clock was ticking.  I called again asking them for the information, and they made some excuses that they would have to contact their accountant.  My mother cried, “Why don’t you just go to a public school like the other children did?”  (Oh – you mean your real children who you helped pay for their tuition???) and then she added, “You just want to take away our retirement.”  (what the?)  Finally, after much pleading and explaining that nobody at Yale was going to take their money, my parents agreed to send me the information.  Over a week passed and then I received an envelope.  In it, written in pencil, on a piece of scrap paper, was an approximation of what they might make in a year.  I had specifically told them all the DETAILED information Yale required on this financial statement, and what they sent me was totally worthless.  This is from a man who had a graduate degree.  This was from people who had been filling out financial aid applications for their two sons for eight years or more.    The time had run out.  I had to write Yale a letter explaining why I could not attend their school.

Why Yale?  Was I obsessed with an Ivy League education and the networking it would supply me with?  No.  Only later in the workplace did I realize what solid gold it would have been.  I wanted to go to Yale because there was an existentialist philosophy instructor there, and I wanted to write a Master’s thesis combining existentialism, phenomenology, and the Japanese concept of space-time, ma.  I wanted to go to Yale because they had a program where architecture students actually built a house from the ground up.  I wanted to go to Yale because they had housing programs with the outlying area’s most needy residents.  One of my instructors wrote that I was the hope and future of the profession, one of the most creative students she’d ever had.  I ended up, instead, eschewing the narcissism, politics, and competition, and fed my kids with drafting grunt work instead.

Aren’t the opportunities being adopted wonderful?  Sorry, but I’m quite rightfully bitter about this one.  In fact, it’s the one thing I can say I’m bitter about.  That was MY OWN WORK and my own accomplishment, and they destroyed it. The other stuff?  That I can make allowances for, try and find some empathy or sympathy or understanding for their self-centeredness, or how I was used. But not Yale.  Not ever. No person should ever crush someone’s hopes, dreams, and future like that.

The following year I applied at my local public university.  They wouldn’t accept me because they were taking those who went on to the masters program uninterrupted and there was a budget crunch so preference was given to international students with their higher tuitions.

Okay.  So now I get to sit next to an image of Yale every day.  Sigh.

Anyway, I rearranged the chairs and tables like this (my drafting skills are good for something, after all:

(I asked for rectangular tables, btw!)  Anyway, I’ve set up this system of moving the kids around the room.  I’m sure the co-teachers thought I was insane at first, but now that they’ve seen it in action, I think they get it.  Each table has a letter and a number designation taped to it.  Every two tables share the same color.  So I’ve got 14 letter groups, 14 number groups, and 7 color groups.  Every student has a name tag with a color, letter and number assigned to them.

On the first day of class, I let the kids sit wherever they wanted and then I made sure to give each student in one of those naturally forming groups a different color.   So the conversation cliques were instantly outed by the students and  I easily broke them up.  Also, we did a lot of drills where I made them stand up, practice the classic “hello.  how are you?  I’m fine, thank you” dialogue, and then move to the right on cue.

Then, I show them a little video on  how that dialogue is wrong, wrong, wrong, and to never use that dialogue again.  And then I go through all the natural ways Americans greet each other at various degrees of formality, and then I play the “Wassup!” video for some levity.

If there’s time I also present a power point I made showing different types of people and asking the students how they would greet them.  And then I introduce them to the different kind of polite ways to address people:  old people, your boss, a fellow student, an officer, a teacher, the president, etc.  I show them that there are respect levels in America too, and explain how they are falling out of use, but are still important to know for certain formal situations.

Surprisingly, class 1-1 did really well in the new environment.  I guess that’s what 6 weeks of dictation does for you.  Class 1-3 did horrible.  I might have to send them back to the regular classroom for some more medicine if they don’t shape up.  The girls, as always, did amazing.

I must say that the huge touch screen monitor is very very cool.  And it’s also great to no longer have to travel from classroom to classroom.  It might not be so bad if I had a traditional subject, but to teach conversation in spaces so over-crowded the children have trouble moving their chairs enough to stand up is really difficult.  The only problem seems to be acoustics – the sounds  bounce off of everything and the room is painfully loud.

Kind of sad to leave what I’m building here. But I figure there will be more great and awful kids and new and different and equally rewarding challenges at the next place.

So in our new English Zone, I was reviewing one of the new books purchased by In Kyung for teacher reference.  She did a very good job, btw, but most of the books were, of course, chosen for the Korean English teachers and more applicable to creative ways to teach grammar.  However, there were a few titles she chose which I found useful and which I wrote down and hope to purchase for myself.

One of them was Small Group discussion topics;  for Korean high school students and beginners by Jack Martire.  Martire is a long-time ex-pat who knows Korean culture well and his discussion topics are both very provocative AND distinctly about modern life from the perspective of a young Korean.

