Borrowing the word “bullying”

I rarely watch TV since I started watching Korean dramas (subtitled in either English or French) on the Internet in order to at least make myself familiar with the sound of my mother tongue that I lost after my adoption.

But these past weeks, I turned on the TV a few times and each time, I came across different TV shows (such as TVA en direct and Denis Lévesque) that was talking about bullying at school. The first show’s discussion was about a 15-year-old girl in the Gaspe who committed suicide after three years of bullying by her peers. The second was about parents and bullying.
I actually heard only the last minutes of the first show when the host interviewed a boy who had been a victim of bullying at his former school. He talked about his experience as victim and the big march against bullying organized as part of bullying prevention week in Quebec.
These few minutes of listening were enough to make me cry as it reminded me of my similar experience at school or at any other place when my parents were not with me particularly during my first four years in Quebec.

I thought that these children were still luckier than I was since they can at least describe their experiences in one word, “bullying”, for I had no one-word to describe mine and no one to talk to.

I could never talk about my experiences because I had quickly forgotten the little bit of English that I had learned during my six months in the USA, because I didn’t speak yet French, and then because the one-word I used was considered inappropriate.

Today I’m borrowing the word “bullying” to write about the difficulties I went through in lonliness after my arrival in Quebec.

My parents moved back to Quebec, Canada, in early summer 1976, six months after my arrival to the USA.
I had a nice summer playing with the street neighbor kids although I couldn’t speak to them, nor understand them. As French speaking Quebecois, my parents wanted me to speak French. I’d better learned their language as there were only French speaking families in the neighborhood except one. My mother found a tutor to teach me French before the beginnig of school. She found it convenient to enrol me in the private school where he was teaching, because he could drive me to school with his two children and two other children.

My first morning in the playground of the school, I was found in the middle of a circle formed by younger and older children who were pulling their eyelids and calling me “Chinoise! Chinese!” I didn’t know yet the French word “Chinoise”, neither the English word “Chinese”. The same scenario was repeated during the breaks. During the school hours, I had nothing else to do than copying several times some unknown words prepared by my mother, as there was no welcoming class in the private school.

Day 2, day 3, day 4,…, it was always the same. They would say the words “Chinese/Chinoise” in a tone full of hatred or contempt. Sometime, they would say in a mocking tone “Look! She has yellow skin, the skin of a Chinese girl!”

My life at school was like living in a hell.

What bothered me the most were their gestures. Some would pass near me, too close to me, to yell “Chinoise!” at my face. There was one little girl who would swing back and forth, again too close to me, pulling her eyelids and humming “Chinoise, chinoise, chinoise…” to the rhythm of the swaying, and a boy started imitating her. It wasn’t only borthering, it was irritating and frightening.

This always took place in front of an adult, as there was always a teacher to supervise the playground. But they would only watch without intervening. Even the teacher who had been my tutor during the summer wouldn’t say a word.

I cried every evening. The only word I knew then was “moquerie (mockery)”. I told my mother in English, “They mock at me and call me ‘Chinoise’.”
My mother spoke to that teacher. His response was that I needed to defend myself. While driving to the school, he yelled non stop against me. I didn’t speak French yet, but I understood one sentence he said. “I’ll untie her tongue!”

Nothing changed at school. I wished every day to return to Korea.
I was always stressed and feared the breaks. I was so stressed that I couldn’t eat. After weeks of seeing my lunch box intact, my mother began to cook hamburgers or fishes for breakfasts to my pleasure as I wasn’t used to the western-style breakfasts yet.

Throughout the school, there were only four children (riding the same car to go to school) who wouldn’t bully me. Two of them would pass their breaks with me to play with me. They were like my proctectors. They would tell me to ignore them, but how could I ignore them when they were passing so near to my body. At the end of the breaks, they in turn would bring me to the right place to get into rows before entering to classes. Then all my classmates would say in turn, “No, I don’t want to be next to a Chinese.” And I was always found the last in the rows. Once a girl freaked out and yelled, “No, I don’t want to be next to a Chinese! Chinese people are dirty!”

After a few weeks, there was a slight improvement thanks to my teacher who spoke to my classmates. All my classmates stopped bullying me oppenly, although I knew some of them were still laughing at me. Many of them became nice. My two protectors decided to let me cope alone. Bullying continued during the breaks from children of other classes, but some of my classmates would defend me against them. I even managed to make a “best friend”.

My teacher assigned a girl to help me during the class hours. I admired her and considered her as my friend, although she didn’t considered me as her friend. One day, I brought the photos of my orphanage friends to show her that I had many friends in my country. I wanted to show her how some of my orphanage fellows were cute and pretty. She said, “They all look alike, don’t you think? Can you even differentiate them?” I didn’t know why she was saying they all looked alike, but I said nothing. I decided not to show the photos to anyone, and put them away.

Many weeks later, I looked at the orphanage photos again. I understood what the girl has said to me. All my friends had the same Chinese eyes than mine. They all looked alike. Even the nun and the housmother were ugly with their Chinese eyes. I looked in the mirror and saw my “slant eyes”, as my mother would say. What I saw was beyond my comprehension. I thought, “How can this be possible? Not long time ago, they were so beautiful. How come it’s only now that I can see our ugly slant eyes?…”

It wasn’t only at school. I would face the bullying as soon as I would go out of the street where I lived. As instance, during the summer vacation, at a swimming lesson, a girl deformed her face with her hands to show other children how ugly I was, “with her flat nose and Chinese eyes,” she said. Ugly, crushed face, crushed nose, flat nose, Chinese and yellow skin, were few of the words I’ve heard.

“I want eyes like yours and dads,” I would often say to my mother. “I want blond hairs like yours or brown like dads,” I would say sometime.
“I don’t understand you, I find your eyes are beautiful. I would love to have your slant eyes,” my mother would reply…
I knew she didn’t understand me.

Second year of my adoption. My mother had a comestic surgery to make her look younger.

“When I’ll grow up, I’ll have a surgery to get rid of my slant eyes and to make my flat nose bigger,” I would say.
“I don’t understand you, I find your eyes are beautiful,” my mother would reply.

“Why do you want to change your eyes?” my mother would ask sometime.
“Because all the Quebecois hate me for my Chinese eyes,” I would reply.

My mother would then tell me how the Quebecois love the Chinese children for their slant eyes. “Every Quebecois love Asian people and their slant eyes. I know that because when I was at school, we could buy a Chinese for 25 cents. The nuns would sell us photos of Chinese children to help them. They would ask us who want to buy a Chinese. I would always raise my hands, I was so happy to have a Chinese child, everyone was happy to have a Chinese.”
“You don’t understand,” would be my last reply.

