미안해...

sorry folks for the looooooong absence.

i lost a lot of momentum in february. i got back some bad lab results and had to see not my regular doctor. she turned out to be fatphobic and just a really poor match for me. my regular (awesome and way queer) doc is not working in private practice currently, so i've been having to see her in the teaching clinic which is basically some level of purgatory where i get slow, barely competent and very impersonal care. it's being supervised by my regular doc, but i only see her for 5-10 minutes per appointment, and she has not been following up with me like she used to. needless to say it's been a super distressing few months and my health and care has brought up a lot of issues for me that i'm trying to trudge through while also keeping all the moving parts of my life in order.

this saturn shit is reaaaaaaaal serious, y'all.

so while trying to get medical stuff under control while also preparing myself for a 7-month stay in korea with a really tight budget and somewhat unpredictable everything...

and working a ton, hustling a ton, trying to budget and save...

it's been kinda stressful. and like i said, i just lost momentum.

a recent ballot measure failed that would provide extra funding to our direly underfunded transit system here in Seattle, and it's failure means that bus service is going to be cut by 15%. it's a phase in over several months, but it means that my boo will not be able to get home from work after 11pm, and it also will severely limit the neighborhoods in which i will be able to work. so we've had to move a car purchase to the top of our priority list, and for a minute i thought i was going to have to cancel my whole trip.

but we decided to trust the universe and take the leap. i've booked my flights, secured housing, submitted scholarship applications...

and here we are. i depart in less than 90 days. i'm ending my regular job at the end of july, and i'm starting to tell other families that i'm leaving at the end of august but hope to work for at least the first couple of months. so far, every reaction has been pretty much "i'm so upset that you're leaving but i'm also so happy for you". so that feels good. i'm going to really miss all my kiddos, though. and i hope that at least a few of my families will still have a spot for me when i get back in the country.

i'm still feeling a lot of anxiety. i've been recently cut down with a bad sinus infection, and have had lots of stomach and hormone issues, and i'm feeling super helpless and don't know how i will take care of myself without my boo (or anyone to care for me). and i'm just going to miss them, and our kitties, and our comfortable little nested life.

i live/love to obsess and plan. i have an obsessional personality in general, and planning helps me to deal with my anxiety. it can also create anxiety. but, well, nothing's perfect.

i decided to start a new project to propel me through the next three months. i'm compiling information from travel guides, the internet and my records from my first trip to home to create a binder of destinations. i've got information about scenic spots, museums, historical sights, hikes, shopping, arts, k-pop, and food, food, food. it's all written up with room for notes, stuck into sheet protectors and organized by category.

this journey is really about going beyond my comfort zone. not just in putting myself out there to learn language and speak it, but to go beyond the narrow, sheltered world i created on my first trip. i'm going to eat things! all the things! even weird things! and take buses! and hike mountains! and get outside of seoul!

this project has definitely rekindled my excitement. it reminds me of all the documentation i'm going to do - taking pictures, notes, collecting pamphlets and napkins and postcards and it feels really good to have a vessel for curating this collection.

anyway, real life boring post, check!

here's to new horizons, and stretching, every day.

a brief update: families, of all kinds.

I apologize for the month-long lapse in posts.there has been a lot going on - a health crisis, my partner and I arranging for our families to meet for the firs time, changes to my body that have set off some serious dysphoria...not to mention the pressure of working and saving for my Korea trip, processing the ways race, gender and "trendiness" of need functions in crowdfunding, and of course, receiving my first letter from my birth mother.

while my adoptive parents were in town, I told them about finding my birth mother. I wanted to tell them face to face. I wanted to tell them - I'm not sure why. looking back, I probably shouldn't have. my partner's family was also in town, and they were treating us really poorly, so in contrast, my parents seemed to be behaving brilliantly. anyway, I told them I was not ready to and did not want to talk about it. the next day, my mother says: "I know you said you don't want to talk about it but -" and then proceeded to tell me that they were 100% supportive and excited for me. 

she was unable to respect my wishes because she needed to center herself in my experience. she needed to reassure me (and herself) that she was a "good" and supportive adoptive parent. in order to do so, she had to violate my trust. she had to make it about her. 

she tells me that when I'm ready she is excited to hear about it. my experience serves to enrich her existence.

in an adoptee's life, it is almost never about us. our needs. our experiences. there is always someone else trying to project their narrative, their interpretation of history, onto our bodies.

perhaps you have seen a post floating around where a white adoptive mother made her adopted daughters hold up white board signs with fucked up things people have said to her about them. TO HER. ABOUT THEM. literally projecting her needs onto their bodies. it got a lot of praise. I don't know why. it is viscerally repulsive to me. a white woman printing words of hate onto the bodies of her transracially adopted daughters. (i'm not linking to it here because i don't want to give it any more attention)

she says she wanted her daughters to know that people said these things out of ignorance, not meanness or hate. but isn't racism mean and hateful? words like "ignorance" delegitimize the pain of our experience. calling it ignorance tells me that I shouldn't feel bad when someone calks me "chink" or mocks my eyes or hair or shouts "5 dolla! me love you long time!" across the street. saying "oh, he didn't know better" teaches me that people who hurt me are really just good people so there must be something wrong with me. "ignorance" tells me I'm too sensitive. it teaches me to never trust my instincts. to keep unsafe people in my life because I have to give them a chance. it makes me wonder what i did to deserve people treating me so cruelly.

it draws a line in the sand, when white adoptive parents claim "ignorance" instead of racism, instead of hate. it draws a line between white and brown. when white adoptive parents claim "ignorance", they are taking the side of the racism. they are dismissing the pain of their children in order to avoid personal discomfort.

their needs, ahead of ours.

how do we protect ourselves when we are not free to name our enemies? how do we feel safe when the faces that taunt us tuck us in at night? 

