Advertisement
Published: June 27th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Sat. May 31st
Today we had plans to meet the rest of our family at a seafood restaurant for lunch. Our Aunt & Uncle along with some other family members were coming to Oppa and Ani's house first. When we saw our Aunt and Uncle for the first time in 20 years, it was a really surreal moment. I wanted to recognize their faces...but I didn't. You could tell just by looking at them, they'd had a very hard life. They seemed really happy to see us and there were a lot of tears shed. Our Aunt was so cute - she just kept speaking in Korean as though we could understand her. She went on and on and on and I can only imagine what she was saying. Then a few cousins and second-cousins started to trickle in... We spent about 1 1/2 hours at the house looking through the pictures we brought and tried to communicate the best we could.
At the restaurant the relatives started coming in a few at a time. When we met our Aunts, it was really emotional. Again, I didn't recognize any of them but they obviously remembered us. All these strange
faces...cousins, second cousins, aunts, etc. and by now my head was spinning! Holt was providing an interpreter for us and I was anxiously waiting for her to arrive. I was dying to be able to communicate with all of our relatives. When the interpreter arrived, I really felt sorry for her. She was immediately swamped by all these people trying to talk to us and I don't think she was quite prepared for that! We found out later, she was actually told to expect 4 or 5 people...not 25! The lunch was really nice - it was a buffet-style with everything you could imagine. During the meal we sat with all our aunts and there certainly was not a lull in the conversation. Again, one of the first questions was about Corey! The conversations were mostly casual and light-hearted...with a lot of laughing. The soju was flowing pretty steadily - especially towards our Aunts! Apparently we (Laura and I) were not eating enough for the likings of our Aunts. I guess Korean women are suppose to eat a lot - we should be healthy and strong so we can cook, clean and be subservient to men! They didn't say it
in those words but that's what they were implying! I already felt like a giant next to majority of the women in Korea - so I had hard time believing my eating was sub-standard!
As I was looking around, I realized our Korean family was not much different than our American family. Aside from the obvious similarities of a very large family, (although our Korean family is much smaller than our American family - by Korean standards it is unusually large) they seemed so...normal. Each one of our aunts had a very distinct personality - the long-winded one, the crier, the observer and the loving one. Some of our cousins were more welcoming than others...I think the language barrier played a large role in their hesitation. It really didn't matter - we were just glad to see them! Around 3pm - we were kicked out of the restaurant. I was disappointed the end had come so soon...and apparently they were, too! Last minute plans were made to head to a nearby park.
At the park we just walked around, took some pictures and mingled. The park was beautiful and I was glad we were able to spend more
time with our family. I think around 5 or so - about half of us headed back to Oppa and Ani's house for more family time while the rest had to head home. For dinner we went to a restaurant to try bulgogi, basically Korean barbeque. You sit around a table with a mini charcoal grill and you cook your pork (sometimes it's beef but for reasons we all know - they weren't serving beef!) and add different veggies and condiments into a piece of lettuce or sesame leaf. It was really delicious! Apparently this is one of the more popular Korean dish with foreigners....not as spicy as maybe kimchi or other dishes. Here Laura, Matt and I had our first taste of soju. I was expecting the worst because I had heard so many horror stories...but it tasted like water! I thought it would burn or at least taste like alcohol...
After dinner everyone started to head their separate ways. We were going to go back to KoRoot that evening because we had plans to move into my apartment the next morning. I figured we would take the subway back but one of our cousins insisted she wanted
to drive us there. I thought that was so nice since it took over 1 hour to get there and she had to drive the one hour back to Ilsan. But I think she really wanted to do this - so we obliged!
Whew - what a day! It was so much more than I would have ever expected. First of all - I had no idea we had so many relatives. And to find out - this is the first time they've all been together like this in almost 15 years!! I felt really thankful they thought meeting us was important enough to get everyone together. I think we're lucky to have a family who wanted to meet us and to have us in their lives. Often birth family reunions do not turn out this well...
A few interesting things we found out from our family - apparently they'd been wanting to find us over ten years. They'd watch the tv shows where they'd feature adoptees who were looking for their families, hoping maybe they'd see one of us. Also, they did not know all three of us were adopted together - into one family. They were
really happy and relieved to know we weren't separated. The aunt and uncle we lived with before being placed for adoption told us they didn't want to give us up. It wasn't their idea, but our stepmother's. I think they've been burdened with a lot of guilt over the years. We tried to make them understand they shouldn't feel guilty - they were only doing what was right for us. And in the end, we ended up having a much better, higher quality of life. I was old enough to remember we lived a life of near poverty and I'm so thankful we were given the chance of a better life. I've never blamed them or felt bitterness towards them for giving us up - I think it was only right.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.085s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 43; dbt: 0.0502s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb