Korea

Confessions 2007 - The Third Sister

So on my last night with my birth family, my sisters, Amy, and I sat outside for a while and started to chat. Over the next two hours I basically got all of the Um family gossip which was A LOT.

Of course with the door open for discussion, the first thing I wanted to know was why I hadn't met my third sister. I had asked about her several times over the past week and a half, and would get very general answers like, "She's too busy" or "She's not sure she can schedule it in". The answers didn't make sense to me, and Amy and I felt something funny was going on, we just didn't know what it was. Well, I found out.

My third sister is married to as they put it, "An asshole." Her marriage sounds very traditional and very Korean where the man says something and the woman does it. Period. A few years ago she did something that really pissed him off and he told her off (although I have a strange feeling it was more than just "telling her off". After telling off my sister, my brother-in-law proceeded to call up my birth mother and tell her off too. Why I have no idea because my birth mother didn't have anything to do with the situation according to my sisters. My brother then got wind of all of this and confronted my sister who ended up defending her husband's actions. As my sisters explained it, my brother told my 3rd sister that she and her husband were not welcome in his house if that how they were going to behave.

Its been a few years since that happened and I get the feeling they haven't spoken much at all. My sisters told me a few times her marriage isn't good. I feel bad for her in a way and I wish I could have met her, but in order to do so my sisters felt like they had to sneak around behind my brother's back and they were uncomfortable doing so. I can't say I blame them. My brother is the head of the family and out of respect for him and my mother, I think they made the right decision. They knew I was disappointed, but in the end I would have never wanted to disrespect any of my birth family members like that after they had been so generous and open towards me. The timing just wasn't right. Hopefully it will be when I visit again.

New Photos

I've uploaded some of the pictures my nephew Sung Su took from my trip.

You can find them here...

Sung Su's Photos on Flickr

Visiting their home

It was decided at our first meeting that I would spend a night with them towards the end of my trip at their home, which I had suspected would happen even before I left for the trip. I think there was a real need for them to be able to cook for me, they wanted me to meet the rest of my family members and see how they live.

Byung-Ho picked Amy and I up at the hotel in the morning and after about a 45 minute car ride we pulled up to their apartment complex. In Korea the apartment buildings tend to be very high and clustered together in small groups with courtyard/parking areas in the middle. Byung-Ho was very quiet in the car on the way there, not his normal joking self. I later found out he had worked the night shift and stayed up to pick me up and drive me to their home. He really is such a nice man.

We arrived at their house and the first thing I noticed is that there was NO air conditioning. Korea after the rainy season is HUMID. REALLY HUMID. On top of the already uncomfortable heat they had also been cooking for god knows how long, so when the door opened I was almost blasted off my feet by how hot the apartment felt. As I walked inside I noticed the apartment was small, not small for New York standards, but small for the fact that four people lived in it together. So there were four adults (I'm counting my 15 year old nephew in the mix here) living in a three bedroom apartment. How does that work out? Well, my poor sister Jung-Hee shares a small room with my mother. The room has its own private bathroom, but they sleep on a day bed! My sister has a single mattress and there is a wooden panel that pulls out from the side that my mother sleeps on. No wonder she's unmarried...how the heck do you meet someone THAT way?

Here is a picture of what their bedroom and bathroom looks like.

Notice the little tiny red thing on the floor? That's a stool that they sit on to SHOWER. Yep, they have the traditional Korean shower going on in this apartment, just a shower head and pure ambition to get clean.

Crazy, eh?

After we hung out a bit, we sat down and they cooked me a wonderful meal. My brother came home from work to eat with us and spend some more time with me. He joked with me about the feast that my mother made us...

"You're here and look we have this big feast. When you're not here? Soup."

I'm hungry just thinking about the food. Here's pictures of some of the food they made for me.

After we ate lunch we went to the movies and saw one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my entire life. We saw D-War. A movie made by a Korean comedian who wants to be a director, made for the Korean people, but for some reason it was made in Hollywood and done in English. It was so bad that during the movie, my nephew turned to Amy and I and said, "I'm embarrassed to be watching this movie." Yeah, it was BAD.

