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Pretending to be Something You’re Not: Is that what Adoptees are Doing?

Well, thanks to Mei Ling and John Raible, I’ll still be making public posts here. So a big thank you to the both of you.

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I’ve been having a conversation on this post with Amy about drawing the line when it comes to adoptive parents being involved with their child/ren’s natural heritage/s and culture/s. In the past, I’ve sometimes advised adoptive parents (who come to me and ask what they could do for their children) that a good thing for them is to actually be interested in the culture/s their children come from. This does not necessarily mean always eating the food and adorning their homes with excessive amounts of decoration. It just means doing smallish things on a regular basis: things that make your child’s heritage part of their everyday lives and something they don’t really have to feel ashamed of. But in doing that, how much is too much? And in thinking about that, I kind of wonder: should both sides be doing the adopting and the adapting? I said to Amy that had my parents learned Korean with me and had a large invested interest in Korea, I believe there would have been times that it would have come off as “fake”; as potentially looking like they were trying to be something they’re not. And what sort of example is that setting for any child, adopted or not?

But then… when you think about it, what’s the difference between parents “pretending” to be a part of their child’s culture and adoptees? I’ve advised people not to go too over the top with their child’s culture/s because it’s not what they are, themselves. My parents aren’t Korean, so I probably would have thought it rather silly, as a child, for them to pretend to be so. Where do you draw the line? I may sit here and say that parents shouldn’t immerse themselves too much in their child’s culture and heritage because they also don’t want to forget about their own. But what about the adoptee? In being adopted, are we only “pretending” to be something we’re just… not? What’s pretend and what’s real?

We, as human beings, are the ones that have given ourselves labels. We label ourselves “Australian”, “Korean”, “American”, “Chinese”. They’re just labels. But what does it really mean to be one of those things? For my 26 (27 in a month. Eek!), I have called myself (mostly) “Australian”. Because I speak English, mate; because it’s the only country and culture I remember; because I have an Australian family… because I’ve lived an “Australian” life! These are characteristics of the label “Australian”, yet I still have things about me that fit into the “Korean” category: I look Korean; I was born in Korea; anyone I have a biological link to is Korean. So going by that, I guess I’m… Korean and Australian?

Another thing I’ve said here before is something that’s said in Adopted the movie. That: “when you adopt a child of colour you become a family of colour”. And I still agree with this. Insofar as my own identity. But what about the identities of everyone else in the family? If they adopt a Korean child, does that make them partially Korean, too? I’m Australian because it’s the life I’ve lived, it’s what is written on my pieces of paper. But I’m also Korean. I still identify myself as somewhat Korean. And I’ll never escape that because of the way I look and because of where I was born. It’s something I can’t change. But if adopting makes the family a family of colour, where are the lines drawn for individuals and their own identities? Does adopting not only mess with the identity of the adoptee, but everyone else, too? If you adopt and your life becomes one that embraces your child’s culture and heritage, wouldn’t that make you just a little bit Korean?

If you adopt a child from Korea (for the sake of naming a country), and you choose to embrace the Korean culture even just a little bit, as a part of your life, what does that mean? It means that now you have a Korean member of your family; it means you now live a slightly Korean lifestyle. If you’re learning the language, it means that one day you might be able to/can speak to other Korean people. Aren’t these things all things that make me both Australian and Korean? So doesn’t it go for the parents as well? Are adoptees really the only ones that are adapting? Is it the parents who are also adopted? If they’re living part of their child’s culture and heritage, why is that “pretend”?

I have no idea what I hoped to achieve by writing this post. It seems this topic has no end. It can just go forever and probably has a thousand different points of view. Perhaps it could be subjective and dependent on each individual family? I don’t know. But to any adoptive parents out there: what do you think? How do you feel? Do you consider yourself to be a part of whatever nationality it is that you’ve adopted into your family? Or do you just feel that it’s your child that has any real link to their heritage? What about other children? Do you think it affects them at all?

