해명문 그리고 서울 음식 제2탄: 노량진 수산시장 Clarification and Seoul Food Pt. 2: Noryangjin Fish Market

Wednesday, 2/25/2015

Now after gauging some responses both implicit and explicit, I just wanted to first further clarify my last post.

The negative attitudes about adoption that I wrote about there are not my own, which are quite different and extremely positive.  I was, however, unaware of many of those negative aspects about adoption until this past week so I wanted to inform you all about it too, and just because I don't feel that way does not mean that it's not important or that others legitimately do feel that way.  Moreover, there is a growing and very vocal anti-adoption movement here in Korea and therefore most of the literature I had access to for writing the last post was along that bent.

That being said, it is important to remember that there is a reason that most people's innate connotations to the word "adoption" are positive ones.  So while I don't believe ignoring the bad for the sake of the good is ever acceptable, I also think I didn't highlight the good well enough in my last post.

As I mentioned previously, the international adoption of South Korean children started in 1953 to find families for those children left orphaned or fathered by Western GIs in the Korean War.  Most early efforts were organized by evangelical Christians, the first of which was the Holt family.  Other organizations without religious affiliations, both in Korea and the US also cropped up shortly thereafter.  All were founded as non-profits and I genuinely believe that at the outset they believed in their mission to create families from disparate souls, love from loneliness.

Over time though, some organizations, most notably Holt, lost their way, fixated instead on placing as many children with waiting Western families as fast as possible, by sometimes questionable means, and making a substantial amount of money (Holt owns a 30-story corporate building here in Seoul) in the process (the term "non-profit" or federal tax-exempt 501(c)(3) designation for charitable organizations unfortunately does not mean what we believe it to mean and these organizations can amass considerable wealth by both legal means granted within the 501(c)(3) stipulations and by "massaging" their bookkeeping a bit).

However, many organizations, including, for instance, the (now closed) agency that handled my adoption, Korean Social Service--a non-profit, partially federally funded organization that placed over 20,000 Korean children--continued to adhere to their initial mission and maintain ethical practices.  These organizations screen biological families (pre- or post-partum) ensuring that they truly want to give their child up for adoption, are aware of other alternatives and social support services, offer non-coercive counseling services, obstetrical care, legal advice, and allow for a long grace period after the adoption process has started for the biological parents to change their mind.  On the adoptive parents side, the process is even more selective and rigorous and involves detailed background checks, analysis of finances, multiple letters of recommendation, house visits by social services, and at least one visit to the child's birth country.  Additionally, ongoing counseling and support services should be offered to biological parents, helping them to manage the long-term psychological effects of relinquishment, and post-adoption services should also be available to the child, if she or he becomes interested in learning more about their adoption and biological family later in life.  All this is done to ensure that the adoption is a fully-informed, fully-consensual choice made by both families in order to give the child the best possible future.

This may sound a bit like back pedaling, but the only people to whom I've given direct access to this blog are those that I feel quite close to (unless you slipped through my rigorous screening system), and it was anything but my intent to confuse or hurt the feelings of those most important to me.
Sometimes I get caught up in my journalistic yarn and Ann Arbor-nurtured social liberalism and do a rather poorer job than I should obviously distinguishing my own attitudes and experiences from the ideas that I'm trying to convey.  But make no mistake, I am wordlessly grateful and fiercely proud of my own amazing family and the incredible friends (irrespective of race) that I've met as a result of my adoption, and there aren't enough numbers for how lucky I count myself.

Adoption is still something I might be interested in doing myself, and it is only increased awareness of the issues surrounding adoption that will ensure they happen in a way that is truly best for everyone.  So remain skeptical and do your research, but if you're looking for evidence that adoption brings a little more happiness, harmony, and love into the world--I hope you needn't look any further than my family.

Tuesday, 1/17/2015

The next several posts will probably be decidedly less heavy, and to that end, it's time to tell you about my trip to 노량진 수산시장, Noryangjin Fish Market.

This place was pretty high on my list of places to visit, as I'm a huge sashimi fan, and there's literally no place to get fresher raw fish than Korean and Japanese fish markets.  After a lengthy subway ride and a roundabout walk to take us by the parliament building,

we gave up trying to navigate the city by foot and cabbed the rest of the way to the market (which is much cheaper in Korea).

Walking through the entrance, the space opens up into row upon row of brightly lit booths advertising their wares with bold signs and bolder (not too offensive) smells.  

Every type of seafood you'd expect and many you've never imagined can be seen laid out on sloping iced displays or swimming around small, crowded tanks--blurring Noryangjin's identity somewhere between market and aquarium.  

Can you find:  one red bowl, one white bowl, one white hat, 74 fishes, and 7539 clams?

The invertebrate selection included pen shells, abalones, scallops, multiple kinds of clams, snails, sea pineapple seasquirts, shrimps, crabs, lobsters, squid, octopuses (not octopi), sea cucumbers, peanut worms (worth a google), and more.

A woman butchering, you guessed it, hongeohoe for putrefication.

PTSD.