We left the movies and decided to go and eat AGAIN. Honestly, these people eat more than anyone I've ever met. While we were on the street Amy suddenly got very quiet, but I didn't really think anything was up. As we were walking to the restaurant, Amy was explaining to me on the side that my fourth sister, Jung-Hee was on the phone with my 3rd sister trying to figure out a place for us to meet because we hadn't met yet. I kept asking about her all week long, and I knew there was something going on there, but they would just tell me she was busy, or she couldn't take time off from her business to come and see me. Very sketchy. She did want to meet me after all so we were walked along to try and find a coffee shop for us to meet because she had driven down from her house to the neighborhood. Then another phone call took place (keep in mind I don't know any of this is going on, Amy is telling me secretly because she is overhearing them talk) and the meeting was off. My sisters didn't tell me any of this was going on, they just did it.

We sat down to eat and I was a little bummed. I wasn't sure what was going on with the 3rd sister, but now at least I knew something was up. It wasn't because she was too busy, there was family drama there and they weren't letting me in on the secret. Amy thought she overheard them saying something about my 3rd sister calling my mother to ask if she could come and meet me, and my mother saying, to her "do what you want". In the end I was disappointed, but I found why we didn't end up meeting later on.

We ate lunch and had a great time. At the end of lunch they decided to start teaching me Korean and I tried to teach them English. So, the words we went over were, bowl, spoon, rice, window, all objects that were sitting on the table. Well then we go to ashtray. My second sister, Hye-Suk was trying to say ashtray and while her pronunciation was correct she would do this Sly Stallone type thing with her mouth when saying the "tray" part and we were pretty much crying we were laughing so hard. I had also done quite well with my pronunciation of ashtray in Korean, but when asked to do it from memory (and not repeat it) I somehow cursed. I have no idea what curse word I said specifically, but my nephew leaned over and whispered to me, "You say curse word for penis."

Great.

Clearly after my two Korean language errors "fucker" and "curse word for penis", I think its time to take Korean classes officially.

That's all for now folks, will write more about the Great Um Family Confessions 2007 conversation I had with my sisters next.

Food Yum...

I added more pictures to flickr this time of the food.
Yum.

You can find the new pictures here.  Korean Food YUM!

The Shopping

The shopping with my birth family was fun the first day because I felt like a really lucky kid in a candy store, but after we got through the majority of the second day, it started to get a little high pressure. Thankfully I had Amy who was translating for me on the sly, but it ended up so that I was walking around a market or a store, and they were pretty much single file walking behind me. So about 7 people weaving in and out of very small spaces most of them whispering behind my back that they were worried I didn't like things, and I thought things were ugly. Not exactly like a fun day out shopping with friends and family.

At first the gift buying made me a bit uncomfortable because I had just met these people and I didn't go to meet my birth family expecting tons of gifts, I just wanted to meet them but eventually I just stopped arguing because I think it actually made them feel better than it made me feel. It was a way for them to relieve some guilt about giving me up for adoption. Plus,  I'm now the youngest which in Korea where age is very important the younger siblings are always paid for by the older ones. Come to think of it, I kinda like that mentality. Maybe we should adopt that custom here!

I found in talking to the other adoptees I was not alone in having the shopping spree experience with the birth family. Most of my other  friends that I spoke to about this shopping stuff told me not to fight it because A) You can't fight with Koreans and win especially ones who are older and in your family. B) The guilt thing C) They had all tried to argue previously with their birth families and oddly if they won the birth families ended up getting their feelings hurt and being offended.

Who knew shopping could be this complicated?

In the end I am really happy with all of the things they bought me especially the Hanbok.

Here is a picture of me in it for the first time. (The picture quality is a little crappy because my camera had run out of batteries so I had to take this pic with my iPhone in florescent lighting)

The whole Hanbok outfit consists of:

1. The pants (kind of like a slip)
2. Petticoats
3. Skirt
4. Jacket
5. Special socks
6. Shoes
7. Tassel
8. Purse
9. Ring

Its my favorite thing that we bought the entire time I was there, I absolutely love it! I can't wait for an event where I can actually wear it.

Careful if you make plans we me, I could show up in the bar all Hanbok-ed out!  Heh.

Uhm Family Medical Facts of Knowledge

1. As my friend Jay calls it the "Asian Alcohol Tan" is an Uhm family trait after all. Basically, they all get red and their heart races when they drink alcohol so most of them with the exception of my first sister don't drink much.

2. All have high blood pressure. I believe my 2nd sister told me at one point her blood pressure was up to something like 280. I have to tell you the food in Korea is so salty its no wonder they all don't just fall over from high blood pressure. My birth mother is on medication for her blood pressure and my birth father pretty much died from it, so they did make a point to tell me to be careful.