I am constantly reminded, unpleasantly, of what my adoptive family is capable of, and what they are not. our relationship has improved as I have come to expect less of them. I think that is a good thing. realizing the limitations of family - of all kinds of family. of adoptive family, of family of origin, of chosen family, of friends, of community. no one of these spaces can be all things to me. and I would be cheating myself if i tried to push one kind of family to be all things. I am too complicated for that. I deserve better than that.

one thing I have come to love and appreciate at this time in my life is my queer adoptee family, and by extension my queerean family. but truly, the queer adoptees who have my back (and heart) right now are life saving. 

사랑해요. you give me strength.

i received my first letter from my birth mother today

i'm sure i'll have words for it in a month...or two.

miss saigon and other myths about adoption: remembering Hyunsu

Hyunsu's memorial, via Jane Jeong Trenka

I have been so full of grief recently, since story of Hyunsu broke - the 3 year old adopted Korean boy murdered by his adoptive father in Maryland.

There have been many excellent blog posts about this case already, but I have not been ready to write until now. Even this post feels...disjointed and rambling.

Where do I begin?

We call him 현수 but we may never know the name his mother gave him. Our agencies like to give us new names to better sever us from our pasts. There is a logic here - "clean slate" babies are easier to place. Easier to place means more adoptions. More adoptions means more profits. Additionally, the adoptees' past is fabricated - fictions about anonymous abandonment, false names, dates and places - to discourage reunions. Reunions, and adoptees with any connection to their homeland threaten to upset the system that keeps the golden goose laying eggs. More babies equals more profits. You can now browse a photo catalog of "waiting children" on Holt's website. This is a business.

And Hyunsu's mother, his 어머니, may never learn of her child's fate. Holt, Hyunsu's Korean agency, had previously stated in the aftermath of the Sueppel murders that birth mothers would not be notified in less they inquired with the agency as to the status of their children. Hyunsu's mother may still be hoping her child is living a better life than she could provide. Or perhaps she has seen his photo in the news, blurry and turned away, and wondered if that was her son. Maybe she felt Brian O'Callaghan's death blows like they were dealt to her own heart, because the bond between mother and child can be that strong.

I mourn for Hyunsu as if he was my own little brother, 동생. He was a part of the adoptee family, and as his 형 I wonder why I didn't protect him. Why wasn't I fighting harder? Could I, and others like me, have prevented his death? I grieve for myself and and for all adoptees, because Hyunsu's short, painful life makes our stories more real. It does away with any lingering doubts about being "better off" or any questions as to the insatiable greed of adoption agencies. The public response - news articles that highlight Brian O'Callaghan's government job and military commendations dismiss the value of Hyunsu's life. Holt's own misdirection about Mongolian spots (birthmarks), hydrocephalous and "waiting for the verdict" in a corrupt legal system typifies their scrambling to protect their own financial interests in maintaining an pretty picture of adoption. Brian O'Callaghan's post-homicide actions of donating his son's organs and then bragging about it on his facebook page reveals a lot about the value he placed on his son's life (and death). If you read the comments (and never, read the comments) you will find many accusations being flung at adoptees, in particular, that we should be grateful that our adopters didn't murder us, too.

Adoptee's lives - our whole lives, not just the ones our agencies fabricated, not just the ones that begin when we are adopted - matter. And so do our deaths.

The TRACK blog recently posted a list of 13 Korean adoptees murdered by their adoptive parents. This is an incomplete list, but it is too much. Just one is too much.

Adoptees also have a disproportionately high rate of suicide and suicide attempts. One of Harry Holt's adopted children, his son Joseph, committed suicide at the age of 32. As one of the first ever Korean adoptees - he is probably the first to take his own life. Sadly, he was not the last. We will never know his reasons, but as one of the many adoptees who has attempted suicide, this strikes a far too familiar and painful chord for me.

A recent (2013) study in Minnesota found, in a three year time period, adoptees were 4 times more likely to attempt suicide. Yet the researchers still insisted that this was good news, as "the majority of adoptees are psychologically healthy." This keeps the system moving. It keeps the picture pretty and the babies coming and the parents buying and we, the adoptees, are left to fend for ourselves.

The entire transracial adoption machine is complicit in our deaths, and near deaths.

Adoptees lives matter. And so do our deaths.

