We visited an unwed mother's home during the tour. I was deeply moved by these young women and shocked at the same time. The shocking part is seeing how young they are. I remember all of the adoptees on our tour sitting with their mouths hanging open in disbelief as we sat across the room from the unwed mothers. They were some teenage girls sitting in the front of the group acting like little children playing. We were all reflecting that this could have been the same situation with our own birthmothers. It all hit way too close to home - the realization of the maturity level of these girls who were about to become mothers was too hard to swallow because we were the end products of this, being sent away for adoption.
The most moving part of the visit with these young women was when most of them said they wanted their babies to be sent overseas. Their reasoning, they said, is that if they grow up in the West they will know they are adopted, and their birth mothers may be able to meet them some day. In Korea, if children are adopted domestically, the chances that the birth mothers will meet their child again are very slim since the Korean family will more than likely never tell them they are adopted. The main reason for them choosing to do overseas adoption is because they can't bear knowing their child is only within a six-hour distance if they do a domestic adoption. They said they would wonder constantly as they walked past children on the streets whether that was their child.
I, too, know that concept because when I was in Korea I often felt the urge to scream out on the subway and on the bus "Are any of you my birth mother?" I could hardly bear the thought that I am in such a small country, so close to her and I can't even find or recognize my own birth mother. The amount of pain the birth mothers must go through is ten times worse, so I truly understood why they choose overseas adoption.
But the one thing that should not go unnoticed is that these women place their child for adoption with an immense amount of love and thought. These women have choices to either place their child over seas, domestic adoption or care for the child on their own. If there was no unwed mother's home these women could die during a child birth, isolated by the stigma of unwed motherhood.
During my home stay in Seoul for one evening, I learned so much about a typical poor Korean family. Another tour member and I stayed with a family of five in a very tiny apartment with two and a half bedrooms, a small kitchen and bathroom. Our meals consisted of a bowl of rice, three different kinds of old kimchi, pickles, anchovies and a potato dish. The family consisted of a 15-year-old girl, a 14-year-old sister, a brother age 9 and their parents. The father did not greet us because he was out getting drunk with his friends and was too hungover in the morning to take us to church, and when we got back from church he had already left to meet his friend. We did not meet her mother because she was taking care of a sick relative. So it was just all of the kids plus the grandmother.
The part of Seoul where they lived had streets littered with some garbage and smelled of sewage. The family had little furniture, and mostly sat on the floor with mats and blankets if they wanted to watch TV. It was easy to tell why there were three children, with two older girls and a younger boy. The son had his own photo album while the girls did not have one. He was prized and very spoiled. The whole experience made me appreciate the life I have now and my life growing up. Not only did I feel gratitude for just the obvious material things, but for the physical and mental presence of my parents in my life, being there, always showing me how much they love me.
One of the more beautiful things I observed about Korean families, both rich and poor, was how intimate and close they can be to one another. It did make me think and wonder very much how much I had missed not being brought up in Korea. Some nights it made me very sad that I never had the chance to be close to my own birth family, and that I did not have any choice or say in their decision to send me away. But at the same time, I could not disregard the fact that I already have a very loving family back at home in the United States who have always loved me unconditionally and will continue to do so until the day God separates us.
I feel that my trip to Korea was very successful for many reasons. The obvious reason is that it brought me closer to my family and made me appreciate my life in the United States. Also, I learned so much about my "ghost country of Korea" culturally that made me understand more about why adoption is considered the best option for some families. As part of the tour, we were taught about the whole process of adoption in Korea, and we had an experience to see it first hand to make it more real for us.
Another reason for the importance of this trip is that I found Mrs. Kim, the woman who brought me to the Bookboo police box.
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