We wandered for a good while, fascinated by the incredible diversity of offerings, clumsily dodging vendors' attempts to draw us into a sale.  That is, until we decided it was time for the freshest sashimi we've ever had, and in this context, fresh means from tank to table, swimming in the water to swimming in soy sauce and wasabi.

We chose a vendor with healthy looking fish, picked out a flounder and mullet, two white-fleshed seasonal Korean specialties; the fishmonger scooped them out of the tank, and very suddenly, very unexpectedly, and very violently bludgeoned them in the head with what I can only describe as a "murder stick"--a large wooden club with a sharp spike sticking out perpendicularly at one end, as seen here:

^Murder stick.

Though I was initially unprepared for that, I recovered quickly enough as the fishmonger began to clean, gut, and fillet the fish.  He was extremely deft with the filleting knife and after just a few minutes we had a huge plate of sashimi.  We took our prize upstairs where you can pay a fee and they give you side dishes and cook the bones of the filleted fish into a spicy soup.

 Our fish--I didn't name them because I'd get too attached. 

And boom--turned into sashimi all for 35,000 won ($34).

Yessssssss.

The spicy fish soup made from the leftover parts of the two fish.  We used the hot broth as a shabu shabu pot as well to par cook some of the slices of sashimi--so freakin good.

And just for fun, not for the squeamish:

So that fish more than made up for the hongeohoe and was easily one of the best dining experiences I've ever had.  If you ever are able to make it to a big fish market that offers this service, I highly, highly recommend you spring for it--it's not only unbelievably fresh and delicious, but also quite an experience in and of itself to see it prepared.

That being said, it was a bit of a bummer to see all the fishes and other miscellaneous edible sea creatures at Noryangjin, so in remembrance of their delicious, if oftentimes strange sacrifice, please enjoy this Sarah McLachlan-accompanied photo tribute to the fish and invertebrates of Noryangjin market:

Play here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pvf_OBuJVE

These beautiful skates.

The majestic monkfish.

The elegant this dude.

Every day, at Noryangjin fish market, thousands of fish and clams are killed and eaten.

Sometimes even octopuses.

They're crying out for help, just wishing for someone to love them.

The pain and anguish in their faces is all too real.

For just $18 per month, that's only 60 cents per day, 

you can help provide these poor souls with food, shelter,

and love.

Please call now.

If you call or join online within the next 30 minutes,

we'll provide you with a welcome kit with a picture of a hagfish, sea pineapple ascidian, or peanut worm that's been given a second chance.  Because of you.

Right now, there's a sea cucumber or Russian king crab who needs you.  Please call, right now.

Cheers,

Mark

Updates and Things:

Minook caught Entei:  (2/18) in his Pokemon game, which if you didn't know, is kind of a big deal.  His ensuing celebration startled Li-zhao and he quickly realized he had momentarily dropped his too-cool composure and regained it.  Too bad he was wearing his fluffy bunny slippers.

New Flatmates:  (2/19) we got two new flatmates last week, Li-zhao, who is a student from Hong Kong here to study finance at Yonsei University.  She is generally sweet and quiet, and enjoys wiggling, running away from us in the morning before she's put on makeup, and quietly making death threats when I make fun of her.  Mike is a student from DC also here studying at Yonsei and is, as Grace described, exactly what she expected Americans to be like.  He arrived here in a Captain America t-shirt, talks a bit too much (in an endearing way), and kind of fills the little brother role in the house, though he was principally to thank for getting the rest of our drunk asses home in one piece last night.

Hongeohoe breath:

입양아 이야기 An Adoptee Story

Sunday, 2/22/2015

The past Wednesday through Friday comprised this year's Lunar New Year celebration, or 설날 (Seollal).  Quite literally the entire leviathan city of Seoul shuts down for three days while families--stripping supermarkets bare and clogging major expressways--travel to their parents' homes across the South Korean peninsula to celebrate the most important holiday in Korean culture.

The Goo family was kind enough to include us in their celebration, so dressed in the traditional 한복 (hanbok) clothing, they prepared a traditional Seollal meal for us in the common room.  Mr. Goo and his brother then performed the traditional 차례 (charye) tea and incense ritual venerating their parents (who had passed away some time ago) and other ancestors before beginning the meal.

Group photo with Minook about to reject Minsoo's peace sign.

Charye ritual performed by the Goo brothers.

Seollal spread, all cooked by Mrs. Goo and Mr. Goo's brother who works as a chef in a nearby Izakaya (Japanese sake pub).

It was a great experience to be so graciously included in this important and intimately familial celebration and it is testament to what wonderful hosts we have.



Meanwhile, Peter peaced out--after some frenzied last-minute packing with an impatient father waiting outside in the car--to celebrate Seollal with his family at his grandparents home down south.  Therefore, without my lifeline to the city for a while, I turned my attention over the past few days to looking up various organizations around town that aid adoptees who have returned to the city.  Through various Seollal gatherings invariably preceded by 30 minutes of disoriented wandering, I've eaten a lot of free food and met quite a few other adoptees who have been living in the city for a number of years.  For one, it was a bit nice to meet and converse effectively with people in the city, as striking up a conversation with a stranger in Seoul is both something that is culturally just not done in Korea, and linguistically challenging for me.  More importantly though, I wanted a chance to talk with other adoptees as adoptee identity is something that I surprisingly have not given much thought to until very recently.