The whole thing is a little "Miss Saigon". By which I mean, racism, Orientalism, misogyny, ableism, classism, white supremacy, American/Western supremacy and plain ole greed fuel the international adoption industry. It tells us that it better to be killed by your adoptive family than to live with your family of origin. Just check out this quote from the "Dear Friends" letter Harry Holt sent out to recruit adoptive families when he started Korean adoption (and overseas adoption as a whole):

“We would ask all of you who are Christians to pray to God that He will give us the wisdom and the strength and the power to deliver his little children from the cold and misery and darkness of Korea into the warmth and love of your homes.”

Unwed mothers in Korea who choose to raise their children face very real challenges. But they believe in their decision and are working to change the system from the inside. 

As I weep and grieve for Hyunsu, I am more determined than ever to break apart this broken system and fight, for Hyunsu, for myself, for all of us.

the waiting game

a brief timeline of my birth family search:

august 11, 2010 - attempted to initiate birth family search through ESWS

august 20, 2010 - referred by ESWS to local agency, Love the Children

august 23, 2010 - started search through Love the Children

february 9, 2011 - contacted Love the Children for update, no response

may 23, 2011 - contacted Love the Children fo update

may 25, 2011 - response from Love the Children saying they sent my request to Korea in march, 7 months after i requested a search

may 16, 2013 - started search with KAS

sept 5, 2013 - KAS located my birth mother

sept 23, 2013 - contacted Love the Children for update

sept 24, 2013 - response from Love the Children saying they have heard nothing and that I should contact ESWS and KAS directly

sept 25, 2013 - contacted KAS for update and submitted forms to ESWS

dec 1, 2013 - submitted forms (again) to KAS

dec 10, 2013 - KAS notified me that they located my birth mother. referred to ESWS to establish contact.

dec 15, 2013 - contacted by ESWS about exchanging letters with my birth mother

jan 3, 2014 - i sent my first letter (translated, in PDF form) to my birth mother via ESWS

yes, you read that right, KAS located my birth mother in September of 2013, but did not inform me until december, after i had sent two emails to check the status of my search.

i was foolish to trust my agency, Love the Children. i don't believe that they took any action on my search, and what little contact i had from them was very dismissive. KAS seems to be a mess, but at least they did their job. sort of.

the point is, today i am again waiting. and in the grand scheme of things, the three years i searched (or even the twenty five years it took me to start searching) were relatively short in adoptee search time. some people get responses in weeks, months. others like me, in years. others, decades, or never.

i'm waiting for my first letter back. i'm waiting to know her name. maybe see her face. find out something - anything more than the flat black type of my adoption forms that has been staring me back in the face all these years. 

but i am afraid. i am afraid she took one look at my fat body and decided that she didn't want to know me. i'm afraid that another family member found out about me and now she is unable to contact me. i'm afraid of her own shame keeping her from contacting me. i'm afraid of her own fear.

in truth, this delay could be for any number of completely innocuous reasons. i'm terrible at keeping up with letters. and this isn't exactly an easy letter to write. i have had the freedom to be completely open with most everyone in my life about communicating with my birth mother. she does not have such support. i was able to have a dear 누니 translate my letter for me. but my mother's letter will have to be translated by ESWS. the new year just passed. she could have been sick. or just busy. it could be ESWS dragging their feet. anything.

but i do not know how to be the child not abandoned.

and so i am trapped, again, in limbo. waiting. another day, another week, another month. my heart quickens every time i see i have a new email. the let down when it's nothing more than a store newsletter. the dread, that when news does come, it will be bad news. that she will not want to know me. i am waiting for rejection. i am waiting to be abandoned again.

i'm finding it hard to be present these days. i'm finding even scars long healed are aching. it is hard not to fold inside myself completely. retreat to somewhere safe.

i'm working more hours than my body can physically sustain, but it's the only way i will get to Korea. i know it's just another way of hiding. i keep having nightmares that i'm leaving the next day, but that i'm not ready. that i have been so focused on earning the money i need to go that i haven't done any of the emotional preparation. i'm going to bed the night before my flight, crying and saying "i don't want to go" but everything pushes me to leave. it's terrifying.

so here i am, waiting.

SURVIVING: a reflection on Woody, Soon-Yi and me

content warning: references to rape, abuse, eating disorders, self injury, mental health, suicide

as a young Korean adoptee, I was horrified when I learned that Woody Allen had married his girlfriend's adopted Korean daughter. in 1997 I was 12 years old. there was seemingly no controversy around it. and I, barely a teenager, had already been asked by a family friend if I was my older brother's wife. I had already learned that my best asset was my exotic Asian sexuality. I had already heard "Asian chicks are so hot" or "I love Asian chicks" or "Asian chicks are better cuz their pussy is slanted" or some variation thereof about a million times. 

I needed someone to tell me that this was wrong. I needed a parent to look me  in the eye and tell me that I was more than that. I didn't know at the time that he had not adopted her (not hat this makes his actions any less heinous): all I knew was that she was like me. she was just like me. and now she was married to her dad and everyone thought that was ok because they weren't blood, because she was young and Asian. and that this was one more way in which my only purpose in life was to be sexually available to white men. this was acceptable to my family, to the world.

a daughter just like me. the first adult adoptee I'd ever even seen or heard about. a life like mine. this is how it ends. this is what you're good for.

for clarification, I'm not sure why it matters that Soon-Yi wasn't *his* adopted daughter? or even that they are not blood related? I think it does matter that she is adopted if only because adoptees come with a special constellation of insecurities! experiences! fears! and vulnerabilities! that can be exploited by abusers and predators. but really, having a sexual relationship with a young person when you have even a semi-parental relationship with them is fucking creepy. as a parental figure, he had a responsibility to not be a creeper. as Mia Farrow's partner, he had a responsibility to not be an asshole. and as a human being in any sort of relationship with adoptee, he had a responsibility to not manipulate and exploit those raw and painful edges.