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Protected: Being Wanted VS Being Unwanted: What’s Better?

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Protected: My Characters’ Faces: A Writing Update

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Belonging and Isolation

This may be one of my last public posts for a while. At the risk of sounding ridiculously over-dramatic, I believe I am still linked on this “Family Petey” blog, regardless of my post asking to please be removed from it, or to be given access to it. Although protecting many posts would probably be hypocritical and going against the ideal that adoption information and insights should be shared amongst many people involved with adoption, I am somewhat annoyed to be excluded from a blog when it’s clearly obvious that I’m being spoken about. I don’t appreciate it, I think it’s rude and it’s also disrespectful. If these people have access to my experiences and thoughts, I feel it’s only fair to be given access to their blog, or at least have contact details of them. It’s not always easy to confront adoption issues and feelings, nor is it easy to make them available to complete strangers. So I won’t be making the entirety of this blog protected, but I will probably make a lot more posts protected, at least for a while. For those that are human enough to treat me as such, please don’t hesitate to contact me for said password. And I thank those that do treat me as anything but an information machine and for talking about and sharing your adoption journeys and stories with me. I think that’s what families should be about. At least partially.

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Anyway, today I read this article here about quite a large adopted family, and the adoptees’ experiences in going back to Korea. In it, they mention the idea that we adoptees don’t really fit in anywhere. We don’t really fit in with our Caucasian societies, but it can be even worse when we merely attempt to assimilate with those of our natural heritage:

“She’s just a white girl; a banana; she doesn’t really get it; Maree is brainwashed and really not like us,” were some of the things her Asian peers used to describe her, Maree said.

I – along with many other adoptees, I’m sure – can totally relate to this sentiment. And I’ve written about it in here quite often. I think it is possibly one of the worst things about being adopted: not *really* belonging anywhere. Sure, we “belong” with the people that love us etc, but really, that only goes for when we’re inside our comfortable homes. Once we step out our front doors, it’s a completely different story. People don’t know us, so we just automatically “belong” in whatever groups we look like. And that goes for everyone, adopted or not. What’s different from adoptees is that we don’t truly belong in the groups we look like. Nor is belonging in those groups something we can “just” learn. I cannot walk into a Korean person’s home, automatically begin speaking the language and “doing” the “normal” Korean customs and ways. I’m not going to lie: I hate coming up against Korean people. I hate the feeling I get when they speak to me in Korean, expect me to speak back, then get completely perplexed when I don’t. I hate the looks I get, and I hate the obvious assumptions that are so loud in my ears without them saying a word at all. Truly, I hate it.

Equally, I hate it when people that aren’t Korean make the same assumptions of me, only… backwards. I hate it when they ask me if I speak Korean. I hate it when they look at me when I speak in perfect, unbroken English. And I hate it when they say racist things in front of me without even knowing it.

Hate. Yes, it’s a strong word, but there you go. Sometimes I hate being adopted for these things. For not belonging to any one group.

‘Who cares?’ you think. ‘Just be yourself’ you think. HA. You try “being yourself” when “yourself” isn’t up to par with everyone’s standards. I don’t hate myself, but I wouldn’t say I’m perfectly happy with myself, either. Sometimes it’s like constantly wearing clothes that just don’t fit you. Are you going to walk around in clothes that are overly tight, loose or just plain uncomfortable? No. But luckily for you, clothes can be stripped off to be changed for others. Your skin and outside appearance can’t. Not without a lot of pain, anyway.

Quite frankly, this not-belonging thing is tiring and lonesome. (And I wonder why I’m such a homebody? *Scoff*) I honestly just tire of it. And I wish I could “just” be like everyone else, at times.

So… where do adoptees belong?