My first thought about my future. I then believed I had to be married at the latest at 25 years old, and I had the following thoughts before falling asleep.
“Should I marry a Canadian or a Korean?”
“If I marry a Korean, my children will have slant eyes and everyone will mock at them.” My heart ached at the idea that my children would go through the same experiences than me. “I’d better marry a Candian,” I thought.
“If I marry a Canadian and my children have normal eyes like their fathers, they’ll be ashamed of me, their own mother.” I couldn’t even bear the idea of being mocked by my own children. “I doubt a Canadian would ever love me, anyway,” I thought.

For a few weeks, before falling asleep, I imagined cutting myself from my throat to my lower abdoment with a knife to extirpate the dirty Chinese from me.

Second year at school. It became much better. Having a sixth grader cousin at the same school helped me alot. I understood that having a Canadian family would make me less Chinese. There remained only a handful of children who continued to mock at my slant eyes during breaks. In addition to calling me Chinse, some started calling me Japanese after learning John Lennon’s song, Yesterday.
There was second Chinese boy, actually Vietnamese. To my shame, my friends would say, “Lets go play with your little brother.”
Other kids would say, “The other Chinese is your brother, right?”
“Do you like eating rice?”
“Do you eat with chopstick?”
I would say no, no, no, to all of their questions.

On the third year came the fashionalbe Chinese shoes and the question, “Do you like the Chinese shoes?” to which I would answer vehemently, “No, I hate them.”

Fourth year in Quebec. I started attending a private Catholic school, which had mixed-sex Primary education and Secondary education for girls. I believed I had become normal (which in my vocabulary meant white) as there was no mockery. But after two months of Secondary 1, I was put back to the 6th grade class of Primary school. Hearing boys and girls calling me “Chinoise” in low voices made me understand I wasn’t normal yet.

While I was riding bicycle to go the convinient store, a teenage boy threw a basketball from a driveway to my direction. The ball passed an inch from my face. I continued riding faster, because I was scared. The boy was with two adults and many other children.
Another day, I was walking in the street, when a tall teenage boy headed toward me with a huge box he was holding above his head. I was scared to death while he was approaching me to throw the box, saying “Hey! Look at me, the Chinese girl!… I’ll hurt you! I’ll kill you! ” My fear suddenly changed to anger, and I yelled “What!? You want to hurt me? You want to kill me?… OK. Come kill me.” While the guy was running away cowardly, I started chasing him, yelling, “Come kill me! Come kill me!” I stopped as he was running much faster than me. My fear came back at the thought that he could get the help of his father to defend him. I felt my heart beating fast in my throat, and I struggled to hold back my tears. That day, I hated the whole world; I hated Korea for sending me to a foreign country where I was different of everybody, and I hated Canada for receiving me despite their hater of slant eyes.

I came back home smiling. I never told about these two last “incidents” to my parents because I knew they wouldn’t understand me. And I never went out alone the next 10 years except to go to school.

After I learned the word racism, my parents and I had a chat about racism. My mother said, “We could have adopted a black girl, but we didn’t, because a black girl would have suffered of racism. We didn’t want our daughter to suffer of racism.” My father added, “Yes. You don’t know how black people can suffer of racism. What you have lived on your first year in Canada was nothing compared to what black people endure.”

Years later, I talked to a friend about the mockering I’ve been subjected to at school, but she said it had nothing to racism when I haven’t even used the censored word “racism”. I talked again to some other friends, as I needed to talk, but they all answered, “You know, kids are mean.” or “You know how kids are, some kids get mocked at for being fat or having big nose…”

Today, I’ve borrowed the word bullying to write about my experiences as transracial adoptees. This is only small part of the bullying I’ve lived since my arrival in Canada.

I live in a white world where the word racism is defined by the white people, and according to their definition, it had nothing to do with racism. When some elderlies call me in a parking lot, “maudite Chinoise (damned Chinese)”, it has nothing to do with racism. Be it, there is no racism in Quebec. Canada belongs to the white people, and it is the white people who has the right to decide what is racism and what is not.

Months of November in review from 1975, the year I became a Holt product

November is my birth month, but it has not always been the case.
Until I was 8, il was April.

I was born on the 8th of April, 1966 (which, on the lunar calendar, is the 18th of March, 1966). I remember how happy I was on my 7th birthday when my father gave me money to spend, and how happy I was on my 8th birthday when he gave me a corn on the cob. In those days, in Korea, it was unusal to celebrate a child’s birthday other than its first birthday.

In 1975, about three months before I turned 9, my birthday has been changed to the 20th of November. Baby selling men from Holt Children’s Services asked me my birth date only to give me a different birth date and a different age. My friends who didn’t know their birth dates were given new birth dates and different ages as well. And they ordered us to say our new ages if someone would question us again.

November is the month of my birth date, but I wasn’t born on November.
My birth certificate states that I was born on November, so does all the legal paper that I have. But legal doesn’t mean true; legal doesn’t mean ethical. Legal only means permitted by law. Adoption is child trafficking and child laundering permitted by law supposedly in the name of love, but in fact in the name of money and greed. With money, you can make falshood become legal and truth become illegal. With money, it is legal to falsify falsified a birth ceritificate. It would be illegal for me to write my true birth date on a legal paper.

Retrospective of the months of November since the creation of the Holt product #K-6714

November 1975

1) Birthday celebration:

In early November 1975, it was my first birthday celebration (on my new birthday month) with other girls whose birthday was on November. I was happy to receive a flower and to be congratulated for our coming birthdays on the month.

2) My last days with my friends:

The 2-3 first weeks of November 1975 were my last days with my friends. Sister Yuk, the nun responsible of bringing the girls to the many appointments required before going to USA, would tell us any day, “Today is the day you are going to the USA.” We never knew when that was going to be said to us. I heard it on a November day, a week or two after the birthday celebration.
Mrs. Choi, the housemother responsible of my group, gave me a bead nacklace, a book, traditional rubber shoes, and a tradition Korean purse. I felt all kind of emotions while Mrs Choi was writing the address of the orphanage so that I could write to her. Among the emotions were happyness and sadness. I felt happy because she gave me a bead necklace and a book, in addition to the purse that she had given to every girl before their departure; I felt disappointed because there was no farewell song for me, as every girls were either at school or at their appointments; I felt sad because I couldn’t say goodbye to my best friend who was at school; I felt sad and worried for my friend thinking that she would be sad coming home from school.
Sister Yang, the nun responsible of my group, learned of my departure only at the moment I was approaching the backyard door to leave. She took me aside in a private room to tell me goodbye. She told me that she never knew when one of her girls would leave. While she was writing a short note to me, I saw tears in her eyes. Seeing her tears brought tears to my eyes. I realized that I would be gone for a long time. I didn’t want to go the USA anymore. She muttered that she had requested in vain to be notified about the departure of her girls. I knew she was making special effort not to cry. I too made special effort not to cry. While she was talking to me, holding my hand, I wanted to yell that I’ll stay with her and Mrs Choi forever and I wanted to throw myself in her arms to tell her not to let me go. But Sister Yuk was getting impatient, she was already in the cab and was waiting for me to leave.