I can tell you who I was when I was 19. I had graduated top of my high school class and had been accepted at a prestigious liberal arts college. I had a charming, intelligent and athletic boyfriend who everyone loved and thought was wonderful. I weighed 98 pounds, I was conventionally beautiful. 

I had also had an eating disorder since I was 12. I was a self-injurer* and diagnosed bipolar and had been on psychiatric medication since I was 15. I'd been institutionalized. my senior year of high school I was home tutored because of a severe psychotic depressive episode. I dropped out of college mid semester due to a mental breakdown. 

this is about being young and adopted. with a heart, head and body that don't fit together. with no where to put all this pain except down my own throat, swallowed, as guilt and shame. about looking for love in all the wrong places because it was never in the right ones, because the same faces that told me to go back to china on the playground tucked me in at night and my adoptive family never gave me a way to deal, because to them, to admit racism exists would break their entire reality into a million, glaring pieces.

my boyfriend, charming and well-liked - I thought he was my savior. adoptees are always told that we need saviors. my ticket to happiness, to normalcy. he gave me currency with my adoptive family. to be with him was to demonstrate that I was "growing up" and "getting better" from the ungrateful teenager who made trouble for fun. I thought that we would get married and I would no longer be something so terrible.

but let me tell you the truth of that relationship. over the course of 5 years, he abused me physically, sexually and psychologically. emotional abuse, constant shaming, belittling, gaslighting and manipulation, he broke me down, keeping me as mentally unstable as possible, keeping me on the verge of suicide for years. it made me easier to control. easier to break. easier to use.

(but he's another story altogether.)

if had told people who knew him when it was happening, they wouldn't have believed me. he was more trustworthy than me, more believable than me. I didn't believe myself for a long time, either.

I doubt most of our old friends would believe me even now.

seven years later I am still healing the trauma of that relationship. I am finally at the point where I'm no longer afraid of him - no longer fear his ability to break me down - and I am through making excuses for his rape and abuse. but that doesn't mean that there are no traces of his violence left in my body and brain and the memory that connects it all.

as an adoptee, I think it is hard to not have extreme power differentials in relationships. our relationships with our adoptive parents are vastly different than the relationships our adoptive parents have with non adopted siblings, despite everyone saying they are the same. I was already telling myself that my feelings were irrational and wrong. I was already believing others when they told me that things were okay that were not ok. I was already used to being the problem, with an uncanny ability to read the minds of others and perform to meet their desires. this is how I survived.

in high school, I remember talking to a (white, male) friend in the hallway. I hung out with this friend because he had told me I was basically his wet dream come true. 

he never actually wanted to date me, of course. 

but I digress.

we were standing in the hallway when a friend (white, male) of his came up to him. he looked at me, and then back at his friend, and asked "who's the chink?"

I said nothing. I think I laughed. I didn't even think to be offended anymore. to me, being called chink felt like love. being fetishized felt like love. that is how deeply I had been warped by my early experiences as a transracial adoptee.

that white boy and I? after that day, we were good friends.

in my life, this is all compounded by race, gender, size and disability. it was easy for me to feel unlovable, undeserving. it was easy for me to feel that I had to perform worthiness. perform whiteness. perform to meet the needs and desires of white men. outside of being fetishized, I didn't know how to exist. that was all I had ever been given. 

the rest of me, the truth of me, was too much. too ugly, too damaged, too heavy a burden. attaching myself to a white man seemed like the only way to escape the shamefulness of my truth, of my self.

and again, we are back to Soon-Yi. my first mirror to the future. 

where was the outrage then? where was someone, anyone, to tell me that the sickness this gave me in my stomach was deserved? to tell me to listen to my instincts, that the men who felt dangerous probably were? that this is not what love should feel like?

as new controversy stirs around Dylan Farrow, and Woody Allen's legacy and everyone's bullshit defense of him feeling like a stab through my 12-year-old heart, this rage and sadness and terror rises back inside me. 

 

this is the story of a different legacy. 