You know what I wish sometimes? Sometimes I think to myself: ‘how wonderful would it be: for all the interracial adoptees in the world to come together, go find some uninhabited island and populate it: create our very own race of people that look like something, but are completely different on the outside’. As unrealistic as that is, it’s a crazy fantasy, but it would be great. And truthfully, I think adoptees – in some sense – belong with other adoptees. I mean, what makes people of one race “belong” at all? Isn’t it because they share a set of experiences, outside appearances and cultural understandings? Yes, yes and yes, I’d say. Who shares adoptees’ unique experiences in life: other adoptees, right? Really, it comes down to this sharing thing. For me, Korean people can’t really relate past my external appearance. Sure, I have the “squinty”, Asian eyes; the dark hair; the short stature; the pale-ish skin… but underneath, what do I have? I have understandings of A, B, C;  eating with knives and forks; surviving on pasta, steak and BBQs; and the list goes on… I don’t wholly share anything with anyone… except for other adoptees.

Following my recent post on siblings, wouldn’t it, therefore, make sense to adopt more than one child? And if you’re not doing as such, at least have a lot to do with other adopted families? I mean, think about your own life: you live your culture day by day: it’s something you don’t think about as you drive to work everyday, talk to your colleagues everyday and go shopping. Why should anything be different for adoptees? Why should we be reminded of our adoptions all the time? Why shouldn’t we have the luxury of just… not having to think about it and be reminded of our differences everyday? Why shouldn’t we have lots of people around us who have just inherently shared our experiences of the world and our lives?

Food for thought? Maybe… for newly adoptive parents. But where does that leave us “old” adoptees? To just go mad over our inherent isolation? Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just quit my job, go live in the sticks and write in an emo corner for the rest of my life. Sounds pretty good to me. =P 

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Writing Book Blog

I considered starting a whole new blog for this, but I don’t really want to. So I’m going to sort of incoporate a bit of a writing blog here, where I’ll blog about this process of writing a novel/memoir. Updates won’t be too regular, and many of them will probably be password-protected because I think writing opens up a lot of personal stuff that I don’t really want to display to the world. The password will probably also be different to the password used for my usual protected posts, so if you’d like to read about my processes of writing an adoption book/memoir/novel, please contact me for the password. I may also post the occasional excerpt, which I definitely don’t want open to the public.

As this post is (obviously) public, I’m just going to say right now that I have 6000 words and for once, I’m pretty happy with those rough 6000 words, and have no intention of starting all over again. Again. So yay! I’ve been writing a bit a day (I only wish I had more time to do so!). And a random thing about me: I write really well in cafes. I get a lot done in cafes. Dunno what it is about cafes, but they’re just very writerly places for me.

It sucks that making a career as a novelist is rather difficult. But I wish I could. It would be the best thing ever.

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“Sisters… Are Doin’ it for Themselves…”

Me, my Mum and sister when I was, like... 3 or something. =P

For those who have read my blog for a while, they’d know that I have one sister. She’s two and a bit years younger than me and is my parents’ biological daughter. My sister and I haven’t always gotten along. Like most siblings, we’ve definitely had our good and bad times, but I’d say we’re pretty close now and I couldn’t imagine what my life without her would have been like. Looking back on my teenage years, I feel very sorry for all the things I would have put her through, but in a way I feel like it’s made us closer now: having been through some difficult times, at least we know that as siblings, we can weather quite a lot. =P It’s also great now: my family seems very harmonious and my husband really thinks of my sister as his little sister. He’d go out of his way to protect her as his sister, which is gorgeous. <3 So although the following post may come off sounding a little cold, please be aware that I have a sister that isn’t adopted. So I’m not wholly crazy in making this post.

In reading the blogs of adoptive parents and adoptees, it’s been somewhat interesting to see the different families that have been created through adoption. Our blogs so often seem to be very focused on the parent/child relationship, but it seems not a lot of thought is really given to the sibling relationship. Which – I think – should be just as important as the parent/child relationship: siblings are just as much a part of a family, right? My parents adopted me because, like many adoptive parents, they wanted a family. For whatever reasons, they were unable – at the time – to have biological kids, so they got me. And then my sister randomly and unexpectedly came along. Like I said, I couldn’t imagine what my life without my sister would have been like. I think that having a sister has taught me a lot, and as someone that is pretty closeted, anti-social and would prefer to spend her time in her own world, having a sister has been beneficial to me as a human being.