3. I told my family a few times about the insulin resistance and they seem to understand yet as they were nodding they were asking me if I wanted more rice so I'm not sure how much they exactly understood about that. When I was telling them this my brother also said he was borderline something (he didn't know what) but he also had a problem with this.

4. They all have bad vision...really bad.

Other than that it seems like the birth family is a pretty healthy group of people.

Meeting the Birth Family

I met the birth family on Monday at 3pm. I arrived at Eastern Social Welfare Society (ESWS) just before 3pm and my birth family was not there because they had gotten there so early they left and decided to go and get some lunch. The first to show up was my 1st sister (the oldest of the 4 sisters) and her husband, my brother-in-law. We sat for only a few minutes until my birth mother, my 4th sister, my brother's best friend Byung-Ho, and a young girl (about 21yrs old) named Amy showed up. My birth mother grabbed me right away and started crying immediately, as did my 4th sister.

The second I saw my fourth sister, I said, "I look like you." The funny thing is my birth family thinks my 1st sister, 2nd sister, and 4th sisters all look more like my mother and my brother, 3rd sister and I look more like my father. During the meeting while my mother was crying and trying to explain what happened, they all just kind of stared at me. I think this was the one time where it was really difficult to not know Korean. I would have like to have heard her tell the story for myself without an interpreter, but thankfully Mike was there to translate her story.

Speaking of translation, Ms. Park at ESWS who was the social worker was very nice, but also softed almost everything that was being said. Ethically, I think the Koreans don't really understand what an interpreter is supposed to do. I wanted someone who literally spoke for my birth family and for myself in an unbiased way. I had heard from several other adoptees the interpretors at their meetings had done the same thing, the birth mothers would be talking for 30 minutes and the translation would come out, "She sorry." Well, it doesn't matter if you know a language or not, 30 minutes of straight talking does not equal two words.

The story seems to go something like this.

When I was born my birth mother hemorrhaged, and ended up being unconscious for a day. During that one day, my birth father gave me up for adoption, so my birth mother woke up and I was gone. Oddly, when she said "We tried to get you back" instantly all I could think was, "Thank God you didn't get me back." Not that the circumstance wasn't sad, but I wouldn't have had the awesome life I've had and I know that now with 100% certainty. Not that I didn't guess that before, but man...can you imagine if trying to get me back had actually worked? Yikes!

From what I understand from my siblings my birth mother was so distraught that she and my birth father went to ESWS a few days later to try and get me back. Sadly for them the agency told them the paperwork was already filled out and I had already been placed. Well, as far as that goes I hadn't been placed I was still in Korea, waiting for Novemember 11th, 1976 to be given to Joy and Fred Scott (phew for me, bad for them) I felt so incredibly bad for my birth mother though, she was so upset. I can't imagine giving birth and waking up to have my child missing. She kept saying things like "please forgive me, I committed a horrible crime", but it wasn't her fault. How horrible she must have felt, but I can only imagine it must have made her feel a little relieved to get that off her chest after all these years.

I have sense learned some not so nice things about the way adoption works in Korea. In the 1907s when a child was given up for adoption the agency earned $12,000 for an international placement. For a domestic placement the agency only earned $3,000. Sadly, I heard many similar stories to mine from others who attended the IKAA conference and it seems money was the motivating factor (like all industries) and this is why most of the agencies lied to birth families and told them that their children were already placed when in fact they were still in Korea waiting to be adopted. Sad.

During the first meeting, one of the things they said to me right away was I have a "bright personality". Different family members have said this to me several times now, and I think it gives them a lot of relief to know I grew up with such a good family and wonderful parents. During the meeting I showed my birth mother a picture of my mom and dad. As if she wasn't already crying enough, she started bawling and saying thank you to their picture over and over again. How relieved she must have felt!

 

We left the agency and they took me to a tower here in the city (think Seattle Space Needle) for a nice dinner. My friend Mike came along to translate for me. The dinner was very nice, and the food was great. At one point Amy and I got up to go to the bathroom and when we came back my 1st sister and mother were having a heated argument at the table. Amy and I sat down and they didn't really stop fighting for another 5 minutes. Later that evening when I asked Mike what the fight was about he thought he had heard something about in-laws, but later I found out it was a little bit different.