A Seollal dinner at INKAS house.

A Brief Overview of Adoption in Korea:

The international adoption of South Korean children is a recent, unprecedented historical diaspora initially brought about by the massive casualties suffered during the Korean War after 1953.  The war left many orphaned Korean children and also many fatherless mixed-race children fathered both consensually and (abhorrently) non-consensually by Western GIs stationed in South Korea during the war.  Moved by the plight of these parentless children, religious groups in the US and Europe began arranging adoptions, beginning significantly with the Holt family adoption of eight war orphans in 1955.  There was little objection from the South Korean government, as not only did these orphans place significant economic stress on their new burgeoning economy, but culturally there was also an immense amount of social stigma attached to single mothers (especially those of mixed-race children), who were often ostracized from families and excluded from jobs; adoption was the only way out for many of these women.

Don't get me wrong, adoption has provided me and many others with so many undreamable and untenable opportunities and has made many whole families out of previously isolated souls, but this is not every adoptee's experience.  Not every patchwork family is a happy one, and not every adoptee finds peace with their identity.

Moreover, there are other reasons to be skeptical of the adoption industry, as it is in fact, an industry.  South Korea as a country makes over $20 million per year on adoptions in direct profit plus indirect savings in feeding fewer adorable parentless mouths.  Even more spurious are the adoption agencies like Holt International Children's Services, founded by the Holt family, which has made millions in personal profit from adoption and are well known to have coerced reluctant, even hysterically tearful Korean mothers into giving up their only children so that Harry Holt could place them with Western families and collect tax-deductible donations--all, in the name of some divine Christian plan, of course.  In fact, today it is not an uncommon scenario for Korean mothers to be searching for their long-lost daughters and sons that were taken from otherwise happy families (unwed or otherwise) under false pretenses at a time when they had little or no social support, resources, or political voice.

Even more audacious are some of the exceptional anecdotes.  Korean high school students were often in charge of translating adoption documents from Korean to English, whose English abilities even now, let alone in the 60s and 70s are woefully inadequate at best.  This led to multiple instances of swapped babies, intentionally false identities when biological parents decided to keep their child but the adoption agency was too lazy to redo the time-consuming paperwork, and even one instance of two individuals with the same given name and birth date.  Also of note, a not insignificant number of "orphans" died under the care of the Holts and other adoption agencies and most adoption agencies now run their own maternity hospitals and "strongly encourage" their patients to consider international adoption.

Today, over 200,000 children have been adopted from South Korea to the US (predominantly), Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and other western European countries.  Over half were adopted to families in the US, and the majority of those were placed in the Midwest.  Of note, adoption has subsequently become common from countries like China, Russia, Guatemala, and Ethiopia, in large part due to the action of for-profit adoption agencies looking to expand their businesses.

If you're interested in reading more about the history and present of Korean adoption in the US, check out these articles:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/magazine/why-a-generation-of-adoptees-is-returning-to-south-korea.html?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits&_r=1&referrer=
http://transracialeyes.com/2011/08/11/a-brief-historical-overview-of-the-life-and-times-of-harry-and-bertha-holt-and-the-origin-of-international-adoption/



My Story:

My cultural identity overall has changed quite a bit over time, but it's only recently that I've really looked at the it in its longitudinal entirety and appreciated its ups and downs.  I'll start at the beginning.

Though Stephanie and I knew several other adoptees from South Korea when we were very young through an "adoption group" in the southern Michigan area, our family stopped going once we were school age.  In hindsight, adoption group was a great opportunity to get acquainted with Korean culture and language at an early age and is a mainstay of larger adoptee communities in the US, though all I have to show for mine is a couple of childhood acquaintances that wish me happy birthday on facebook and a case of chicken pox circa 1991.  However, my parents did do a good job of actively trying to keep Stephanie and me tied to our birth culture and I remember being read Korean bed time stories, learning to count to 10 in Korean, and Anna, a Korean American who worked as a dental partner with my parents for a time and would cook us Korean food.

Grade school in overwhelmingly white Jackson, Michigan was the first time I remember being confronted with my other-ness in several rather poignant and painful instances.  Yet, it was always more about being Asian rather than being adopted that I was made to feel different, and I never (really, never) experienced any kind of insecurity regarding my relationship with my family--they were loving and supportive and that was always more than enough.

Those shorts though.

Interestingly, despite these early traumas, I must have had a reverse reaction to them because the grade school years were the time in my life when I was most interested in being more Asian.  I would sign my papers at St. John's Catholic Elementary School "Oh Jin Kyu" (오진규), hung out with the one African American and two Japanese kids in the school, and--and I don't think any of you actually knew this--grew out my infamous rat tail because I thought it emulated depictions of Asians I had seen on television.

Japanese culture enrichment class at St. Johns.

Otherwise, aside from some vague and indiscriminate forays into East Asian cultures as a whole--karate, origami, Asian cuisines, math team, DDR (does that count?), and not making the basketball team--growing up, I was never terribly connected or interested in being connected with my birth culture.

Things began to change in middle school and high school, as predictably, things that made me different were perceived as threatening and, at times, worthy of ridicule.  So during this period, I largely tried to sweep my darker skin, short stature, and almond-shaped eyes under the proverbial Oriental rug, though sheltered as I was by my family and protective and loving group of [predominantly white] friends, it was in hindsight still a painfully awkward and uncomfortable time, as best evidenced by this intensely embarrassing picture:

Moving forward through Lumen Christi High School and Albion College--both still very, very white--I found that I tended to fill a kind of token Asian niche in my social circles, though still being quite thoroughly American, culturally speaking.  There were the fairly common math/violin/height jokes and the rarer, though much more damaging acts of overt and malicious racism by classmates or strangers, but in general, as I grew into myself, life as an adoptee was an overwhelmingly happy one.

It wasn't until medical school that I really met and connected with other Asians and Koreans, more specifically, causing me, for the first time in over a decade, to really examine my heritage--here, for the first time surrounded by friends that were predominantly first and second generation immigrants from Korea, Taiwan, and China, in a city (Ann Arbor) where being Asian was not a mere novelty, but a full-fledged racial identity with its own set of connotations, unfortunately not mostly positive.  It was simultaneously an unfamiliar and "oh, this makes sense" experience that felt at once both long overdue and quite foreign, but nonetheless, I threw myself headlong into it, actively participating in the United Asian American Medical Student Association, reading up on Asian race issues, dating another Asian American for the better part of my medical school career, and ultimately, ending up taking this very trip back to Korea.

Finally, Asian friends (and Franz)!

So that's my story, but as talking to other adoptees has revealed, it is not typical, but neither is it unusual, for the adoptee experience is more diverse than I could have imagined, and is a combination of equal parts individual personality and resilience (or lack thereof), family support system, and a tragic sense of non-belonging to both the Asian and white American communities.

The adoptee community in Seoul is comprised of some 500 individuals mostly in their mid 20s to mid 40s who are living here for an indefinite amount of time, though that seems to mean several years or so.  Most have been back multiple times, initially discovering their birth culture on a vacation or "cultural conference" trip for adoptees and then returning for longer and longer periods of time (usually as English teachers--a very common job for ex-pats here) until buying that one-way ticket.  While some have returned because they very rightly feel commodified and cheated out of a core piece of their identity with adoptive parents that simply don't understand or care for the implications and politics of race, just as many others seem to have returned because they want to live in another country for a few years, have no definite plans state-side, had a shitty childhood growing up in the US and are running from something, or because they feel that South Korea is a place of imperfectly articulated significance to them--a place to which they feel a connection that they only now, as a fully-fledged adults, have the opportunity to explore and truly drink in.

Though I have spent a lot of time talking about the dark side of adoption because I feel a duty to educate you all on an important issue that I was, until a few days ago, quite ignorant of, my experience was nothing of the sort.  Furthermore, if I have learned anything so far, it is that the adoptee's experience is not a homogeneous one--it is varied; it is complex; it is individual.  Everyone is looking for answers, adopted or not, but for the 200,000 some South Korean adoptees, this search may be memory-less, but I believe it comes with some sense of dead reckoning, a compass needle that marks this electrified cultural metropolis of Seoul as our magnetic north--the place where we were born, and where we need to be, at least for now.

Mark

Updates:

New Flatmates:  We have two new flatmates and unfortunately Creighton moved out today (2/23), but since this post was longer than I expected, I'll leave the introductions till next time.

Biological Family:  Bad news on this front:  it appears that my biological mother left a fake name with Korean Social Services--a fairly common practice to avoid the shame and social stigma associated with single motherhood and adoption :(  They do have her birthday and are working on contacting a woman with that birthday who utilized their services around the time I was born, but this is a major setback and it is now quite unlikely that I will be able to contact her.

Haircut:  I've decided to fully immerse myself--body and soul--into this trip, so later this week, I will be getting myself a Korean haircut (no dye or bleach--Alan).  If you'd like to weigh in on what exactly you think that should look like, post it to the comments section or send me a message and I will honestly weigh all serious recommendations as I don't much care what it looks like for the time being and can always change it when I get back if it ends catastrophically.

서울 음식 제1탄: 홍어회 Seoul Food Part 1: Hongeohoe

Monday 2/16/2015

Korean cuisine, with its abundance of meat, spice, salt, and meat is unsurprisingly extremely popular wherever restaurants purveying its wares pop up.  Meat.  I was not truly acquainted with it until my first year of medical school, but don't worry, I've done a fantastic job of making up for lost time.  I know many of you are avid foodies with a weakness for kimchi, kalbi, and jiggae, so fear not, I will have a recurring segment in this blog dedicated exclusively to my gastronomic triumphs and catastrophes.  Unfortunately, the first experience I'm going to write about falls into the latter category:  hongeohoe (pronounced "hong-uh-hwey").