* I hate all the terms associated with self-injury so that's why I'm using a term I find fucked up. 

on hallyu, adoption and the (mis)naming of this blog

Gyeongbokgung Palace, summer 2009

first up: this week's thank yous! lots of love to: Lynne, Sunny, all the folks who have pledged anonymously and everyone who has liked, shared and signal boosted! thank you so much for the love and support. you all rock!

there's still time to help me get to Korea this fall! check it out!


on hallyu, adoption and the (mis)naming of this blog

i did not come to K-pop because of the Hallyu wave. i came to it because i am Korean. i had caught tiny glimpses of it when i visited in 2009, but i was too overwhelmed and anxious to make sense of it until months later. and while the Hallyu wave has certainly made Korean pop culture more easily accessible to me, it is equally frustrating. because suddenly, random white people watch more k-dramas than i do and want to argue that BIGBANG is waaaaaay better than Super Junior and i really. just. cannot.

honestly, the struggle for me to even google "k-pop bands" four years ago, months after returning from my first trip home. the feelings of shame and embarrassment that i had to look it up. that it wasn't something i could just naturally absorb or maybe it was altogether something i could not, should not, try to claim. or it felt so petty. the superficial trappings of Korean culture. I was too ashamed to ask for it when I had been in an English language bookstore in Seoul. 

any reason. all the reasons. 

as an adoptee, it's hard to not feel like a fraud.

but what i found changed my life. and that is very real.

i love pop music. i tend towards popstar obsession. i had a fairly intense Hanson obsession was a teenager. in college i rediscovered NSYNC and Justin Timberlake and 90s pop in general as i started drag performance. i enjoy lots of other music as well, but dance pop just makes me (& my hips) happy. go ahead. judge me.

but it is having idols that looked like me that drew me in. idols that looked like something i wanted to be and could be. that is life changing.

at the time, i was surrounded by white, transmasculine dfab queers. i tried really hard to fit into their definition. i shaved my head and bound my chest and wore polo shirts and baggy shorts. i gave away all of my jewelry and threw away my makeup and tried to force my fat, femme brownness into a scheme of desirability that i would never be allowed access too. i felt like i had to lose weight in order to be legitimately genderqueer.  that the fact that wearing low cut necklines made me feel sexy meant that i was just a dilettante pretending to be genderqueer because i thought it was trendy. i never felt welcome by the trans community at my college.

when i was young, i idolized Trini from the Power Rangers and Claudia from The Babysitter's Club because they were the only other Asian American women in my life. the only ones i'd ever seen. I cosplayed Lucy Liu's character in Charlie's Angels. when planning a Disney-themed event everyone immediately decided that I should be Mulan. I wasn't any of these things, nor was I Long Duk Dong or any other racist caricature of Asian men. I was not a martial arts expert or a computer geek. I was shapeless, groundless.

I have heard other adoptees speak of the cognitive dissonance between what we see in our heads and what we see in the mirror. recently, I looked at one of my baby pictures, and I could finally, for the first time, see myself in my own face. perhaps I had internalized the belief that "Asians all look alike", or maybe i had just always felt like a shapeshifter: always reflecting back someone else's idea of what I was. 

in idol boys, in 꽃미남, i discovered a way to exist. to be not a girl and still wear eyeliner. to wear eyeliner on eyes like mine. i found a new way of imagining androgyny with my cheeks and lips and nose and eyes and texture of hair. i found tight pants and mystery chests and studs and spikes and lace and fishnet and pleather and desire. i found something i wanted to be and to have.

i had never known how to desire myself before.
to see and to be seen.

i did not find fat acceptance in k-pop. but i found racial and gender familiarity. i found the freedom to be something other than what whiteness told me i should be. life is a process. i filled my tumblr dash with k-pop boys and fat femmes of color and somewhere in between i found myself. 

and this is why this blog truly, has nothing to do with hallyu.

I struggle with white folks and other folks of color for this reason. I have literally been in a lifelong battle with myself and everyone around me to figure out my relationship to Korea. it is still unsure, still fraught, still easily troubled and it will never be an absolute. it was so hard for me. and yet others, with no relationship to Korea whatsoever, pick up k-pop so easily, so freely. and often in a gross, imperialist manner.

one of the many the privileges of white supremacy is never questioning your constellation of skin tone and features as being sexually desirable and sexually revered. when I looked into k-pop, into Korea, into my own racial group as something to aspire to and desire, I did so at my own peril.

when I dared to believe I was beautiful, it changed everything. it challenged everything. 

Hallyu wave has made korean pop culture consumable. in that sense, I benefitted from the Hallyu wave. when I finally found the strength and need to look for it, there was a lot of information readily available in English. YouTube videos, online shopping portals, international fan forums - it was all there at my fingertips. SM Entertainment artists did US concerts I was able to attend. I don't know if I could have done it if it had been harder. it is so easy to give up on korean things when they are hard. it just hurts less that way.

and K-pop has helped me in other ways. listening to music and watching variety shows has helped my language learning and inspired a lot of curiosity about culture, history and food. it sounds strange, I'm sure, but it's true. it was a way in to something that previously felt completely inaccessible.

when I named this blog, it was meant to be more about the ways I incorporate korean things into my life. cooking, our cute collection of house slippers, fashion, beauty products, etc. in that sense, I think "Hallyu" was more relevant. 

but now, it has taken a new form. it is about my journey - my Saturn return, my homeland return, my return to family of origin, my return to language. perhaps it should be titled "home is where the 한국 is".

in some ways, the 80s really mark the first Korean wave. this was the peak of Korean adoption, when i was packaged and exported internationally for economic gain. at its peak, it worked out to 25 babies per day being sent overseas. all to be consumed by whiteness, owned because someone paid for us, the same as Hallyu today. 