3) My last month in my native country:

I was transferred to another home for the rest of the month. It looked like an American house, with modern bathroom with an American style toilet and modern furnitures such as I’ve never seen before, so I thought I was already in the USA. I realized few days later that I was still in Korea. I missed home (orphanage). I missed my friends, Mrs Choi, Sister Yang and the housemother of another group. I cried silently every day, I cried so much that my eyes were red all day. The workers were nice and tried to change my mind, but I still felt sad from morning to night. I stayed at that place until the end of November 1975.
The day of my departure was on December 1st, 1975. During my last hours in Korea at the airpot, I was happy thinking that I would soon meet my friends who had gone to the USA before me. I didn’t know that I was leaving permanently.

November is the month of loss; loss of friends and loss of native country. November is the month of sorrow for losing my native land.

November 1976

My first birthday with my adoptive family. My parents threw a huge surprise party. Two classmates and all the neighbor kids were present. They said in English “happy birthday!” when I came back home. Everything else was said in French.

At the end of the party, my two classmates saw Louis, a Korean-American man who had been living with us since few weeks. (Louis was a former employee of my parents in the USA, but he hadn’t been able to find another job since my parents sold their business to move to Canada six months after my arrival. My mother hired him to keep me company so that I could talk to him in Korean.) One of the classmates asked me if that Chinese man was my big brother. Her question made me ashamed of him. I felt ashamed of our Chinese eyes, but I felt more ashamed of his eyes than mine. (Since I started school, the only thing that I’ve heard during breaks were the words such as, “Chinese, Chinese”- “Yuck! Chinese are dirty!”-”Slant eyes.”-”The yellow.”, accompanied with the gesture of pulling their eyelids.) I considered Louis as my brother, but I avoided answering the question because of shame. I didn’t want them to think that the Chinese man was my brother because that would make me a double-Chinese. I felt more ashamed of Louis when he asked my classmates if they spoke English. I had noticed for some time that people would talk to me in English because of my Chinese looking face. I had wrongly deduced that speaking only French would make me become normal so that I could fit in. At school, my classmate asked me again if the Chinese man they saw at my birthday party was my brother. I responded vehemently that he wasn’t. I wanted to tell them that he was only an employee of my parents, but I couldn’t because of my lack in French. And then I felt ashamed of my cowardice.
Few days later, I heard Louis saying to my parents that he had decided to go back to the USA. They had a long conversation together, but I didn’t understand what they were saying because I had forgotten the little bit of English that I had learned in the USA. I felt ashamed of myself thinking that he wanted to leave because of me. I’ve never seen him again after he left. Louis was the last person with whom I spoke in Korean.

November is the month of loss; loss of sense of self, loss of culture. November is the month of internalized racism. November is the month of colonized body.

November 1977

On November 1977, at my baptism and birthday celebration, was the last time I sang in Korean, which has been immortalized in the following video.

In the video, I’m between my godparents. My father asked me to explain the meaning of my birth name, Kim Myung Sook. My parents didn’t know that I had started to be ashamed of that name, as”Myung” sounded too Chinese and was too difficult to pronounce for me. I was afraid that someone discover that name was written on my birth certificate as my middle name. My belief was that having a Chinese name would prevent me to become normal like them. I started explaining the meaning because they kept insisting, and then I stopped by shame pretexting that I didn’t know the meaning of the other syllable.
Then, my godmother asked me to sing in Korean. I sang unwillingly. I used to like singing when I was Korean. I sang almost every day during the six months I lived in the USA. I stopped completly singing few weeks after I started school in Canada. I would only sing rarely when there was none other than my parents. My mother often asked me why I have suddenly stopped singing. I never told her that I was ashamed of everything Korean, including my own body.

Few weeks later, I’ve received a phone call from Louis. He has seen my ad in Korean newspaper searching for my siblings. I couldn’t understand one word of what he said, as I had lost the Korean language.

November is the month of loss; loss of mother tongue, loss of culture, loss of identity. November is the month of assimilation. November is the month of sorrow for losing my native land and my mothter tongue.

November 1978-2006

Few months after my first birthday party in my adoptive family, I started telling my parents about my past life in Korea. I told them that my birthday in Korea was different. As my French was improving, I would tell my parents about my family in Korea. My mother would say, “From what you say, I understand Korea is 35 years late compared to Canada.” Whenever I would talk about my first family, she would correct me by saying, “No. That’s not true. You were not 6 yeas old; you were 4 when your mother died” or “That’s not true. Your father left you to his landlord, and after few days of not receiving any news, the landlord brought you to the orphanage.” I understood she believed I was a liar.
I told many times my mother that my birthday was during hot season, somwhere between April and August. I recounted my parents in detail the day I met the men who gave me a new birth date that wasn’t mine. I told them that I clearly remember the number 1966 and that I also vaguely remember the numbers 8 and 13, so it must be August the 13th. Althought my mother seemed to believe me about my birthdate being fake, she would always tell me that I was a real Scorpio. She would say things such as, “My daughter is a Scorpio like my mother.” – “My mother and daughter’s birthdays are two days apart.” -”Your zodiac sign fits you well.” And after I got mad once for something, she started saying, “She’s agressive! A real Scorpio! Koreans are agressive ” And she would try to make me mad again by picking at me with her fingers. I persevered and repeated my story again and again for about two years.
Without realizing it, I became a pure laine Quebecois (pure wool Qubecois), born on November to Quebecois parents.

November 1978 was an ordinary month, a little special because it was my birth month.

On November 1979, a few days before my birthday , I returned school after two months of absence, two months during which I was in depression and stayed seated on the floor. (It was my second depression, the first having taken place only for a week during the winter 1977-78, because I had studied too much in a new language in order to catch up with other children.)

I didn’t know why but in the year 1980, I started hating November months. I once told on someone else’s birthday, “What I hate the most is my birthday” and then I thought, “I wish my birthday was during a warm period of the year.”

On November 1980, I caught a bronchitis, a third bronchitis since my arrival in Canada. I went on a trip to Haiti with my mother to “dry my bronchitis under the souther sun” by recommendation of a physician, which got me the label of lucky. The words “you’re lucky” was nothing new as I’ve already heard it many times.