The first clue I had to tip me off that something was amiss was the smell.  Mr. Goo was throwing a small party to celebrate the arrival of Peter and myself, and the departure of Sophie and another girl that left shortly after I arrived.  Even as I walked into the common area, I sensed a fell presence in the room.  I was naive and unsuspecting at the time, attributing the smell to trash outside, some kind of detergent used to maintain the apartment's pristine state, or someone's private Korean-food-adjustment-period bathroom misfortune--basically to anything that I wasn't going be putting into my body shortly.

Well we sat down to the spread, which in its entirety--Korean fried chicken, oysters, makgeolli, soju, and Korean (read: shitty) beer--was really quite impressive.

The second clue was the sadistic, maniacal glint in Mr. Goo's eyes as he said, "Hongeohoe, eberyone has to tdry; why nut?  Jusut do it!"

One of the things I was looking forward to most about Korea was trying all of the food, so I (being stupid), was quite excited about trying the thing Mr. Goo was gesturing toward, which looked so fucking deceivingly like fresh, delicious sashimi:

The third and final clue came in Peter's reaction to my naive enthusiasm for this new culinary experience, and it went something like this:

Peter, with a look of grim recognition:  "Do you know what that is?"
Me, still stupid:  "Some kind of sashimi..."
Peter:  "It's hongeohoe, I had it with my grandparents last time I was in Korea.  You eat it with raw garlic, bean paste, and hot peppers."
Me, waiting for him to voluntarily say something about how good it is, which didn't happen:  "Is it good?"
Peter, concerned and shaking his head:  "I didn't have it a second time."

Well in my zeal for being adventurous and culturally competent (stupid), I did not heed the clues, nor Peter's impeccably tactful, yet clear message of warning, so I picked up a piece with my chopsticks, dipped it in 초고추장 (chogochujang), a mixture of vinegar and Korean sweet chili sauce, wrapped it in a perilla leaf, and popped it in my mouth.

Zoology Lesson Time:
Immediately after Creighton, Sophie, and I had passed the point-of-no-return, Peter told us that hongeohoe tastes like ammonia!  Here's why:

Hongeohoe is a traditional dish from the Jeolla province of South Korea (the southwest coast basically) made from skate, stingray-like cartilaginous fishes in the Family Rajidae.  Skate, while uncommon, is not the rarest of fare as you'll sometimes see texturally interesting skate wing steaks offered at fancier restaurants in the US, and "sea scallops" are a jargony loophole that some less-reputable fishmongers will use for cookie-cuttered chunks of skate wing passed off as more expensive diver scallops.  However, hongeohoe is cuts of fermented skate.
 A clear-nosed skate which you can often see in Florida.

Now don't get me wrong, some of the best things ever are fermented--beer, wine, cheese, kimchi--but to my largely Western sensibilities, meat is on the short list of things that should never, ever be fermented.  Yet, hongeohoe is fermented either in traditional clay pots or modern walk-in refrigerators for a month, sliced up into small pieces, and shipped off to avid Korean enthusiasts and unsuspecting hongeohoe virgins alike, but it's not even just that.

(Shoutout to Dr. Carrier) The vast majority of fishes are bony fishes.  They have kidneys much like ours which serve two major purposes:  to filter nitrogenous wastes like urea from the blood and excrete them as urine, and to regulate the osmolarity (concentration of dissolved electrolytes and nutrients) of the blood.  This second point is important because without active osmoregulation, free water from a fish's body, which has a lower osmolarity than seawater, would be sucked out into the environment by the more concentrated seawater and the fish's tissues would shrivel and die.

Cartilaginous fishes are physiologically very interesting in that they don't possess kidneys like ours, so they do not excrete urea in urine, and they do not actively try to maintain bodily fluids that are less concentrated than seawater.  Instead, the evolutionarily primitive cartilaginous fishes don't even try to change the osmolarity in their blood from the osmolarity of the surrounding seawater; instead they concentrate the urea into their tissues, thereby increasing the osmolarity of their blood and tissues to that of seawater.

This has several implications:  it means that their bodies are isotonic to their surroundings and they don't have to worry about losing or gaining unwanted water or dissolved substances from the environment, essentially obviating the need for urine-producing kidneys.  It also means that their high-osmolarity flesh is, in effect, already pickled, which is why hongeohoe became a thing in the first place, as Jeolla fisherman noted it stayed edible much longer than the rest of their catch.  It also means that it tastes like piss.



Back to the story.
After a cartilaginous fish dies, bacteria start converting urea into ammonia, you know, the adorable NH3 that gives you that streak-free shine on windows, or is used to make industrial fertilizer or explosives?  That ammonia.

Though I was unable to capture my own reaction, this is what immediate, overwhelming hongeohoe-induced regret looks like:

And here's how the tasting experience plays out inside your head:
Stage 1:  "Okay, this is not that bad, pretty chewy, but I expected that.  I'm going to not breathe very much because it seems like one of those foods that's only really bad if you inhale through your nose while you chew."
Stage 2:  "Shit, it's so chewy; I won't be able to get it down before I have to breathe.  I'm starting to taste the ammonia."