The one thing I wonder about some adoptive families, though is: why do they adopt internationally when they already have biological children? I’ve seen it claimed many times that it was “God’s intention for them to adopt”, or they thought it was “the right thing for them”, or even the dreaded reason of they wanted to “save a child from an ‘unfortunate’ and ‘disadvantaged’ country”. I guess this question is one that I don’t understand because my parents obviously didn’t adopt for the same reasons, and I can’t help but look at some of these families and question how a child of a very different racial background would feel having four or five older siblings, all of which are Caucasian. My ultimate question for them is: how do you think your child feels? You may justify your actions by saying to yourself and others: “but we took them out of such a disadvantaged place in the world, and we have so much wealth to offer them!” etc etc, but remember: your child likely doesn’t remember a whole lot about being “disadvantaged”. Even if you’ve adopted a child that’s two or three, how are they meant to look back on those years and think: ‘yeah, they sucked’? Even though I’m sure they’re going to have many wonderful times and experiences as a member of your family, they’re also going to have to deal with being the odd one out, and that’s what they’ll remember.

(Click “read more” to read the rest of this post.)

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Trauma, Loss and Grief

I haven’t written a lot about trauma and loss on this blog. Well… they’re concepts that have come up throughout other posts, but I don’t think I’ve made whole posts about the notion of loss and grief in adoption. It’s a funny concept to me, because when I think of loss and grief, I think of death. And I haven’t experienced a lot of death in my life. At almost-27, I still have four Grandparents. And the closest I’ve been to death has been those of pets or family friends of whom I’ve never met. But Yoon just made a really insightful post about grief, and I thought I’d consider it for a bit, myself. Her post was about trauma and her reasons why trauma and loss don’t just occur before a child’s adoption takes place. Trauma and loss are things that are experienced by adoptees throughout their adoptions, not just in the period before they’re taken in by their new families.

You know, it’s strange, but I’ve never *really* thought about this before. Sometimes I just… do things or feel things without really thinking about where they came from or why they’re there. As a teenager, I used to scream at my parents and say that they didn’t really love me and that I wasn’t really their daughter etc etc. Realistically, I have no idea what I was trying to achieve here. All I remember thinking and feeling at the time was that I was right, and that if they did happen to throw me out of their home (which they never would have, I’m sure!), I would have not only proved myself right and them wrong, but I would have proven to myself, to them and the world that I am/was a worthless piece of junk that was expendable compared to others in the world. Furthermore in proving this, I would have somehow justified my adoption and I would have had a tangible reason in front of me as to why I was given up in the first place. (Wow, deep, I know!)

Although I should be working right now, I also just read this article that gives an insight into one mother’s experience in adopting an older child from Europe. It also repeated pretty much what I just stated above:

She told me that when she was first adopted, she picked fights with her parents constantly. “I had to test them to see if they were strong enough to handle me, and to see if they would give up on me.” She couldn’t forget what the caretakers at the orphanage had told the children: “You don’t deserve love,” they said. “You don’t deserve anything, and that’s why you have nothing. All the children believed them. I believed them.”

I’m sure this comes off as really sad and emo, but it’s a harsh reality that I think many adoptive parents will have to face. I know I put my parents through the ringer in terms of “ensuring” that they loved me and that they weren’t going to just get rid of me the way I guess I feel my birth mother did. And looking back, I’m not really surprised that it happened in my teen years, when I had more English language at my disposal and when my hormones were at the height of their emo-ness.

So I wonder: am I still going through some sort of grieving process? Yoon put it really well when she said:

After several months or years pass in either a foster home or orphanage, the child is then adopted out, but not within that same country, rather to a foreign country. Not only does she lose her biological parents and family, but by being adopted out to a foreign country, she loses her origins, her language, her people, her culture, the person she would have been had she been able to remain–basically, she loses everything.