In 1981, in order to silence me about the sexual abuse that was taking place since two years, my father obtained strong antidepressants from his son, pretexting that I was in a deep depression. Thereafter, my father would say that I was in depression on every month of November whenever I hadn’t a smiling face, while my mother would say, “here we go, depression again”, which forced me to joke alot and have a happy face almost all the time.
On my birthday of November 19?? and 19??, I ended up in hospital after taking an overdose in a suicid attempt.

November 1999-2004. No birthday celebration. No birthday card, no birthday wish, no phone call, as my mother died in June 1999 and my father has left for another woman in 1990.

November is the month of darkness and depression.

November 2005-present.

I got birthday celebration with my husband and/or my godparents.

On November 2007, I heard for the first time about National Month of Adoption, thanks to online groups of adoptees that I had found in the fall of 2007. Thanks to them I could finally put words to the feelings and I know that I’m alone. Thanks to them I’m no longer obliged to live with the feeling debt of having been saved from a life of poverty doomed to prostitution. And finally thanks to them, I’ve opened my eyes to the reality of multi billion dollar adoption industry. As I started blogging about adoption, it got me the label of angry and bitter adoptee.
But you know what, since I’ve became an angry and bitter adoptee, I’ve not once fell into depression and I’m happy. The truth will set you free, even the uggy truth, and when you can put words to your feelings and express them, you’ll feel happy.

During the year 2008, I have obtained my hojuk (Korean family registry) with my actual birth date in lunar calendar, 18th of March, 1966 (which in solar calendar is 8th of April, 1966). I wished my mother was still alive so that I could tell her that everything I told her was true (and that everything she heard from Holt was lie).

From November 2008, I told my godparents and friend that my birthday would be celebrated on April 8th, even though my legal birthday is on November 20th.

November is National Adoption Month.

November is Child Laundering Month.

Myung-Sook, the fourth child of Kim Jeong-Jin and Yeo Byung-Rae, born on the 8th of April, 1966, in Korea had been laundered before she turned 9 to become a child of nobody, born on the 20th of November, 1966, so that she could become adoptable.

November is Month of losses.

November 1975 was the last month in her native land for the Korean-born girl. On her last hours in Korea, she was excited and happy to take the airplane at the idea of meeting again her friends who had flown to the USA before her; she was happy to wear a baby bracelet on each of her wrists. She didn’t have the least idea that she had become a sold product whose number was written on the bracelets. She didn’t know that her own people had sold her off to foreigners. She didn’t know that her escort was holding her visa to enter to the USA for the purpose of adoption with the date of bearer’s return crossed off. She didn’t know that it was her last day in Korea, as Korean.

The Korean girl was sold to a Quebecois couple residing in the USA. Just as she was turning into an all American girl, her buyers moved back to Canada, their homeland, as they were not American citizens. They wanted her to learn French and to become a pure laine Quebecois instead.

November is Child Recycling Month.

November 1976 was the month when the Korean-born girl who used to consider the white people as abnormal started seeing herself and the slant-eyed people as abnormal. Unbeknownst to her, the Korean girl had quickly lost her Korean culture, as her body was colonized by francophone Quebecois. November 1977 was the month when the Korean-born girl sang in Korean for the last time.
The Korean girl has been completly assimilated by the Quebecois people who often discusses the issues of identity and autonomy and who wants the predominance of the French language and the preservation and promotion of Quebec culture. The Korean girl has been recycled to a pure laine Quebecois girl, but the Quebecois will forever question her identity and she will never fit in here, neither there because they didn’t manage to change her Asian body.

Day 2: “Call us mommy and daddy”

I opened my eyes and I remembered I was in USA. I felt anxious and alone in the new enviroment. I wanted to cry but I was a big girl so I have chosen not to cry. The cloths on my bed showed me the yellow-haired woman had been in my room while I was sleeping. The yellow-haired woman came in, showed me the cloths and without saying a word, left the room. I got dressed quickly by fear of being seen by her, then I felt alone again.

The yellow-haired woman came back and brought me in front of the mirror. Unlike the previous day, she was silent. She wanted to brush my hair but I stiffened. I didn’t want my hair be brushed by this stranger. She had many items and trinkets to give me. I only remember few of them. It happened in silence: she would show me an item and I would nod or shake my head. The silence was embarrasing; I thought the American woman was shy as I was.

She showed me a ring; I nodded, she put it on my finger. She showed me a trinket, I nodded, and she gave it to me. She showed me earrings; I realized with horror that her ears were pierced. I shook my head and I thought the Americans were barbaric. I felt anxious, I missed home and I wanted to go back fast but the woman showed me a watch. I nodded and she put it on my wrist. I thought, “Americans are so rich that they can offer a watch to kids.” I never thought I could have a watch as a child. I felt I could like this American. I wasn’t interested by any other item that she showed me but I continued to nod without paying attention to her…

After giving me the last object, the American woman showed herself and said, “Mommy”. She repeated again, “Mommy? hm?” I understood by her body language that I had to call her Mommy. I nodded. She seemed very happy. She called me Kim-Kimmi. At the end of the day, when her fat husband came back, she showed him and said, “Daddy”. I nodded again.

That’s how I began to call two strangers mommy and daddy.

I would talk to them in Korean after I became less shy with them. I never called them “eomma” and “appa” which respectively mean mom and dad in Korean. I would call them by the Korean terms equivalent to Mrs and Mr. I don’t remember how to say the Korean words as my eomma’s and appa’s culture became a foreign culture and my mother tongue became a foreign language.

While I was being emptied of everything Korean and filled with everything American/Canadian unbeknown to me, I continued to call them mommy and daddy, until they brought me to Canada, their homeland, where they asked me to call them “maman” and “papa”.

What “Gotcha Day” means

• The “Gotcha Day” as I remember
• The “Gotcha Day” as told by my adoptive mother
• What “Gotcha Day” means to my adoptive parents
• What “Gotcha Day” means to my (birth) father
• What “Gotcha Day” means to me

The “Gotcha Day” as I remember

I recognized the American couple that I had seen on a photo.

Many weeks earlier, I was told by the social worker who gave me the photo that the couple would be my new American parents. My thought then had been: “The American woman is well-dressed and pretty but she doesn’t look like a mom; she wears too much of make-up like a woman of bad life. The American man can’t be a father, he is too fat.”

I was having the same thought in front of them when the yellow-haired woman grabbed me. She hugged me, she touched my face and my arms, she took me in her arms, and then she touched my hair, my arms and everywhere, while talking non stop in their strange language.

Meanwhile, the babies who had been travelling with me were given to the other Americans — one baby for each couple. It was very noisy. The babies were crying. Adults were crying, laughing and talking aloud. The yellow-haired woman continued to hug me and kiss me, calling me by a new name, Kimmi. I was totally disgusted by her lips on my cheeks and I hated her smell and her perfume. I grimaced and discretely wiped my cheeks with my hand when I had a chance. The room became quiet after other Americans left with the babies.