Stage 3:  As the end-stage effects of the rubbery urinal cake made corporeal rampage through your mouth and sinuses, and your tongue starts to feel fizzy and tingly, as only happens when you accidentally splash something in your mouth during chemistry class, or run to the garbage to spit out a mouthful of 1.5 day-old guacamole that you gambled on (just me?), "WHY DIDN'T I LISTEN TO PETER?!  OF COURSE YOU FUCKING EAT IT WITH RAW GARLIC AND HOT PEPPERS, IT'S SO YOU KILL YOUR TASTE BUDS BEFORE THE HONGEOHOE CAN GET TO THEM WHY GOD WHY!"
Stage 4:  You finally swallow and sit there ruminating over the surely inevitable downstream gastrointestinal consequences (a day later?  an hour later?).  Trying and failing not to betray too much weakness as Mr. Goo cackles unabashedly and takes pictures of your face, you give a non-committal nod and say aloud, "It was okay."

Korea.

Until next time friends,

Mark

P.S.  Happy Lunar New Year (설날)!!!

배역 Cast of Characters

Tuesday, 2/17/2015

Now that I've been settled in for the better part of a week, I figured I'd set the scene a bit better and fill you in on my living situation.  I'm staying at a homestay we found through AirBNB in the 서대문구 (Seodaemun-gu) area of Seoul, located in the north-central part of the sprawling city.  Seodaemun-gu is a pretty typical neighborhood in Seoul, with mixed residential and commercial elements from the imposing yet indistinguishable high rises so characteristic of all Asian metropolises to the Taekwondo gyms and plastic surgery clinics more endemic to Korea.  My homestay is in a small apartment complex perched halfway up what surely must be one of Seoul's steepest hillside streets.  Our host family, the Goos, own two facing units in the building (apparently the Korean analog of Dame Maggie Smith lives a floor or two up) and regularly rent out most of the bedrooms to visiting students.  Their place has become so popular in recent years that Mr. Goo, once a corporate man, has begun tending his homestay business full-time.

Our flat's little patio.

So without further ado, The Goos:
Mr. Goo (구무상):  The consummate host, Mr. Goo is a super nice, if a bit eccentric, guy who clearly really loves his homestay gig.  He's already thrown the guests here a welcome/going away party complete with Korean fried chicken and inhuman amounts of soju and makgeolli (Korean booze) conditional upon (for serious) Peter and I providing musical entertainment.  His favorite activities include coercing foreigners into eating hong-uh (just wait for the next post) and telling everyone how he thinks I'm a cartoon character; his catch phrase is "pahty woooo!"
Mrs. Goo (임수잔):  If Mr. Goo is exactly how I described him, and so far he seems to be, Mrs. Goo is the practical and grounded part of the family who not only cooks us delicious Korean meals twice a day, is unfailingly kind and patient, and works as a teacher, but also, I imagine, is the one that reminds Mr. Goo that he must actually collect rent from his tenants for the whole homestay shtick to work properly.
Minsoo (구민수):  At 9 years-old, Minsoo is the very talkative and delightfully tactless daughter of the Goo family.  She enjoys dancing to K-pop songs, sneaking into the guest unit to steal our candy and cookies, playing the Howl's Moving Castle theme on the keyboard, and talking back to her older brother.

Minsoo picking out all of the potatoes.

Minook (구민욱):  12 year-old Minook, with his black belt in Taekwondo, prodigiously early mastery of Korean fashion, and aloofly disarming smile is certainly a heartbreaker-in-the-making, and also just might be the most interesting Goo in the world.  He doesn't always play videogames, but when he does, he plays Pokemon with me, and wins.

"Stay Korean, my friends."

Currently, there are also 7 guests staying with the Goos for varying durations, so here is a quick run-down of the 외국인 (Waygookin) Foreigners:
Peter (박수훈):  For those of you that don't know Peter, he is one of my best friends from medical school.  After hosting him for his interview, I claim the majority of the responsibility for him coming to UMMS.  He grew up in Seoul until moving to Toronto for high school, is an incredible musician, plans to match into Internal Medicine, and our bromance has been described as legendary.
Grace (그레스):  Grace is an Aussie from Brisbane who's here to study Korean and international studies at Yonsei University.  She seems very mature for her age of 19 years, but that perception is belied by her ravenous, unabashed obsession with K-pop bands and Korean pop-culture.  She enjoys taking unflattering pictures of herself and others and then distributing those pictures to arbitrarily selected targets, and is generally awesome.
Creighton (그레턴):  Creighton is an American international studies student finishing up his last year abroad in Seoul.  His wardrobe is as composed as his demeanor and though he's come off as a fairly serious sort so far, Grace assures me that he'll rep USA well when the soju hits the table.
Mina (미나):  ㅁ ㅓ메묻ㄴㄷ Shit I forgot to switch the keyboard back.  I'm just gonna leave it...  Mina is a Japanese student majoring in French, studying in Seoul.  Yeah, I don't get it either.  She's very quiet and keeps to herself, but seems very sweet.
Mohammed (모함먿):  I've seen this human precisely one time and on that occasion, more soju shots had entered my mouth than words had left his, so I can't say much about him.
Honorable mention:  Sophie (소피):  Grace's PIC (partner-in-crime for those readers, erm, less versed in current cultural jargon, not necessarily having anything to do with one's age, which might be greater than average) and fellow dance crew member, Sophie looks like a younger, Australian-er Zooey Deschanel and will be mad that I wrote this once she reads it.  She was a great addition to the flat, but unfortunately left for home yesterday.