I treasure these bits of Korean culture that Hallyu has given me access to. to me, they are precious. I do not own them; we are kin. and they inspire me to live true and without apology. they inspire me to learn and discover and challenge myself. they are a beginning, an opening. and I am grateful.

so maybe, the name of this blog isn't totally wrong. it's just not the whole story. not yet.

lies our mother(s) were told

there are great fictions in adoption, particularly in transracial, intercountry adoption. Domestic adoption, as well, is full of lies: our child welfare system is corrupt and ruled by the same racism, classism, ableism, colonialism, xenophobia and misogyny of the international adoption world. but korean adoption is where I live my life, so that is where I shall begin.

lies told to birth mothers:

you have no choice

you have a choice

your child will be better off

your child will be loved

you will be better off 

adoption agencies care about your child

your family will disown you

you cannot raise this child

god wants you to abandon your baby

you will forget

you will survive

you will feel no guilt

you cannot ever tell anyone

this is your fault

lies told to adoptive families:

it's almost as good as having your own

it's better than having your own

these babies have no baggage 

these babies are cuter/smarter/more exotic

if you adopt an Asian baby then you are Asian too

attachment issues? what are you talking about?

racism? isn't that over?

god meant for you to have this child

it's cool/trendy/humanitarian

it will be easy
adoptees feel no different than biological children

your child was anonymously abandoned/some other fiction that makes the child seem more adoptable

you don't need to know anything about race to be a good parent

I feel like these barely scratch the surface.

my parents' home study called them "cold and aloof". the local agency told them not to adopt an older child because they have too many issues and it would be too hard on their family. as an infant, I was deemed to be a clean slate with no issues as long as they fed me korean food once a year and bought me a couple of books. there was a four page typed note given to them by the adoption agency. I've tried to read it but it makes no sense. it's really just lies and excuses. it is handwritten titled "The Final  Answer". as if there was anything "final" or "answer" about what it means to be adopted.

it is a heavy load. this memory i can't recall but that lives in my bones. the feeling discarded, feeling abandoned. being an orphan before i knew what that meant. the fear of being not good enough. the way that everyone I ever met wanted to know why and how I was abandoned. elementary school teachers, friends, their parents, strangers. everyone. they all said I shouldn't feel any different. so when I did, that shame was all my own.

the conflation of racist yellow peril myths about china with korean adoption. make no mistake, these systems are different. the social issues in korea that contribute to child abandonment are different than in China. and china only started adoption in the 80s, korea has been doing it since the 50s. but don't expect white people to know that. I was told that I was lucky because Korea hated girls and I was lucky I didn't get killed by my parents or sold into slavery. I was told that I was lucky a lot.

they call us "chosen children" because never say who does the choosing.

my parents still don't understand racism. my mother thinks that because she has "always been drawn to Asian things" that means she a) isn't racist and b) is qualified to parent an Asian child. neither of these things is true.

more lies.

my father is "colorblind". he is educated and worked for a long time in business. now he writes books about business, teaches classes, gives lectures. he is used to bring the authority figure inside and outside of the home. he argues with me about the validity of my experience while also insisting I am a "white girl".

lies.

as privileged white people my parents have the luxury of dismissing anything they don't agree with by looking down their nose at it. when I sent them to an exhibit of adoptee art at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian American Experience (sidebar: my mother insisted on calling it the "Wing Luck"), they told me after that "it wasn't a very good museum". after many hours of my crying they admitted that actually the exhibit made them feel bad and they just wanted to dismiss it.

that was the last time I ever tried to talk to them about adoption.

it was only as I wrote my first letter to my birth mother that I even thought about what life must have been like for her. it was the first time I though that she must have suffered all these years, not knowing what happened to the child she never knew.

that is one of the many lies we adoptees are told. birth mothers are painted flat and simple. a place, not a person, not a relationship. 

but birth mothers are not machines, we are not blank slates, and adoptive parents are not saviors.

and every day is to reclaim a little bit of truth.

NOMS: 고구마만 Sweet Potato Rice

my stomach has been off lately - I had a bout of food poisoning, and now I'm hormonal and craving all sorts of indigestion-inducing foods. the boo and I also have very busy work schedules these days, and haven't had a ton of time for cooking. but cooking and eating korean food is crucial to my wellbeing! so this week we decided to try out a few new recipes. one of them was 고구마밥. it's super easy and very delicious, also mild enough for a sensitive belly. it is versatile - we have eaten it for breakfast, lunch and dinner mixed with 두부 (tofu) or 계란말이 (rolled egg omelette). perhaps best of all, you can make it in a rice cooker!!!

now for my first round of thank yous to folks who have pledged to my GoFundMe campaign! thank you to: Simon, Kyle, Sandra, Kyla, Sydney, Elaine, Sage and Rachel! also thank you to everyone who has pledged anonymously, and those of you have liked, shared and signal boosted. THANK YOU! your support means so much!

also thank you to the three folks running the campaign for me: Stacey 동생, my bestie Ky and my partner Sky - you are my heart and I love you all so much <3

on to the recipe!

고구마밥 (sweet potato rice)

2 C white rice, rinsed 5 times

6 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1/2" cubes

2 C water

sauce - I'm pretty imprecise with these, so adjust to your taste!

