Live and let live... or speak up ?

The reason behind my posting today is that nowadays, the Korean government and volounteer organizations have grown stronger and increased an heightened awareness and understanding of the strong and capable international adoptees society. The official Korea wishes to create network and welcoming home programs to support the large number of grown up adoptees, who travel back to Korea for the first time.

Students, who can't easily find 7.000 DKK for plane tickets and 5.000 DKK for lodging etc. are the target group for these programmes.

This chance should be informed via proper channels and handled by professionals or volounteers with some training in ethics and preferably, indiviuals who are financially independant to ensure

EQUAL possibilities for all 10.000 Danish Korean Adoptees...

Some 10 years experience of volounteering either officially or independantly within the Danish adoptee society of course has been part of my own self-search for Korea/identity and for socializing and learning more about my self and the world around me. My M.A. from University includes a BA minor in Korean, taken 15 years ago, so, Korea to me is not limited to my own individual adoptee perspective alone.

This recent development has again lifted off the lid to an issue, which lingers and I'm hoping to find an outcome, which I can consider ethical and considerate if I look back at this situation in 10 or 20 years time..

The situation revolves around one person, who under the presumably humane and unselfish intentions of protecting Danish adoptees have caused numerous misunderstandings between reunited Korean birthfamilies and adoptees as well as pushing some adoptees out and bringing other adoptees closer into the circles, which then receive the increasing amounts of fundings and support from the Korean government and volounteer associations.

During the past 15 years things have happened like e.g.

* bringing together adoptees with Korean birthfamilies, who turned out NOT to be their birthfamilies but con-people

* arranging group travels for adoptees going to Korea and getting a ticket for free several times

* earning a living from being supported by organisations in Korea to bring back adoptees to Korea

* causing the contact to be lost between adoptees and their reunited Korean birthfamilies due to "translation" - e.g. based on the individuals own oppinion that the family didn't care enough about the adoptee and as such, in one example, told the adoptee that the family didn't care about her and didn't take interest in seeing her..After 1½ years, the brother took a big step and wrote a letter asking what went wrong and said that the translator had said that she didn't want to see them anymore ever again.

* demanding to talk to birth mothers before the adoptees were allowed to meet them in order to find out if they had "proper" intentions. Some adoptees were told not to meet their birth families since they only wanted their money..? and then when they insisted, that turned out to be far from true..

* telling adoptees that this person had found their birth families but then even after being asked several times over 1 year, still wouldn't give out contact information or any evidence that this was true..

* using government supported programmes with all expenses paid to support this individual's personal language school of 20 people, thus leaving out the possibility for the remaining 9.950 Korean adoptees in Denmark to get information about this offer and to participate.. Some of the participating people from the inner circles who have been pushed through have a regular job income and have been to Korea several times.

* taking adoptees in to live and then, throwing them on the street again for ...(?) no understandable reason

These are only a small number of mistifying events taking place under the actions of this person and somehow a small number of people wish to continue give support to this under the category, "It's just the Korean way"...

I don't totally agree - and AGAIN MUST UNDERLINE that the intention behind my posting today, is to ensure that all adoptees receive equal chances of participating in the increasing programmes and fundings from the Korean government and volounteer organizations.

This chance should be informed via proper channels and handled by professionals or volounteers with some training in ethics and financially independant to ensure

EQUAL possibilities for all 10.000 Danish Korean Adoptees...

Stay tuned..

And then came February, March, April, May and June... organizing, meetings, delegations, articles, World Business Summit delegation, OECD Green IT conference in Helsingoer, "Engle og Daemoner" at the cinema, Tante T visits..multiple visits :), Saturdays with nieces in Botanical Gardens, remembering my grandmother and the special key she had, being an artist/painter which allowed her to enter the gardens and paint anytime (mind you my grandmother lived to be 102 years old.. so, she was born before the turn of the last century when the Botanical Gardens weren't open to the public), birthday parties for the 'cleverest' "brain" doctor Ph.D. and for my nieces and some other beautiful people, Maja being one of the most beautiful people.. - and singing, and learning about new layers of Ayurveda and Sri Sri Ayurveda and then, learning some more.. and yet, some more about the human mind and feelings, mine and those around me, and then, suddenly out of the blue, remembering my first true love, Henrik (whom I met when I was 19 ahh.. sweet 19 and thought would be part of my life always .. but then, still we stayed together for 8 years)and the nice feeling of walks in the forrest with the 'anemoner' like a white carpet of Spring scents covering the Earth and lunches with my aging mum in the sunshine on the patio of the house she and my late father had built for themselves and Dansk-Koreansk Selskab's Summer Picnic with horseback riding and lots of fun thanks to Eva and the participants and today, icecream in the sunshine with a great person (http://www.laurtussen.blogspot.com/)and work and a short notice dinner with great Korean food and a couple of truly great friends to share and one new friend..

So, blogging (meaning talking, sharing ideas and thoughts etc.) has been going on in real-life.. however, lot's of adoptee related stuff's been going on for better and for worse.. so, stay tuned..

PS.My youngest niece and I each made a drawing of a visiting duck at the Botanical Garden.. I LOVE her duck and is amazed again at the creativity in kids - and how we adults could learn to see the world around us with more colours and more sweetness .. I mean, if you were a duck, which duck would you rather be!!?



Enjoy the Summertime!