I sat here for a good while trying to think of who the 7th tenant was before I realized it was me.  Clearly, it's too late to be writing, so I'm going to call it a rap.

A brief update on the adoption front (blog posts are backlogged about half a week, but as of 2/17):  no additional word on finding my biological family yet, but I've arranged to meet up with a couple non-profits that work with Korean adoptees who've returned to Korea and will be able to meet some other adoptees and share perspectives soon!

Whatever happens on the adoption front though, you've now learned a little about the people that will make up my major support system and home base for my time in Korea.  They all seem like wonderful people and whatever the rest of this trip holds, I am a firm believer in the potential for formative value and lasting memories that comes with spending time with a group of remarkable people.  It is precisely the reason why I'm writing this blog, why I was able to make it all this way here today, and why I'm lucky enough to have all of you in my life.

Until next time,
Mark



Please enjoy this picture of the message Mr. Goo left us with some valentine's day chocolates:

The Korean parts say "You must eat it!!  Japanese sake.  It is chocolate!!"

너의 비행기가 지연됐어요 Your Flight Has Been Delayed

Friday, 2/13/2015

This is a phrase I unfortunately became all too familiar with on the fated day of my "departure," and I say "departure" because I don't think you're allowed to omit the quotations if your plane does not, in fact, leave.

I'll start from the beginning.  I arrived at DTW at around 1:00 for my 3:30 flight, parents drop me off, linger adorably, but unnecessarily in the lobby until I'm so far past security that they can't see me anymore (it's endearing and great, mom and dad, we kid, we kid).  I get to a gate filled almost entirely with Koreans (a good sign I'm in the right place); I set up camp next to a coveted outlet and crack open a book and everything is on track for my much-anticipated pilgrimage, right?

Ha, no.  First, the flight is running an hour late from its last journey in Minnesota (fair enough, an hour delay doesn't really make much difference).  It arrives another two hours after that AND has mechanical problems which last another two hours (calm starting to fray...).  They then announce that the plane has been delayed so long that the originally scheduled pilots are now beyond duty hours and they must call in new pilots, which was apparently a contingency which they neither foresaw, nor planned for (fuck.).  In the meantime, they try to pacify us with pizza delivered to the gate, but we are damn well beyond that point in the evolution of our angry (predominantly) Korean mob.  Well, then we do finally get boarded, taxi over to the runway, begin the deicing process, and at 10:30PM the pilot announces that it is now so late that they will be unable to take off tonight by federal regulation (fuckfuckFUCK).

In a storm of sternly disappointed Korean faces, various personal items left on the plane, and Kakao talk notifications (a Korean chat app, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWsFTvX9wNA), we disembark, and queue up to, with widely varying levels of English proficiency, demand compensation for our inconvenience.  At this point, however, I was in no mood to generally continue my state of being at the airport, so once I found out that they would hold our check bags overnight, I just called my friend Alan and he graciously came to pick me up and drop me back off at my apartment.

Immediately, I began the Kubler-Ross five stages of grieving.
1)  Denial:  "Surely this can't have happened, Delta and DTW have always been so reliable in my experience, and this is perhaps the most important trip I have yet undertaken.  I can't explain it now, but I bet somehow this was actually Spirit or Chicago O'Hare that fucked this up".
2)  Anger:  "DAMN YOU, SPIRIT AND CHICAGO O'HARE!  YOU ARE EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH AMERICA AND I KNOW THIS WAS YOUR FAULT!!!"
3) Bargaining:  If you think this post is a lot of ranting, you should see the complaint I sent to Delta customer service detailing a lengthy list of demands.
4) Depression:

5) Acceptance:  This is the part where I pass out on the bed fully clothed after a frenzy of angry push-ups and losing several League of Legends games with Greg.

Two hours later, it's time for round two, and after a pep talk from Muazzum on the way (back, because, ya know, my flight was delayed overnight) to the airport, I march purposely through security full of vitriol and righteous anger (never have I emptied my pockets and placed my shoes in a bin with so much disdain), over to the gate where they had set up a spread of pop and chips:  "Spare me your puny conciliatory Cheez-Its, Delta, they are irrelevant."

Well, things picked up after that, as we boarded only 45 minutes late (shit don't even phase us at that point), and--bonded in the crucible of displaced plans, service industry inadequacy, and cheap pizza heartburn--all the passengers on the plane were very friendly with one another.  I ended up sitting next to a very cool girl my age coming from Colorado to attend a friend's wedding in Seoul, and chatting with her, about five in-flight movies, several gym leaders in Pokemon Heart Gold, many calf squeezes (gotta ward off those DVT blood clots), and an unmentionable number of 1.5oz cognacs used for spite-drinking, passed the 13.5 hr flight relatively quickly,

We cruised on towards South Korea, and as the Arctic circle, looking like ruffled crepe paper from a cruising height of 35,000 ft, broke slowly apart into the limitless blue expanse of the Pacific, our plane chased the morning sun across half the world and I was feeling much more positive again.  While it was certainly an inconvenience, one day in the face of a 5-week trip is not so devastating, though not all passengers were so fortunate.  Yet put in perspective, I got a new friend, a lot of conciliatory bonus miles, a good story and blog post out of the ordeal, and we arrived safely; for that I am thankful.