The fat American man lifted me up and put me on a bar stool, and then he also left the room. The yellow-haired American touched me again while talking to other men at the bar. They were all staring at me. I heard them saying “cute” and “pretty”. I felt embarrassed and uneasy. I took a few sips of a Seven-Up — the first soft drink in my life — to avoid their gaze. I almost burped, I found the tingling sensation in my nose funny, and I pinched my nose several times. I realized the men were still staring at me. I knew they were all talking about me.

I looked around me while they were busy talking. I felt like I was dreaming. The fat man came back and said something to his yellow-haired wife. He seemed very nervous. I sensed their panic. The yellow-haired woman took my hand and started running forcing me to run myself. She ran so fast that I had difficulty following her.

She suddenly stopped in front of a door. Inside the room were several doors. She took out a coin from her purse and inserted it in a slot of a door. The door opened… to an American style toilet! I thought, “Americans are crazy, they have to pay to pee! Americans are rich!”

The yellow-haired woman brought me in the toilet cabin and peed in front of me. I blushed. I had never seen a naked adult in my life before, not even my own parents. I turned my head toward the door but driven by curiosity, I cast a quick glance at her. The poor American was hairy as a monkey! I thought, “She must have often cried and laughed at the same time. Oh no! I too have laughed and cried many times. I don’t want to become like a monkey!” [My brother would always make me laugh whenever he saw me crying, and then he would say, "Myung-Sook, if you cry and laugh at the same time, hair will grow on your bottocks like monkeys."]
Using a body language and making a noise with her mouth like a monkey, the American woman told me it was my turn to pee. I shooked my head, because I didn’t want to pee in front of a stranger.

We met the fat man again. They gave me a pink teddy bear and the woman clothed me in a snowsuit. I had never seen such a toy and such cloth before. To hide my shyness and my distress, I took off my identification bracelets and put them on the teddy bear’s arms, and then I looked at it and held it tight. The yellow-haired woman said, “Pierrot”. I understood it was its name — a strange name.

It was dark and cold outside. I felt alone with the two strangers in this amazing place. The Americans made me sit between them in a taxi. The yellow-haired woman kissed me non stop on my cheek. I felt like my cheek was all wet. I wiped my cheek discreetly with my hand from time to time. Her smell mingled with that of her perfume was nauseous. I was too shy to show my disgust… To make things worse, I needed to pee… I couldn’t wait any longer! I made them understand by moving like all children know how to in such case. The yellow-haired woman asked the driver to stop. While I was peeing on the edge of the road, she stayed annoyingly near me as if I was her dog.

Next thing I remember is being in another smaller and empty plane, sitting between them again. There were only two stewardesses in the plane. The yellow-haired women talked to them non stop, such that the stewardesses couldn’t say a word. One of them told me “cute, cute” from time to time as if I was a little baby. The other left us and came back with a pin [Eastern airline pin] and gave it to me. As usual, the fat American man stayed quiet. I thought he must be shy as I was…

After landing, we were in a huge indoor parking garage (which I’d never seen before). I thought Americans must be very very rich to own a car. While the fat man was looking for his car, the yellow-haired woman picked up a public phone and started talking loudly with excitement. I had time to cast a look in her purse and saw many compartments filled with coins. I thought “My American parents must be rich”. [I must have hallucinated, as when I opened it a few days later, there was no such compartment in her purse. However, there were many coins in it.]

We arrived at their house. A red-haired old American woman was waiting us [She was one of the employees working at their business]. I understood her name was Nanny. The yellow-haired woman started talking to Nanny. Whenever Nanny had the chance to say something, she would look at me and say: “…cute” or “…pretty” in the same voice that adults usually take when they talk to babies. I then understood what cute and pretty meant. Despite my fatigue, I noticed how the house was huge. I felt like I was dreaming but I knew it was for real. [I didn't know enough words to describe how I felt then, but today with the words I know, I can say that I felt like I was in another planet or in a science fiction movie.]
They told me, “…tired… tired…” The yellow-haired women took me to my bedroom. I had never seen such room, bigger than all the rooms where I’ve lived with my family, all decorated and with beautiful furniture. I thought: “I’m a princess.” The woman gave me a pajamas. I didn’t want to undress in front of her, as I was a big girl. Fortunately, the woman understood me despite my silence and she left the room.

After lying on the bed, I thought how I would be sleeping alone for the first time of my life because in Korea, a family of 7 to 10 persons would sleep in such room. I felt very alone and anxious, but I preferred to think that I’d be living like a princess in this country of fairy tales called the USA; I’d be spoiled by my new American parents and I’d meet my friends who had came to the USA before me before going back to Korea.

The “Gotcha Day” as told by my adoptive mother

My mother died 11 years ago, but I’ve heard her recounting the “Gotcha Day” numerous times ever since I learned to speak her language up to the time of her death. The following is as she would tell it(translated from French).

When I received your photo, I thought you were a boy because of your shaved head. I called them and told them: “I don’t want a boy; I want a girl.” When they told me you were a girl, I became attached to you instantly, I loved you and I waited for you. I was eager to see you every day. I was hoping to see you before your birthday; I wanted to throw a big party for your birthday. You finally came on December 2. I’d asked Santa Claus to give me a living doll as a Christmas gift. You are my Christmas gift, my living doll.

[Talking to others]: We were given a VIP room. Everyone was excited and talking at the same time. It was noisy. We were like crazy while waiting for our children. What’s amazing is that all the parents recognized their babies of a few months old that they’d seen only in pictures, while they looked all the same to me with their slanted eyes. I felt the pain of childbirth when I saw my daughter. It seems that many women feel the pain of childbirth at the arrival of their adopted children. Other parents started crying as soon as they got their babies in their arms like any parent would after giving birth. Adopting a child is no different than giving birth. You love them as much as you love your biological children, and even more[...] Immigration said there was a problem. They had to send my daughter back to Korea because we did not have U.S. citizenship. We were going to lose our minds at the idea of losing her. Leo left us at the bar and went to plead our case.

You were so cute. You took a few sips of Seven Up and pinched your nose. Everyone at the bar was looking at you. One man told me that you were so pretty that he would marry you. I became angry at him and I told him, “I just got her! Give me a chance to enjoy her for few years!”
Your father came back and he told me, “Take the little one and run! Go hide! Run fast!” He has obtained a one-year visa for humanitarian consideration, but he was still afraid to lose you. We didn’t want to lose you. We were like crazy, I ran and went to hide in the restroom. [...] You refused to pee. While we were in the cab heading to another airport, you showed me you needed to pee, you were adorable, so we had to pull over.
Your father was so nervous that he couldn’t remember where he had parked his car. I called mom while he was searching for the car. I told her, “Mom, we got the little one, we got the little one!” Mom cried. She told me later that she cried at every birth of her grandchildren; she felt the same emotions as when her other grandchildren were born.

