Aside from it being Valentine’s Day this weekend, it’s also the Lunar New Year, or Seollal (pronounced Son-nal) in Korea. Until recently, my family has sometimes done things with my aunt, uncle and cousins because my uncle’s Malaysian. They’ve usually held big parties and such for it (which I’m not too fond of, ’cause I’m not really one for big parties). It’s always been something they’ve celebrated, and it’s always been “their” thing, when it comes to my extended family. I’ve always sort of felt like it’s never really had anything to do with us. I mean, why would it? No one’s Chinese in our family.

But the Lunar New Year isn’t only a Chinese thing. It’s also one of the largest Korean holidays. And it’s celebrated quite widely, as a part of Korean culture. We haven’t done anything this year (being Valentine’s Day and all. This year Robert and I have a nice brunch on the water organised. Hallmark holiday or not, I really like V-day.^^), but it’s something I actually intend to start doing something for. Even if it just means going to a Korean restaurant somewhere and having dinner. Why? Because I’m Korean. That’s all.

Adoption is normally defined as:

To take on or assume.

Pretty simple, yeah? Normally when a couple adopts a child, it’s assumed that the child takes on the culture and life their adoptive parents lead/live. Like most of us, we’re the ones who have to take on the culture we’ve been brought into; we have to learn the language of our new country; we have to grow up being… whatever it is we’ve been newly introduced to and just accept it as our lives. We’re expected to “just be happy” with our new surrounds and families. I guess because most of us are adopted when we’re very young, and like any baby, adopted or not, we don’t really have much in the way of choice.

But as another Seollal passes, it has me wondering why it was never celebrated as a Korean thing while I was growing up. Why is it that we adoptees are basically forced to be the only ones to really adopt anything when it’s our parents that have done the adopting in the first place? Really… why is it that it doesn’t work the other way? Why haven’t our adoptive parents thought to adopt our cultures? Our histories? Our backgrounds? Why is that of less importance than our adoptive cultures and lives?

In the documentary part of Adopted the Movie, I’ll never forget some of the advice that was given to people considering transracial adoption. They said something like:

When you adopt a child of colour, you become a family of colour.

I’ve never forgotten that. I guess because it’s a great way of thinking about things, and it’s a great way of putting things I felt as a child into words. And it begs the question: why shouldn’t adoptive parents partially adopt their child’s background culture/heritage? Why is it normally just the adoptee that’s supposed to make their adoptive culture their own? Why shouldn’t it work the other way round?

In my situation, sure, I’m the only adopted child – I’m the only one with Korean background. But still… does that mean it should just be ignored? Is my background of less importance, simply because I’m the only one with it? Where does that leave my history? My ancestors? Why is it that I’ve had to have consideration for my adoptive families’ backgrounds, histories and ancestors, when mine have never really even been acknowledged?

Like I’ve said before, I don’t like the word “adoption”. I think it implies and assumes too many things, and it often has a negative connotation on us adoptees. Maybe it’s taken for my generation of adoptees to grow up and voice our opinions and feelings for certain things to be known about what it really means to be adopted. But I certainly feel sometimes, that being adopted means that part of us has practically been erased. And I think that’s kind of sad.

Delicious Digg This Post Reddit Stumble This Post