Maybe it's cognitive dissonance, maybe it's Maybeline, or maybe it's just trying to be more positive and accepting of those unexpected detours that our plans have a way of taking--detours that often paradoxically manage to, through excitement and the intangible spice of forced improvisation, enhance the journey, and in the end, make the destination that much more rewarding.




Hello, Seoul, I can't wait to get to know you better.

한국에 가요 I am going to Korea

Tuesday, 2/10/2015

I always knew I would go back someday.  Like most plans I make for myself, never was there really a definite when or how in place, but I have always had this nebulous internal certainty that I would go back to explore my birth country.

Plans started to crystallize last year when my good friend from med school, Peter, who grew up in Seoul, went back for a family trip.  I later learned that he was planning more trips back, and then we realized it would be the perfect opportunity for me to go back as well.  We would get an awesome M4 year trip together out of it, and this way, my inability to speak Korean would be less likely to get me hopelessly lost/starved to death.

The other half of the preparations was seeing if I could find out anything about my biological family.  Now I first want to throw out a big disclaimer, and as this is a subject that gets awkwardly tiptoed around in conversation, I'mma just go ahead and clear it up now.  Unlike many other foreign-born adoptees, I do not have any strong feelings of necessity to learn more about or meet my biological family, but I'm also not afraid to do so.  I am blessed with an incredibly loving and supportive family here and I couldn't care less about the cut-and-paste nature of our pedigree.  I have explained this to them, and they, unsurprisingly, have been very understanding about it all, and have even gotten the adoption documents out of the safe deposit box for me to start Sherlock Holmes-ing on.  

Here's me shortly post-adoption and with awesome socks and Asian baby bangs.

On that front, with help from Peter and his dad, we have my biological mother's name, the name of the hospital I was born at (which seems to have closed sometime in the last 26 years), and the name of the adoption agency that managed my case.  We've also contacted that adoption agency, and they are currently working to find and contact my biological mother to see if she is interested in speaking with me.  It's hard to say what the chances are of that actually working out, but in general, my attitude towards it is that if I'm going to be there, it is a worthwhile and unmissable opportunity.

Nevertheless this difficult-to-articulate compulsion to make this trip to Korea is certainly not borne out of of any sort of dissatisfaction with my life and family here at home or unspoken yearning to find and connect with my biological family.  However, that is not to say either that I don't feel some kind of subliminal, inexorable pull towards the country of my birth, some ancient magnetism to a place where perhaps there are things to be experienced, seen, touched, intuited, reflected, and stumbled upon that may shape my human experience in important and unknowable ways.

Of course I am nervous.  Nervous to be living in a new city of over 10 million people with one friend for five weeks, nervous to be an outsider and an American that looks Korean in a monocultural country while possessing a tenuous-at-best grasp of the language and culture; nervous at the possibility of being confronted with new knowledge and feelings about my past that might affect me in unexpected and powerful ways; nervous about trusting myself around ubiquitous and dirt cheap delicious Korean street food and soju.  Yes, there are many things to be nervous about, and this trip feels at once both long overdue and frighteningly premature, but I've never felt that nervousness was a good reason to not do something, so here I am.

The name of this blog 귀향 (gwee hyang) is a Korean term that means "returning to one's birth country" or "homecoming" to smooth over the translation a bit.  I wanted to choose a Korean title for the blog and for all of the posts not only to squeak in that little bit of extra practice, but also because I intend to immerse myself as much as possible in the duality of my experience and of my heritage, to intentionally put myself out of my comfort zone to meet people, see things, and adopt the culture that I was adopted from to get the most from these five weeks, and I want this blog to reflect that.

This trip is not a quest to find my biological family and in so doing, fill some hole in my heart, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't still have some deep significance--that I believe spending time in the country where I was born and where my birth culture evolved might hold some very real and very important lessons for me.  In that spirit, my expectation is that expectations are a foolish exercise in futility.  I have no idea what I'll learn in these next several weeks, or in what form those lessons will come, I only know that it is an undertaking worth doing and that I feel almost like I have to do it.  So for me, and for you, my dear friends, at worst, these correspondences will be a travel blog detailing my time in a beautiful country with an fascinating culture that I've always wanted to experience.  But at best, it might be a singularly revealing and formative exploration of my identity as an adopted Korean American and human being with a sense of self itch to scratch.  Either way, I'm so excited and grateful to be here and to share it with you.

I miss you all already, and if it could prove useful, here is my address in Seoul (don't worry, I promise it's just barely less mystifying to me--just copy the shapes the best you can and call it good).

City: 서울
District: 서대문구
Street: 연희로 29길21 파레스 빌라

Until later, bon voyage, friends! 

(I went with French there because all I got going on Korean-wise right now is 잘 비행기가 출발하고 있어요 which roughly means "Good plane departing, oh herro prease.")