What I know for sure is my brother is the only one who actually went to high school. Unlike here in America, education in Korea is not free and since my birth family had no money they could not afford to send my sisters to school. My second sister Hye-Suk told me later on that my birth mother has apologized for not having the money to send them to high school and that she's felt guilty about it for years. Apparently my first sister has been letting out her resent over this for the past year or so and started yet another fight with my birth mother about it over dinner. Later on in the week my 1st sister did apologize for picking the fight which I think was the right thing to do. All families have drama, but I think she probably could have let that one go for one night.

Now that I've had a moment to think about the meeting, I think it went really well. As well as it possibly could have gone. This is one of those situations where you can't prepare, you just gotta go and hope for the best.

I'm really glad I did it, and big thank you to Mike and Carol for coming with me, I couldn't have done it without you two!

Korea Pictures

I have posted more pictures of my friends and I in Korea. They are all on Flickr..
Friends and I in Korea

Also, in case you missed the first round for some reason, here is a link to the Birth Family pictures.
Birth Family

28 hours or bust

The traveling to Korea was long and tiring. I managed to sleep the second I sat down on the plane because I ran myself ragged the week before I left, so for the first few hours of the flight I rested.

In general, the funniest part about the whole flying experience was the interaction with all of the flight attendants. I discovered being Asian and traveling to Asia breeds lots of loud and slow talking from all of the flight attendants. For example, when I was asked if I wanted something to drink it was...

WOULD...YOU...LIKE...SOMETHING...TO...DRINK?!?

As if speaking to me louder would set off my internal translator or something. We've all done it before, why do we speak louder to people when they don't understand us? Volume has nothing to do with knowing a language, and it doesn't really make anything better it just deafens the receiver.

We arrived at the Sofitel Ambassador after a crazy cab ride where our luggage was literally strapped into the trunk of the cab. All I could say to myself when I saw the cab driver using his little bungee cords to keep it all in there was, "At least I didn't buy any gifts yet."

The hotel was beautiful, very upscale and extremely clean. We all got a special rate on the rooms for being part of the conference and the rate was a steal given the quality of the hotel. It was great to finally get into the room and put down all of the luggage.

I'm not sure how much everyone else has traveled, but there were some interesting things about the hotel. One, you put your keycard in a slot inside the room and the key activates all of the lights and power for the entire room. Its a great way for the hotel to save energy, but as a guest its a rude awakening when you're trying to charge your cell phone, or camera, or other electronic devices while sleeping or out, not realizing if the key is not in the slot the items you are trying to charge are just sitting there doing nothing.

The other great thing about this particular hotel is that it had "magic curtains". There were two layers of curtains and the one layer made the room so completely dark, that you could be sleeping during the middle of the day and you would think it was 2am in the morning . The first morning we woke up, we had no idea what time it was, and when we pulled back the curtains I think two pairs of retinas got completely burned.

I took an Ambien as soon as we got our PJs on thinking I could kick Jet Lag's ass with a pill.

I was wrong.

We woke up about 4 1/2 hours later very tired and very out of it.  Not knowing what else to do, we layed there until about 7:30am then finally gave up and got ready. I was going to meet my birth family and needed to call my friend Michael to set up a time and a place we could meet in order to get over to Eastern Social Welfare Society for the big meeting.

Since I'm exhausted I will write more about the meeting tomorrow when I will hopefully be more rested and not feeling completely dumb.

More to come.

Ambien vs. Jet Lag

Jet Lag wins!

Its amazing to think with all of the modern medicine we have, there is still the wonderful thing called jet lag. When we touched down in Korea, we had been traveling for about 27 hours or so, and hadn't slept much at all. You would think the human body would need rest, and with the aid of some Ambien it would rest comfortably, but no. Our internal clocks decided for the first three days 4 1/2 hours of sleep was just about enough to get us through the day.

Now, I'm going in reverse. Instead of being a day ahead, I'm trying to convince my body its a day behind, and well...I'm having a bit of a hard time. Thank god (for the millionth time) for coffee. I really do the believe its the nectar of the gods.

As my jet lag improves over the next week or so, I'll be updating this blog to share all of my stories from my trip. I don't normally keep a journal, but I knew there would be tons of questions about this trip and I wanted to remember as much as possible. Over the course of my stay in Korea, I managed to fill one journal completely, and start a second. Some of what I post here might be repetitive with the emails that I sent, but I figure more information is better than less.

So without further ado...I present thee with KOREA TRIP 2007.