If I had been caught by the police as an adult criminal, After serving my sentence in a prison, I would have lived in my country. But I was caught by the police as a child criminal. My crime was being poor. I served my sentence in an overcrowded maximum security prison for children, called orphanage. And I was expelled from my country as if I had been a foreign criminal.
If I had been caught by the police as an adult criminal, After serving my sentence in a prison, I would have lived in my country. But I was caught by the police as a child criminal. My crime was being a lost child. I was locked up in a maximum security prison for children, where we were daily beaten and punished in various humiliating ways. I was transferred to a golden prison for children where I had my mugshot taken. Then I was exported to a foreign country.
If I had been caught by the police as an adult for a heinous crime that would have gotten death penalty, I could have died in my native land. But I was caught by the police as a child criminal. My crime was to be a motherless child, rejected, lost and timid, who believed everything adults said to her and obeyed without questioning them. My sentence was for life, to be served and to die in a foreign country far from my native land.
The sunrises make me sad. While the day is rising, Over there, the night is falling.
Another lonely day to spend in the middle of a circle formed by kids, Pretending all if fine, Until the bell rings.
Just for one more day, one last day far away, I’ll be someone I am not, Someone they want me to be. I’ll hide I’m homesick.
It’s only a bad dream, I tell myself, Tomorrow I’ll be home.
The sunsets make me sadder. While the night is falling, Over there, the day is rising.
Another lonely night to spend In my bed crying Pretending I’m there with You Until I fall asleep.
Just for one more night, One last night far away I’ll dream I’ve found our home street Only to find our home never existed And I’ll wake up, screaming in the middle of night.
It’s only a bad dream, I tell myself, Tomorrow I’ll be home.
The sunrises make me sad. I’m jealous of the moon by day. The sunsets make me sadder. I’m jealous of the sun by night.
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Note1 : The experiences of a Korean girl (from the age of 10 to 12) who was sent far way from her country, for adoption.
Note 2: I was 10 years old when I first saw the sunsets colours a move the roofs. I took my adoptive parents’ camera and I climbed the wall of the rear balcony to take a photo. And then I’ve wonder if I had ever seen sunset in Korea. From that day on, the sunsets made me think that Korea was there, far away, on the other side, and the sun was rising in Korea. By day I often thought (still think) it was (is) dark in Korea. By night I often thought (still think) it was (is)daytime in Korea.
Thinking of my older brother, I remember him telling me, “울지 마”. He would then make me laugh, By telling me a funny joke, Always the same joke.
Thinking of older brother, I remember him making me repeat our address, until I knew it by heart, in case I would get lost.
Singing the melody of the song 오빠 생각,* I’m thinking of my 오빠. Unlike the story in the song, He never left our hometown. I’m the one who left it. I got lost. I told our address to many adults. But it was of no help. I ended up on another continent.
Humming the sad melody of the song 오빠 생각, I’m thinking of my 오빠. I wonder if he has ever thought of me, before leaving for another world. And I’m heartbroken.
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I’m missing you
While singing our childhood song 오빠 생각, whose lyrics I lost with the loss of our mother language. I’m missing you, 오빠. I returned to our hometown, a decade too late.
While listening to our childhood songs. I’m missing you, 오빠. I’m missing our parents too. I’m missing our hometown. I’m missing our country. I’m home sick. Our childhood sad songs make me sad. Our childhood happy songs make me sad too.
_______ * When I was just a little kid, I was fond of a beautiful and sad melody of a children’s song, whose lyrics I lost with the loss of my mother tongue, but I never forgot is melody. Last week, I found the song with the lyrics on Youtube, when I was searching for 1970s Korean children’s songs. Its title is 오빠 생각 which means “thinking of my older brother”. So I used the Google translator to translate the lyrics, and I also searched to learn more about it. To sum it up, the lyrics originated from a poem composed in 1925, by a 12 year-old girl Choi Soon-Ae’s own experience. It’s an elegy to show sorrow for the dead or for something lost. She asked her brother, who was going to Seoul, to buy her silk shoes, but as spring passed, summer passed, fall came, and the leaves fell, there was no news from her brother who went to Seoul, so she wrote her sad feelings.
Why didn’t you take my life with a gun or a knife instead?
“Adoption is Love”, you say.
The truth is that
A child corpse had no monetary value and couldn’t be exchanged for cash.
Alive, I was a product worth $2,O00.
“To give you a new family”, you say.
Away from my family,
I prayed God and my late grandmother to bring me back to my father.
“To give you a new home”, you say.
Far away from Home,
In a foreign country,
I begged God to bring me back to Korea.
I begged my late grandmother to forgive me for being bad and to end my punishment.
I lost my life without dying.
I begged God to let me die, to deliver me from this hell you sent me to
Why didn’t you kill me instead of exporting me ?
Adoption is love?
The truth is:
A child corpse had no monetary value.
Alive, I was a product to export worth $2,000.
You sent me to a foreign country with
a Bible,
a dictionary
and a Korean children’s songs book.
The Bible? I lost Faith.
The dictionary? I lost our language. All my words flew away while I was forcefully penetrated by foreign words.
The book of Korean Children’s songs?
고향의봄 / Spring in my hometown” is the title of the first song. A popular song about
nostalgia, longing for one’s hometown.
How cruel of you to send a child when you knew she would be homesick forever.
In the first two years of my banishment from my country,
I sang it a hundred times trying to hold my tears.
I missed you (my native country, friends and family). I missed our foods and our way of living. I missed everything. I missed you so much I would rather have died in my homeland than being expelled from it.
I’m homesick wherever I am.
I’m longing for Home, but It is nowhere to be found.
I’m homesick and it hurts so much I feel I’d go crazy.
It hurts like if my heart is going to explode into thousand pieces.
I feel like awake while sleeping; starving while eating; thirsty while drinking; suffocating while breathing: sad while laughing; homesick while at home.
Why didn‘t you kill me instead of taking my life by adoption?
I have no fear of death.
But i’m scared to die in this foreign country.
Dying far away from my homeland would mean I’ve failed in keeping a promise made to myself as a child to go back home some day.
You (Family, Friends, Hometown, Country, Korean society which include the evil persons who sold me for adoption) are all part of the Home I’m missing.
I hate you one day
I love you and miss you the other day.
I hate you hundreds of times.
I love you thousands of times.
I hate you because I loved you.
I hate you because it hurts.
I miss you a thousand times because I love you.
By hating you one day and loving you the other day, I’m confusing hate and love.
Why didn’t you also take my memories with my life?
The memory of our childhood songs make me melancholic.
I want to forget them
But I can’t help humming their beautiful melodies.
The happy songs make me sad.
The sad songs make me sadder.
I lost their lyrics with the loss of our language.
Despite myself, my mind desperately tries to remember the words I once said, sang or heard like a drowning person desperately tries to breathe.
When you sent me away to a foreign land,
You sent me to an island of loneliness.
A country where I belong nowhere.
I’m an outsider everywhere.
I’m excluded from the “we/us” everywhere.
And I’m nostalgic for the time I belonged somewhere.
My memories,
I wish to forget.
Yet I cannot abandon them.
The memories of us together
The memories of the time when I was part of the “우리/ we/us”.
They can’t be forgotten
They just pop up
And they keep replaying.
The memories of the time when I was me, before losing my life without dying.
Holt Adoption Product: 