For example, one of the topics was on regulation of the internet by way of the sex slave trade.  He cited news articles from the late 90’s where a ring of internet prostitution was broken up by the Seoul police.  Approximately 300 girls were found to be soliciting for sex on-line.  The alarming thing was how organized this solicitation was, and even more shocking was the fact that most of the girls were under-aged, some as young as 14.  The interesting thing was that many of their customers were not men, but boys of their peer group.  The horror of it all was these girls were not even profiting from this solicitation, but were held captive because they were essentially being socially blackmailed into perpetuating what should have been an isolated transgression.

Sooo many tangent topics for discussion can spring from this article.  What conditions would cause so many young girls to be in this predicament?  How is it the boys can afford to pay for this activity?  How was it organized?  By whom?  How was this activity facilitated?  It seems clear that these children, despite being over-scheduled and living pressured academic lives are also woefully unsupervised.  In Korean society today, too many parents work late into the night and have very little interaction or relationship with their teenagers.

When I look at my students, (who, admittedly don’t represent average Korean students as much, because the majority conduct themselves in a more moralistic way due to having Christian parents and being practicing Christians themselves) see their fresh pimply faces, their naivete and almost arrested development in comparison to American students their same age,  and think about this article, it makes me wonder what kind of secret lives they lead.  I see young boys smoking on the way to middle school.  I see a couple of my girls of the gum-chewing, eyes rolling, smart-alec variety, and know deep in my heart that they really can’t handle and aren’t equipped for most of the vices of this world.

I once talked about urban tribes and the way American students wear emblems to mark being in a community and asked a Korean teacher about gangs or tough kids, since they are often portrayed as existing in Korean dramas.  She paused and said yes, possibly Korean students do this too.  I asked how she could tell, since they all wear uniforms.  The hair, mostly.  The way they don’t conform to uniform standards.  I wonder how far their rebellion takes them.  I wonder if the black t-shirt under the white oxford signifies something far more unhealthy than we would care to admit.  I wonder what the true cost of Korea’s economic development is.  Korea is so like Japan with all its sexual repressions yet is so unlike Japan, in that here individualism is not expressed or tolerated of its youth.

And what happens in a repressed society?  Transgressions.  And the result of transgressions?  Untimely babies.  Babies who are sent away as transgressions erased.  Because it is not the mother’s shame, but the family’s shame.  A family who could not provide a good moral compass.  A family who was not doing its job managing their household.

But also interesting in Korea, is that this secret life thing does not stop once childhood is over.  Many many adults here lead secret lives as well.  For example, I could actually sleep with as many Korean men as I wanted, if I were willing to join the many others for whom marriage has no meaning but for which is pivotal to their place in society.  Whether man or woman, these adult transgressors are legion, and its presence is commonly accepted for others and feared for oneself.  And, as it turns out since last year’s celebrated case of an adulteress actress, a jail-able offense for the women.

And, I believe, that these transgressions are the result of everything around Korea changing but Korea resisting REAL change.  While it embraces technology and takes it to a new level, imports everything, and hungers after global commerce, it doesn’t comprehend what the implications are, what it means to their society, and how to incorporate them in a healthy manner.  That some of the things they see as evil are actually beneficial, and some of the things they accept are a trap, enslaving them.  We are talking epic growing pains here.

There is hope, however.  Most of the Koreans I talk to are my age.  They went to college during the student demonstrations for the democratic movement.  They ALL categorically are opposed to this educational system, and some of them are considering saying to hell with their family’s traditional expectations and obligations, as dictated to them.

Mr. Lee tells me about his son.  He wants to direct movies like his mother and sees no point in scoring high in math and science to get into a university that doesn’t focus on  his interests.  So Mr. Lee let his son drop out of high school and study on his own.  So now the boy is studying directors, film history, social studies, etc.  Mr. Lee says the extra classes are killing his pocket book, and that he worries about his son’s future here in Korea, but that he sees the sparkle in his eyes and it fills him with joy to see his son change from someone who hated learning, to someone who has a lust for learning.

I bet Mr. Lee’s son doesn’t have a secret life.  There’s no need now.  May he grow and prosper and show the rest of Korea that in a crazy world without traditional values, personal happiness is even more important to achieve balance and sustainability.

I’m moving out of this bank vault and into a real neighborhood!  Away from Bellevue!  Which was making me INSANE!  Yayy!!!  The real estate agent was a pushover about taking less key money down and more rent per month.  Actually, it turns out that it is the buyer who pays the commission, so he kept working the owner to both take less key money AND keep the monthly rent low.  So I got a very good deal because, it seems, everything in Korea is negotiable.

Seems he stole me as a client and that would sour relations between him and his other real estate friend.  BUT, even though the other guy was nicer, he just didn’t have any good listings.  I told him I’d call him, but then forgot I don’t speak Korean…he probably thinks I’m a jerk now…

Getting my own place, independent of the schools turns out to be more of a commitment than I thought.  I’ll have to get a refrigerator and a washing machine, pots and pans and dishes, a mattress to sleep on, a table to sit at, and some book-shelves and at least a clothes rack if not a wardrobe.  I mean, all those things can be gotten cheap and sold – but it’s still a commitment.  Because of course I want my home to be nice and not look like a drop-off for someone else’s trash.   And then I’ll fall in love with my stuff.  But it’s also kind of exciting, because I love to hunt for the best finds.  But that’s also kind of daunting, because shopping in Seoul is like shopping in Manhattan – that could really wear a person out.