[Talking to others]: Mom accepted my daughter as her real granddaughter; she never made a distinction between her and the other grandchildren. She told me once that my niece Julie and my daughter were the youngest of the family and she’ll soon add them to the family tree.

What “Gotcha Day” means to my adoptive parents

As a French speaking person, my mother would use the equivalent French terms “Le jour que je t’ai eue” (the day I got you) when talking to me or “Le jour que je l’aie eue” (the day I got her) when talking to others. From time to time, she has also used the term “le jour que tu es arrivée” (the day you arrived).

For my mother, my Gotcha Day was the happiest day of her life. Her desire (of having a child/becoming a mother) came true that day. For my father, his desire (of having a child/building a new family with his second wife) came true that day. It seemed that my Gotcha Day was more important for my mother than for my father.

For my parents, it was a day to celebrate a happy event, my arrival in their life. The first year, they threw a huge party for my birthday to celebrate both my birthday and my Gotcha Day (the day of my arrival being less than two weeks after my birthday). The second year, they held a party for my Gotcha Day with their friends; they gave me a birthday cake with a candle in the form of a 2, like a two year-old child. About two years and half after my arrival, a neighbor threw a huge party to which we were invited. When I asked my mother what we were celebrating, she explained to me that it was for the 35th anniversary of the immigration of her husband from Italy, and she told me she’d throw a huge party, much bigger that this, for the 35th anniversary of my arrival day. (It was the first time, she took the term “your arrival day” instead of “the day I got you”).
The following years, they didn’t celebrate my Gotcha Day, but my mother stressed that day by giving me a gift or talking about the day at the airport. When talking about it, she would never forget to talk about the pain of childbirth she felt, to show me she loved me as if I was her own.

What “Gotcha Day” means to my (birth) father

To my father, I was his youngest and favorite child. He would show openly his favoritism toward me by making my sisters jealous. Sometimes after my mother’s death, we lived together alone. When his other children turned backs on him when he lost his money, I continued to admire him and to have faith in him.

When I found my family 27 years after separation, my sisters told me that our father didn’t abandon me. I don’t know if it is true or not as he is no longer in this world, but I know for sure that Holt Children’s Service didn’t get his consent to sell me for adoption.

He died three years after losing me in loneliness, not knowing where I was, not even knowing if I was alive or dead, not knowing anything of my “Gotcha Day”.

On his behalf, I want to say that Gotcah Day means losing a daughter.

What “Gotcha Day” means to me

For my adoptive parents, I was born the day they got me.

Indeed, I was born a second time at the age of 9 years old.

But to be born again, you must first die.

Going into the airport, I was Kim Myung-Sook (surname first), born in Korea, daughter of Koreans. My ancestors were Koreans and I spoke Korean.
I came out as Kim Goudreau (surname last), born in Korea, daughter of Quebecers. My ancestors are French-speaking Quebecers and I speak French and a little English.

For me, Gotcha Day is a day to mourn the death of Kim Myung-Sook, the daugther Kim Jeong-Jin and Yeo Byung-Rae, which means a day to mourn all the losses due to international adoption:

- the loss of my father, my two sisters, my brother, my brother-in-law, my nephew and my niece;
- the loss of my aunts, uncles and cousins;
- the loss of my two nephews born during our separation, that I didn’t/don’t see growing up;
- the loss of my grandnephew born after our reunion, as the reunion was followed by separation due to cultural and language barriers;
-the loss of a country that I used to call “our country” for I have no country that I can call “my country”;
-the loss of a place that I used to call “our home” for I don’t feel at home anywhere;
-the loss of my mother tongue;
-the loss of my culture;
-the loss of my identity.

For my parents, Gotchat Day was a day to celebrate my “birth”, because they couldn’t understand the losses for they didn’t lose anything.

How can an adoptive parent understand that gaining another family doesn’t replace the loss of an original family? How can an adoptive parent understand that learning two languages and a different culture will never fill the hole created by losing a mother tongue and culture when the adopters never lose anything while gaining someone else’s children in the “wonderful” process of adoption?

When they hear: “adopted”

They say, “You’re lucky”.
I smile.
They say, “You must be grateful”.
I nod.
They say, “Your parents are so generous”.
I remain silent.

When I smile, I think: “Abandoned”.
When I nod, I think: “sold/bought and recycled”.
When I remain silent, I think of all the losses:
- Loss of my mother
- Loss of my father
- Loss of my siblings, nephew and niece,
- Loss of my aunts, uncles and cousins
- Loss of my identity
- Loss of my country
- Loss of my language
- Loss of my culture
- Loss of faith

When I hear “lucky”, I write “hurt”.
They write, “You must be angry and bitter. I know someone who’s adopted and is happy.”

A misunderstood little prince who didn’t return to his planet

I’m not delusional or egotistical.

I’m only a hurt child begging her mother/Korea to love me and recognize me.

When I try to grow up, I become like a repudiated spouse still in love with her unfaithful ex-spouse/Korea begging him to love me and take me back.

When I try to extirpate my love for my beloved motherland from my heart, there is an explosion of the hatred for my ex-country/ex-lover.

Hatred is close to love.
Hating and loving both hurt me to death.

I try to become indifferent to the country that sold me and erased me, but it doesn’t work.

I’m not delusional or egotistical.

I’m only the child who wanted to return to her planet and failed.

I’m a grown-up who still wants to return to her planet and an alien to the planet where I was sent to.

On my planet, there is no place for me, as the baobab trees grew while I was gone.

Please don’t judge me as delusional or egotistical.

You managed to bring your roots to the planet where you have been sent to and your life continues and will continue through the new trees you created on your new planet.

I’ve failed to bring my roots to the planet where I was sent to.

The baobab trees grow all over my planet and on their people’s hearts.
And my roots are stifled by the roots of the baobab trees.

Either I say in a pure and innocent way as Little Prince with all my love for Korea to remove the baobab trees or either I say it in an angry way with all my hate for Korea, nobody has the right to judge me.