1/2 C soy sauce (can be gluten free by subbing in gluten free tamari or shoyu)

3 T vinegar (I used korean plum vinegar)

3 T toasted sesame oil

2 T maesil cheong (Korean plum extract/syrup), or sweetener of choice

1 T gochugaru

2 T toasted sesame seeds

4-5 cloves garlic, sliced or minced

1 C green onion or garlic chives, finely chopped

1. put rinsed and drained rice into the bowl of your rice cooker. add 2C water and let soak 30min.

2. after 30min, add chopped sweet potatoes on top and set cooker to the stew/porridge setting).

3. after 20 min, stir rice and sweet potato together, making sure to thoroughly mix rice from the bottom of the cooker into the sweet potatoes. put lid back on and continue to cook.

4. after 30 min, stir rice and sweet potatoes again. test for tenderness and continue to cook if needed.

5. put all sauce ingredients into a small glass jar. shake vigorously and test for flavor. adjust as needed.

6. serve 고구마밥 warm or cold with seasoning sauce on top.

* this recipe can also be done on the stove top, too. I just love my rice cooker.

Flowerboy Fatshion: OOTD 1/26/14

being a fat, nonbinary 꽃미남 on a budget can be hard work in the fashion department. I usually shop a mix of plus size, juniors, men's and thrift to create my looks. and since my day job is as a nanny, I don't often get to wear anything besides t-shirts and sweatpants. so a trip to the farmers market with my boo is a rare chance to get a little fancy.

Korean fashion is pretty serious bizness. it's very on trend, combining a bold statement piece and accessories with comfy classics. my goal for this year is to really step up my fatshion game and spend more wisely. i often get caught up in buying a bunch of not-quite-right pieces super cheap at thrift stores and then never wear them - i'm realizing i need to be more intentional and careful about the clothes i buy. and putting my costuming skills to work to embellish simple garments! 

the black cardi with faux leather panels is from I.N.C. (plus size). I was drawn to the drapey witchy-ness of it, and of course the mixed material look. I'm a sucker for anything pleather, mesh, lace or fishnet, and I'm also just a fiend for cardigans. I might add some extra shoulder details though, since it still feels kind of plain.

the tank is just a plain black cotton racerback that is super stretchy and soft. since it was cold out i put on my gray and black scarf from H&M. I love the idea of lightweight scarves for styling and I'm still figuring out how best to wear them. but they def make me feel cute and are a great detail. as much as I would like to own more, they aren't something I feel like I can spend on, so I just have the one, but I love it. it's also big enough to double as a fort and can be swung around like a feather boa, so it helps with the nannying too. 

the jeans are Mossimo brand from Target. I love the detailing and the super snug fit without constricting my calves. i don't love the wash though. i have a slightly vintage green version of these with studs on the hip but the material is thinner and less fitted. tight pants are definitely a 꽃미남 staple and I struggle to find ones that work for my body. these also have a 29" inseam...great for my short legs! I want to try wearing them cuffed/cropped above the ankle, too. 

makeup is my usual 꽃미남 face: 

Make Up Forever Aqua Cream in Black

MAC eyeshadow in Concrete

Etude House Crystal Tear Powder in Gold

MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Soft and Gentle

TooFaced Lip Injection Color Bomb in Candy Burst

Etude House Woo Baby Lip Plumper

support my journey to Korea this fall!

Support Teukie’s Journey to Korea

Hi folks!

I’m a fat, queer, nonbinary, chronically ill Korean adoptee artist, writer and burlesque/queerlesque performer. I am planning a trip back to my homeland this fall to do language study at university. I am currently studying Hangul my own in order to get the most out of my studies over there.

Although language will take up most of my time, I’m also planning to engage in the transformative work being done in Korea around adoption reform, unwed mother support and also LGBTQ issues. There may even be the potential for me to perform at a queer social even in Seoul! 

In early December, I got word that my birth mother had been located, after several years of really frustrating, heartbreaking searching. I have sent her a letter and am waiting to hear back. At this point, I have no idea if it will be possible for us to meet (or for me to meet my two half siblings) because of the circumstances surrounding my birth. However, even going to Korea knowing that I have family out there, this trip takes on extra significance.

I want to experience Korea intentionally, navigating my multiple layers of identity: adoptee, queer, orphan, fat, nonbinary, foreign and American. I will be recording, photographing and art-making my experiences and feelings to share through this blog and beyond.

The financial cost of this journey is over $10,000. I’ve been working really hard to earn and save for this trip, but in the end I’m going to need help to make it a reality. These costs include airfare, lodging, food, transportation, medical, school tuition (I am applying for partial scholarships), visa fees, insurance fees and more. If we meet our fundraising goal, I can afford to stay for 7 months and complete two semesters of language study.

Please check out the GoFundMe page here: http://www.gofundme.com/6cej1s

And signal boost to make this orphan’s dream come true!