Upon arrival in the foreign country among a new and foreign family, she must adapt and adjust to foreign people, sounds, smells, foods, and ways (for further reading I recommend the adult adoptee memoirs, “A Single Square Picture” and “Trail of Crumbs”). Furthermore, as the child ages, she also faces prejudice, discrimination, teasing, bullying, isolation, alienation, and so forth as a result of her differing physical appearance from those that inhabit the community within which she is now expected to assimilate seamlessly.

And again, I’ve never really thought about it this way: that in being adopted I really did lose… everything. Yes, of course I gained a lot too, but I was basically wiped clean to start afresh. It makes me feel like I’m no more than a computer: here to be used by others. I recently gave my old MacBook to my Mum because I got a new one. In doing that, Robert literally wiped everything off it in order for it to be started afresh by my Mum. Thinking about my adoption sort of makes me feel like that: like I was just wiped clean for the next user; the next people whose wishes of a family I’d make come true. But unlike a computer, I am going to feel something after the phase of going from one owner to the other.

This is not saying that adoptive parents have done anything wrong in adopting. Afterall, they couldn’t help the fact that we were originally given up by our natural families. But as Yoon said, I think everyone needs to be aware that it may take just that *little* bit longer for us to grieve than people may think and expect.

In going back to Korea for the first time later this year, I feel sort of numb. I expected to feel more excited and elated. I expected to even feel a bit more nervous, worried, apprehensive… anything but numb and indifferent! But when you think about it… how would you feel if someone died, then came back to life? Wouldn’t you be in just a little bit of shock? Wouldn’t you sort of stand there and be like “what the?!!” when you’ve already spent so much time trying to move on from them? To my husband, Korea represents not only where I was born, but an unknown land of a culture that’s really a detached mystery to him, along with being the land of the world’s best internet, Starcraft players and leading technology. But to me… it’s like a living entity: one that I have yet to stand and stare in the face of with any sort of bravery, whatsoever, and say: “I’m OK” to.

So I really do wonder whether I’m still going through some sort of grieving. Is that why I go through periods of wanting so desperately to go back to Korea and reclaim everything, like a lover wanting so badly for their dead partner to come back to life and just give them that loving embrace? Sometimes I think about people dying; about how I’ll feel when they pass on because I haven’t really experienced the death of someone I’ve really loved. But looking back at “simply” being adopted, have I gone through a huge sense of loss that others don’t experience at all?

Furthermore, adoptees face not only losing our origins, but in addition we face losing that “new, better life” that adoption is presumed to bring, without adulteration. Losing one’s origins and then subsequently facing rejection and alienation among those who are now supposed to be “our new people” is nothing to brush away or ignore. It’s not that the new life we have cannot be good, but it certainly is not free from consequence and further pain and suffering.

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Adoption: One of “Those” Things

You know what I’ve come to realise over the past few weeks? Adoption is one of “those” things: one of those things in life that – really – can’t easily be understood by those who have nothing to do with it. Yet it’s one of those things in the world that everyone seems to have opinions and assumptions on. It’s a multi-faceted issue that becomes so simple when you don’t understand it. Common misconceptions seem to go along the lines of:

1. “Adopting a child is a good thing, because you’re giving them a ‘better’ life than that of which they’re coming from”

2. “There are so many orphans in the world, why would you want to have your own child/ren?”

3. “It’s natural for adoptees to want to find their ‘real’ families someday. Why wouldn’t they want to?”

4. “Adopting is ultimately saving a child from a fate worse than death”

5. “Adopting a child from overseas is making them more of your culture and taking them out of that which they’ve come from”

…and the list just goes on.