Aegukga: national anthem of the bleeding nation

Hangul	Translation
동해물과 백두산이 마르고 닳도록 하느님이 보우하사 우리 나라만세	Until that day when the blood of the Korean people run dry and South Korea is worn away, God, let us sell our children to the Westerners
(후렴) 무궁화 삼천리 화려 강산 대한 사람 대한으로 길이 보전하세	(Refrain) Three thousand Li of splendid rivers and mountains, filled with babies tagged with numbers; Selling our babies, a great way to make money!
남산 위에 저 소나무 철갑을 두른 듯 바람서리 불변함은 우리 기상일세	As the pine atop the near mountain stands firm, unchanged through wind and frost, so shall we live in prosperity, by trading our babies.
가을 하늘 공활한데 높고 구름 없이 밝은 달은 우리 가슴 일편단심일세	The Autumn sky is void and vast, high and cloudless; the greed is our heart, undivided and true.
이 기상과 이 맘으로 충성을 다하여 괴로우나 즐거우나 나라 사랑하세	With this spirit and this mind, lets sell our children, in suffering or in joy, until the last drop of Korean blood dry.

Transracial adoption

In one word: loneliness

In one picture:

White tulips

Because 사랑해요 means I love you

당신은 사랑받기위해 태어난 사람 means
You were born to be abandoned,
because 사랑해요 means I love you.

You were born to be abandoned
Because you were born to a wrong father
You were born to be rejected
Because 사랑해요 means I love you

Do not worry
There is a married woman whose womb has been closed by God; her name is Hannah.
Hannah has great faith in God and she is praying hard to have a child

You were born to be abandoned
Because your were born to a poor parent
You were born to be tagged with a price
Because you were born in a poor country

Do not worry
Hannah lives in a rich country.
And she’ll pay any price to have a child

You were born to be abandoned
Because you were born to a sinner
You were born to be sold
Because you were born in Korea

Do not worry
There is man who heard Hannah’s prayer; his name is Eli
Eli will fix your mother’s mistakes in the name of Jesus

You were born to be abandoned
Because God placed you in the wrong womb
You were born to be shipped off to strangers
Because you were born in the wrong country

Do not worry
The followers of Jesus will fix God’s mistakes.
And the followers of Confucius will send you off with an escort

Be grateful that you are not useless
Hannah’s is happy now, because of your existence in this world.
Followers of Jesus made huge sum of money, because of your existence in this world.
And the followers of Confucius will be happy, the day you’ll visit your birth country to spend your money.

당신은 사랑받기위해 태어난 사람…

The Misunderstood Little Prince

My mother would play children’s vinyl records , such as Cinderella, Snow White and Gingerbread Man the first few weeks after my arrival.

Although I didn’t understand English, not even one word, I was fed up with the fairy tales, as I could recognize them from the illustrations of the books that accompanied the records. But I often asked her to play Gingerbread Man which was new to me.

My mother had another old record whose cover represented a yellow-haired boy on a planet. It seemed interesting to me, but she didn’t want to play it.

Six months after my arrival, my parents moved back to their homeland, Quebec, to finalize my adoption. Accordingly, I was forced to learn their mother tongue, French, and to forget my mother tongue, Korean, as well as the little bit of English I’ve learned.

To teach me French, my mother stopped playing the English records, and she would play instead the record of Le Petit Prince (in English: The Little Prince) which she has refused to play before. The book included many illustrations, but French was so difficult for me then that the only words that I came to underestand after few weeks were “Dessine-moi un mouton” which means “Draw me a sheep”.

I read the book more than two decades later, in 1999, after receiving it as gift from a friend. Below is the picture of my book. (The book and the record of my mother had the same picture on them).

Le Petit Prince (English: The Little Prince) is the most famous novella of the French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Published in 1943 in New York, it has been translated into 220 languages and dialects and has sold more than 134 millions copies in the world.

You can read online the summary or the full version in English.

I notice since my adolescence that when grown-ups say they love the story of The Little Prince, they mean that they love and understand children.

My mother loved the story of Little Prince. And she loved children too. Most of the family reunion pictures taken before my arrival shows her playing on the floor with her nephews and nieces. She was also loved and known by the neighbor children to be the coolest and the most understanding mom of all.

My mother loved me, but she never understood me.
She never understood things that were written in her favorite book The Little Prince, yet the cover of her book/ record showed that she has read/played it many times.

For instance, the meaning of “tame” which is well explained by the fox to Little Prince, in chapter 21.

“Come and play with me,” proposed the little prince. “I am so unhappy.”
“I cannot play with you,” the fox said. “I am not tamed.”
“Ah! Please excuse me,” said the little prince.
But, after some thought, he added:
“What does that mean– ‘tame’?”
[...]
“It is an act too often neglected,” said the fox. It means to establish ties.”
“‘To establish ties’?”
“Just that,” said the fox. “To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . .”
“I am beginning to understand,” said the little prince. “There is a flower . . . I think that she has tamed me . . .”

When I first met my mother at the airport, she was nothing more than a stranger who was just like hundred other strangers. She was nothing more than “an American lady with yellow hair” to me. And I had no need of her.
But it seems that on her part, she needed a child. She negleted to tame me. She didn’t even take a second to introduce herself. She took me in her arms, she kissed me, she touched my arms, she touched my face, she touched my head,…, and she kissed me non stop. Had she taken the trouble to know about my birth culture before my arrival, she wouldn’t have kissed me. I was disgusted by her lips on my cheeks, by her smell, by her perfume. She was so elated to have a child, that she didn’t see me grimacing and wiping discretely my cheeks with my hand when I had the chance.

Yet, it was clearly written in her favorite book how to tame, and the importance to tame.

“Please– tame me!” he said.
“I want to, very much,” the little prince replied. “But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand.”
“One only understands the things that one tames,” said the fox. “Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me…”
“What must I do, to tame you?” asked the little prince.
“You must be very patient,” replied the fox. “First you will sit down at a little distance from me– like that– in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day…”
The next day the little prince came back.
“It would have been better to come back at the same hour,” said the fox. “If, for example, you come at four o’clock in the afternoon, then at three o’clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o’clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you… One must observe the proper rites…”
“What is a rite?” asked the little prince.
“Those also are actions too often neglected,” said the fox. “They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all.”

Many adoptive parents don’t understand the importance of taming. They want their adopted child to bond with them immediately, when it doesn’t happen the way they want, they label the child of RAD. They then try to force the child to become attached to them using various technics of attachment therapy. Some give up their adopted child for adoption after only few weeks or after years, while some other return their adopted child to his/her country of origin.

Korea delivers their children directly to the prospective adoptive parents. It is not required for the prospective adoptive parents to go to Korea or to meet/tame the children before adopting them. Adopted children of Korea have to call the strangers they have never met before “dad” and “mom”.

As another example of what my mother didn’t understand was my wish to return home. I liked staying in her home, but I became homesick after few weeks of stay.

She saw me every night lying on the floor with tears in my eyes, but she thought I was scared of my bed, as she has read in the Holt’s booklet that Koreans slept on the floor. Had she taken the time to tame me before making me call her “Mommy”, she would have known that I actually liked sleeping in my bed. Had she taken the time to learn Korean, she would have known that I missed my friends of orphanage and she would have known that I lay on the floor to pray my dead grandmother to bring me back home, to bring me back to my father.