Looking around for things I’ll eventually need I found this:

A Salvation Army in Seoul!

In a couple of months I’ll have to part with all of my school-owned small appliances (don’t watch tv much, don’t use the microwave) and have to purchase some items.  I might just have to wash clothes by hand, since I didn’t see room for a washing machine anywhere, and I’ll have to buy or rent a refrigerator.  But a rice cooker?  SALLY’S!  AND, the proceeds go to rehab centers.  So they have a store and a coffee shop in Mapo.  Sounds like a wonderful way to spend a Saturday.  Yayy!

Also, some other second hand stores:

Yayy!  Who wants to line Emarte’s pockets any more?  Not I!

T-recycle co.

and

Recycle City

Really, I have no idea how one goes about moving here.  I’ve watched the movers move other people out of my officetel, and the movers – instead of using cardboard boxes like in America, use plastic self-closing storage bins.  MUCH sturdier, easier to cart around, and re-usable.  The question is, do they let the person moving hold onto the bins long enough to take their belongs out and organize them?  And what about in my situation, where I’ve got nothing to put my clothing into?  How should I prepare the clothes for moving, if not in boxes?  I don’t want to buy plastic bins that I’m not going to use again…

And really, since I am paying rent for three months that I could have been paying nothing, I really can’t afford many household items until March.  Maybe I’ll just carry one thing each evening, as I will be commuting sometime between December and February, and in this way s-l-o-w-l-y empty out my apartment.  What a funny sight I’d be to the regulars on the subway!  What a pain during the train transfer.

Yayy!  No more gaudy fuscia and gold bedspread!  No more mattress that’s like a box spring resting on plastic cones that I can’t sweep around!  No more audio announcements invading my apartment!  No more strange people knocking at my door!  No more eerie walks down long empty corridors just to get to my bank vault!  I’ll have a bedroom with a door!  No more delivery ads cluttering up my door!  Oh, the list can go on and on…

Also official is I was forced to let my school know I won’t be renewing my contract next year, since my new recruiter was forced to contact them to confirm my employment (sheesh – no way to even test the waters in this place)  So that was kind of a bummer.  The vice principal wrote nice things about me and In Kyung gave me a good recommendation and part of me is sad I’m leaving.  I only hope my new assignment won’t be terribly far away from where I live, as Seoul is a very very very big city.

Adoption is a popular theme in Korean movies and dramas – it shows up all the time.

This year (last season) the big draw was the movie Ski jump,  (or Take Off ) which was about a Korean American adoptee who competes in the Olympics ski jump competition under the Korean flag.

Having missed it, I did get to enjoy several adoptees talk about its accuracy in portrayal of the returning/searching adoptee’s experience.  They said it managed to show what a tight spot the adoptee is in, trying to balance being sensitive to their adopting families and their first families.  They thought it was better than the typical Korean melodramatic portrayal of adoption, but it painted adoption from a distinctly Korean lens to comic effect (from an American’s point of view)  such as one dialog where the lead character calls his American parents and instead of asking, “How are you?”  He asks, “Have you eaten?” in English…

This year there’s another Adoption movie, Rabbit and Lizard / Maybe, which focuses on a Korean American adoptee who returns to Korea to search for her birthmom and falls in love with a cab driver dying of heart disease.  (of course, he’s dying)  No reviews yet from the adoptee community whether or not it portrays her anguish and culture shock in a realistic manner or not…I’ll bet language isn’t an issue…

I guess the main criticism of the many many films with adoption in the story is that adoptees come back from their foreign lands a troubled mess, there is little account of their true struggles here in Korea dealing with how Koreans receive them.  Most of the adoptees in the films are domestic adoptions, and they are portrayed as pitiful or wildly successful and cold hearted.  As a side product I may assemble links to these movies and dramas, but I’ve no time myself to watch them all.

Waking up early the other day I caught one on t.v.  An adoptee from America and this woman having an affair with a married man start to have a friendship.  Was it before or after he carried her on his back?  Of course his broken self attracts her.  Of course they have zero problem communicating, and of course his Korean is perfect.  Some pretty touching (and melodramatic) scenes of him finding his mother’s mausoleum and then turning to her for, well, you know.

Interestingly, the formulaic elements that seem to be in most romantic Korean movies are all there in every Korean movie with adoptees:  the guy carries the girl on his back.  (chivalry)  someone dies.(tears)  there is always a love triangle. (tension)  The formula works, but I wish they would allow a little reality to insert itself now and then.

That’s another reason why I’m so looking forward to A Brand New Life thursday.  Finally, a dramatization about adoption based on reality.  I only wish it would stay in Korea longer so more people could watch it.