Although I mostly really like the people I work with, I’ve found myself getting a little frustrated at one person in particular. Let me tell you something about him: he’s the gayest person I’ve ever met (I don’t mean that in a negative way), he’s incredibly full of himself (but in a way that makes everyone around him laugh), he thinks he knows a lot more than he probably does and he’s extremely self-centred. All this being said, he is a good guy and really funny to talk to. But he says a few things that make me want to scream, at times. Yesterday, I can’t remember what we were talking about, but he said: “you know, you would be a totally different person if you were still Korean and you hadn’t been brought up by European parents!”. And that wasn’t the first thing he’s said. He’s also said things along the lines of: “Marcel (another guy we work with) is – really – more Korean than you are” (because he’s married to a Korean woman). And there have been other things that have been similar.

Now, I don’t think this colleague of mine is an awful person. Nor do I dislike him. Quite the contrary. But I can’t help but feel annoyed when things like this get said.

I guess it’s similar to instances like this.

Similarly, one of my Dad’s sisters apparently made an assumption to my Mum the other day in regards to a relative we never see coming to Sydney next month. She said something like “I guess it’s natural to want to see family: like it would be natural for an adopted child wanting to find their natural family”. My Mum just had to bite her tongue.

But why is this annoying?

(Click “read more” to read the rest of this post.)

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Boys, Girls, Marriage… Adoption?

Firstly: sorry I keep changing the theme of this blog. I’m incredibly fussy when it comes to the way things look. If I was able to make my own themes, I would. But I suck at coding, so I’m left to use the themes that others have made. =P

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What parent doesn’t want their child to grow up and marry a wonderful person? Can any parent honestly say that they’ve never once had that thought: that they want their child/ren to grow up and find a member of the opposite sex that is wonderful and that gets along swimmingly with everyone and is just generally a great addition to the family?

Following on from a blog post made by Soo, I’ve been thinking a little bit about this. My Mum and Dad stayed at our place last night (since we recently got a spare bed. ), while they had a good time in Sydney during yesterday and today. Now, call me crazy, but I doubt they’d really want to do as such if they didn’t like or get on with my husband. As a side note, the boyfriend I had before Robert was a complete… loser (that’s the nicest way I can put it), and it would be an understatement to say that he didn’t really get along with my family. I couldn’t imagine them coming to stay as much if I’d (God forbid) married him.

I think it’s really easy for parents (adoptive or not) to say they’d be happy with anyone their child married/loved, so long as they loved them back, treated them well etc etc. Hell, I don’t have kids and I already want that for any that we do have in the future. If I asked my parents whether they would have minded if I’d married a guy that was Korean (or any other nationality aside from Caucasian), they’d probably say that it wouldn’t have mattered, so long as I loved him, vice versa etc. But really… does racial background really not matter?

(Click read more to read the rest of this post.)

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Weekend Writing

Here’s a fact about me: one of my biggest talents is quitting. I’m great at it. That’s no understatement. Here’s a small-ish list of some rather major things I have up and quit on:

~My graphic design diploma. Two weeks before its completion. Epic fail.

~High school. Although I got my HSC in the end, my results were definitely not as good as they could have been, and as far as I’m concerned, I just gave up.

~Many writing projects. Including the memoir I’m currently writing. This is the n-th time I’ve attempted it.

~Learning Korean (this goes back and forth).

…just to name a few.

In saying this, I’m going to sort of copy what Jessica does every week, and make weekly posts/updates about where I am with the memoir I’m writing. There are (apparently) many people writing about adoption, nowadays, which is great. So it’d be great to also hear about where others are at with their writing projects. Doing this will hopefully help me to continue writing this memoir to its completion and also help keep me motivated. I hit a bit of a wall yesterday, when I realised that the first half of my story doesn’t really have any tangible plot that will really get people reading. And I got that ever-so-familiar feeling of “just give up, it’s all too much”. But I really don’t want to quit, regardless of the challenges I face in doing this.

I have currently written about… 7000 words, which is pretty amazing for me. And although it’s probably a big load of jibberish, I hope to continue and go back and edit later.

So although it’s currently Monday, this post should have been made yesterday, but I’m sick so… it’s being started on a Monday. ;-P But I hope people will tune in and help keep me motivated! It’d also be great to hear about others’ writing projects and hear about where they’re at.