Thank you!

head/heart/hurt: thoughts on the babybox

a friend recently scoffed at my suggestion that Korean adoptees had higher than average divorce rates. i don't have a shiny study to back up this claim - just my own experiences, the experiences of adoptee friends and personal observation. i know of at least two Swedish studies that show Korean adoptees have startlingly high rates of suicide and suicide attempts. i too, have personal experience with this.

the truth is, the struggles of the adoptee are complex and complicated. they may look different from person to person, but that doesn't mean they aren't real. and if you haven't been there, you just. don't. know.

i searched for three years before i found my birth mother. and that process and time broke my heart in ways i can't describe. ways i would have never predicted when i sent out my first email to my adoption agency. or the third.

but despite my struggles, i am one of the lucky few, one of a very tiny percentage that found something. found someone. i have a chance to look at a photo and see myself. and maybe, i will meet my birth mother face-to-face, or my half-siblings. no matter the outcome of our reunion (and believe me, they run the gamut) i am one of the lucky ones because i am now connected to someone. some thing.

i know so many adoptees who have been searching for much longer than me. and many of them will never find anything. or anyone. they may have had several false positives along the way, consecutive heartbreaks that i can't comprehend. they may have searched only to find what they were looking for was gone, left only with whispers from distant relatives.

but this is not a pointless ramble.

it's this babybox, you see, that has me all twisted up in knots. because it only encourages anonymous abandonment, something which is currently legally possible in Korea, but the babybox makes it final. there is no possibility for that child to ever find their family, there is no way for that mother to find out what happened to her child (because yes, birth mothers are human beings with emotions, not just uteruses that turn out cute, trendy, brown accessories for the discriminating shopper).

since the babybox's installation, the only statistic to change has been an increase in anonymous abandonment. it does not prevent infanticide. it does not save lives. it ruins lives.

i imagine, and i can't breathe. the sheer force of the suffering this babybox will cause to the generations of orphans it manufactures is unbearable. the pain i felt for three years would become a lifetime. it would become final. just imagine. but you can't. you. just. can't. unless you've been there.

we have had so much done to us. adoptees. so much taken from us. by social stigma, by neglect, by greed, by colonialism, by imperialism, by war, by sexism, by racism, by history.

many of us have been told the "anonymous abandonment" story to make us more palatable to overseas buyers. blank slates. it also discourages searching and upsetting the status quo and keeps the shady underbelly of overseas adoption hidden.

it's no coincidence that all of this press around the babybox comes hand-in-hand with efforts from the agencies to undo changes made by the Special Adoption Law. changes that, while huge, are also just baby steps towards bringing Korea's adoption industry into ethical compliance. the agencies don't want to see their gravy train of fresh, baggage-free orphans for export dry up. plain and simple. so all of this babybox media attention, the movie with it's lies and misdirection, the facebook virality, it all serves to make agencies rich on the blood and tears of unwed mothers and their babies.

(many folks, much more knowledgable and articulate than i, have written criticisms of the babybox. such as this one, by adoptee Shannon Heit. tonight, heart/hurt bursting, i just had to sit and write out some thoughts. this is by no means comprehensive or well cited.)

every child deserves to know where they came from.

MAKING HOME: a trip to the H-Mart

car selca

a few of my favorite things :)

displacement

two weeks ago, i flew home for christmas with my partner and my entire family. one week ago, i arrived back in Seattle. today, i'm starting to write about it.

this trip, much like everything else in the past six months, was full of realizations.

one of those realizations is that a big part of why my sister and i don't get along is birth order. she was the youngest, the baby, until she was 7 and i was adopted. at first, i was a prop, a way for her to get praise. she actually brought me into school for show & tell once. but once i started showing her up, i became the competition. she's been in competition with me ever since. now in her 30s, a successful lawyer, married with two kids, a homeowner - she still feels the need to compete with me. she will still complain about how i scored higher than her on the SATs or point out to my family that she's still Catholic and i left the church when i was 13.

she picks fights with everyone in my family, but particularly likes to bully me in and then point out my instability if i lash out.

i am the first born, the oldest. i just found out, i have to younger half-siblings: a sister (20) and a brother (15). i think i've always felt and acted like the oldest sibling, i just never had the context before. my bestie and my partner are both eldest siblings - i am a nurturer, a caretaker and a fierce protector. 

this trip i refused to engage my sister when she baited me. it was draining, frustrating, painful. having my partner there helped me to decompress after a days interactions. my sister is a hateful person. she is racist, fatphobic, ableist, queerphobic, transphobic, classist. she is selfish, self-centered and cruel. she never takes responsibility for her actions. she throws tantrums that are worse than her 3-year old.

she has shamed me my entire life. i see why now. she feels - she needs to feel - that am inferior to her. that i was a waste of money and effort. that i should have never been adopted. that she should have never been displaced from her position as the baby, the princess, the center of attention.

i see that now.

it's a strange place that i am in. for the first time, seeing clearly that her vitriol stems from her own issues, not mine. for once, i was the calm, mature older sibling that i was meant to be. i stood my ground. i loved and cared for her children, who she regards as nothing more than props, dolls to dress up and then casually dump on family members to care for when she doesn't feel like it. i gave her more of myself than she deserved.

and it felt good to not end up fighting for my right to exist with her. but it took so much out of me. i'm still recovering, and i don't really know where to begin. but this feels like a start.

there's a calm that comes from knowing i am in fact, the oldest, and that i have the chance to be a better big sibling to my dongsaengs than either of my adoptive siblings ever were to me. there is strength to that thought.