She saw me one night crying aloud and packing the things with which I came and I went out to go back to my “planet”. But she still misunderstood me; she thought I was only a spoiled girl.

She never knew that, years later, I have tried to commit suicide several times. Two of the attempts were to go back to Korea. (I hadn’t read yet the book then).

Yet, in chapter 17 of her favorite book, the snake proposes Little Prince his help if he grow too homesick.

“I can carry you farther than any ship could take you,” said the snake.
He twined himself around the little prince’s ankle, like a golden bracelet.
“Whomever I touch, I send back to the earth from whence he came,” the snake spoke again. “But you are innocent and true, and you come from a star…”
The little prince made no reply.
“You move me to pity– you are so weak on this Earth made of granite,” the snake said. “I can help you, some day, if you grow too homesick for your own planet. I can–”
“Oh! I understand you very well,” said the little prince.

And in chapter 26, Little Prince commits suicide to return to his planet.

After a silence the little prince spoke again:
“You have good poison? You are sure that it will not make me suffer too long?”
[...]
I dropped my eyes, then, to the foot of the wall– and I leaped into the air. There before me, facing the little prince, was one of those yellow snakes that take just thirty seconds to bring your life to an end. Even as I was digging into my pocked to get out my revolver I made a running step back. But, at the noise I made, the snake let himself flow easily across the sand like the dying spray of a fountain, and, in no apparent hurry, disappeared, with a light metallic sound, among the stones.
I reached the wall just in time to catch my little man in my arms; his face was white as snow.
“What does this mean?” I demanded. “Why are you talking with snakes?”
[...]
“I am glad that you have found what was the matter with your engine,” he said. “Now you can go back home–”
“How do you know about that?”
I was just coming to tell him that my work had been successful, beyond anything that I had dared to hope.
He made no answer to my question, but he added:
“I, too, am going back home today…”
Then, sadly–
“It is much farther… it is much more difficult…”

I don’t blame my adoptive mother for not understanding me. She only knew of me a happy and grateful face, as the people told me repeatedly how I was lucky to be adopted and how I should be grateful.

How could my mother undertand me as an adoptive parent, when there exists no adoptive parent who understand the importance for a child to live on his/her planet? (Planet being the home, the community, the birth country, the “birth” mother, the mother tongue, the birth culture of the adopted child.)

Blinded by the desire for a child, the prospective adoptive parents call their home the child’s home before getting to tame the child; and they call “birth mother” any pregnant mother who seemed to be vulnerable. When the adoption process gets delayed for some reason, they say, “We want to bring OUR children home NOW!” They don’t understand that the child they call theirs is actually someone else’s child. They say they want to a help a poor orphan who has no home and spend $30 000 to bring a child to their home, but they won’t give the same amount to help an entire village and community that could raise the child at his/her home.
They don’t understand that a child separated from his/her mother (birth country, birth language,…, birth planet) will suffer.

“Only the children know what they are looking for,” said the little prince. “They waste their time over a rag doll and it becomes very important to them; and if anybody takes it away from them, they cry…”

Grown-up think that adopted children from foreign country must be happy to have been saved from poverty. They think a child having 100 new toys is happier than a child having one old toy. They don’t understand that a child doesn’t need to live in a rich country to be happy.

My parents didn’t understood that the toys they offered me didn’t make me happy. They couldn’t understand that growing up in Korea, without toy to play with, was not a reason for me to be sad. They didn’t understand that despite their love, I missed my “planet”. They didn’t understand that everything they gave me couldn’t replace all the losses due to international adoption. Learning two languages don’t fill the void left by losing a mother tongue.

Little Prince saw on the Earth, 5000 roses, like the rose on his planet, in one garden, but he still has chosen to return home where there was only one rose, the rose that has tamed him, and three volcanoes.

He was standing before a garden, all a-bloom with roses.
“Good morning,” said the roses.
The little prince gazed at them. They all looked like his flower.
“Who are you?” he demanded, thunderstruck.
“We are roses,” the roses said.
And he was overcome with sadness. His flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in all the universe. And here were five thousand of them, all alike, in one single garden!
“She would be very much annoyed,” he said to himself, “if she should see that… she would cough most dreadfully, and she would pretend that she was dying, to avoid being laughed at. And I should be obliged to pretend that I was nursing her back to life– for if I did not do that, to humble myself also, she would really allow herself to die…”
Then he went on with his reflections: “I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose. A common rose, and three volcanoes that come up to my knees– and one of them perhaps extinct forever… that doesn’t make me a very great prince…”
And he lay down in the grass and cried.

After finding a well, Little Prince discusses with the narrator. A little water can also be appreciated like a Christmas present, just as a single rose out of a whole garden is all that is really needed.

“The men where you live,” said the little prince, “raise five thousand roses in the same garden– and they do not find in it what they are looking for.”
“They do not find it,” I replied.
“And yet what they are looking for could be found in one single rose, or in a little water.”
“Yes, that is true,” I said.
And the little prince added:
“But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart…”

Adoptive parents celebrating the “Gotcha day” don’t understand that their adopted child might feel sad at their birthdays or Gotcha day. The adopted children don’t know how to name his/her feelings because they are raised to feel grateful all the time.

My adoptive parents never knew I was sad on my (faked) birthdays. My “gotcha” day is 12 days later. However, they noticed I seemed depressed every November. They belived it had to do with the lack of sunlight.

The conversation after finding the well makes the little prince homesick and he tells the narrator that it is the anniversary of his descent to the Earth and that he has returned to the place he landed.

“You have plans that I do not know about,” I said.
But he did not answer me. He said to me, instead:
“You know– my descent to the earth… Tomorrow will be its anniversary.”
Then, after a silence, he went on:
“I came down very near here.”
And he flushed.
And once again, without understanding why, I had a queer sense of sorrow. One question, however, occurred to me:
“Then it was not by chance that on the morning when I first met you– a week ago– you were strolling along like that, all alone, a thousand miles from any inhabited region? You were on the your back to the place where you landed?”
The little prince flushed again.
And I added, with some hesitancy:
“Perhaps it was because of the anniversary?”
The little prince flushed once more. He never answered questions– but when one flushes does that not mean “Yes”?
“Ah,” I said to him, “I am a little frightened–”
But he interrupted me.
“Now you must work. You must return to your engine. I will be waiting for you here. Come back tomorrow evening…”
But I was not reassured. I remembered the fox. One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed…

Has any grown-up understood yet why some Korean adoptees go “home” to Korea to commit suicide? Has any grown-up understood yet why a Swedish study show a higher rate of suicide and severe mental health problems among international adoptees?