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Listen to the audio version here!

When I first sent PK a text, I knew he had no idea who I was. He responded with a vague and polite message with the textual tone of Bill Lumbergh. Something like: “Yeah, it was great meeting you, too. Hopefully, we run into each other again one day.”

Cut to a week or so later, he sent another reply.

“Ahh I got it now! You’re Byung’s wife, Abbie’s friend!”

Knowing him like I do now - conscientious and intentional - I imagine he spent time wondering why this woman he didn’t know had sent him a text with such familiarity. I’m glad he figured it out.

Because not only did we find connection with one another in our mutual identity journeys as Korean adopted people, we also discovered that we both spent time in the same orphanage in Mokpo, Korea, an old and unassuming harbor city along the southwest coast of Jeollanam-Do.

From then on, he became one of my “cousins.” (It’s a title I give every Korean friend I know whose family is from Mokpo City.) After half a lifetime of being told just how much “love makes a family,” I’ve taken no issue with adding to my own self-proclaimed figurative bloodline in adulthood. I have “cousins,” “big sisters,” “little sisters” - and even a “wifey” - all in the Korean adoptee (KAD) community.

I saw PK this summer during my annual holiday back in the States. Pennsylvania-area KADs had gathered on a Friday at the end of the workweek so we could be together while I was stateside.

The efforts we take to be together as a community will always be special to me.

I asked about his recent trip back to Korea in and around the city where we were born.

I witnessed light in the face and voice of my Mokpo Cousin in a way I’d not observed in him before. He told me about the proprietors of bars he found around the city. Of drinks and stories they shared. Of locals he met who took him around Korea like he was already family. Of getting on a motor scooter 오토바이 otobai to explore Gyeongju. He spent time simply existing in Korea: not being on a tour, not traveling with anyone else, and doing so with zero agenda. He made close friends with people he met along the way while eating and drinking around the west coast of the peninsula, a woefully unexplored region of our country.

“I have never felt that welcomed or comfortable. Not in America. Not in New Jersey. Not in the Philadelphia community (where he’s been living for the past 25 years). Not anywhere.”

Later, PK pulled out a bottle of homemade 청주 cheongju. He’d brewed it special for the occasion. He shared this precious liquid gold - once only reserved for royalty in Korea - with me and two of our KAD friends after that adoptee dinner. He told us about the history of cheongju, how he practiced the technique of brewing it, and was looking forward to sharing it with his friends in Korea.

Another one of my KAD friends - 친구 chingu - is Kirsten. She sat on the other side of me as I listened intently about PK’s travels around Korea.

Also recently returned from a trip to our motherland, Kirsten spent precious time there as a solo traveler - a big deal as a mother of two young kids used to putting everyone else before herself.

She described the time she’d spent with her birth family as something similar to ethereal. And I understood. Those first moments with people related to you by blood - as they feed you too much food, show you Korean landmarks, and care for you - are akin to being somewhere far outside of your body, watching it all happen from elsewhere in another place and time.

It’s a lot.

And everything you assumed would impact you the most, simply doesn’t.

And vice versa.

Our contemporaries in Seoul are monotone dressers, but that’s not Kirsten. Like her spirit, she dresses in color, her loveliness showing on her face and in the patterns and vibrant fabrics of her clothes.

“I brought all black and white clothes so I would fit in,” Kirsten shared. “And then my bio mom showed up in bright pink leggings and sunglasses, and I thought, oh, no…”

I understood what had happened. I’ve been there, myself.

Like so many of us, when the stakes are high, when we want the outcome to go well, we sometimes conform to what we think we need to do and be.

And what has higher stakes than those first moments with our birth family? They are experiences we can’t possibly imagine, so we must fill in the gaps to soothe our nervous systems as we prepare for a huge thing… one that we hope will begin to heal parts of our selves we don’t yet know exist.

Seeing those pink leggings did something to Kirsten, especially when her birth mother shared, “I love pink and red and pastels” and that she takes dance lessons, dyes her hair with henna, and has multiple ear piercings. Seemingly small details created a huge connection point that was visual and felt cozy in Kirsten’s heart. In a stage of finding her Self again, meeting her mother reminded Kirsten of who Kirsten is.

It’s the same as PK spending meaningful time with business owners - now friends - in the city where he was born.

The same as my friend, Ruth who spent 15 years searching for her birth mother, with many leads and eventual dead ends, who found what she was searching for from Korean women while doing art with textiles during one of her returns to our motherland.

Or Kristy, an adoptee about my age who returned with her also-Korean-adopted (but not biologically related) brother and their partners last fall. They didn’t find their birth families, but they spent irreplaceable time together in places like Jeju Island and the small city of Jinju, experiencing one of the country’s best autumn lantern festivals.

Or like my friend, Rick, when a Korean proprietor said to him, “You ARE Korean,” speaking in our mother tongue that he, having studied and practiced, understood.

If you’re like me, you don’t know healing is what you are seeking.

And rarely do we find it in the people, places, or moments we imagine or expect.

If we do, it appears and soothes a part of us that is newly discovered and comforted at the exact same time.

As for me - I’ve found it, too.

I’ve found it in watching my kids stand on stage at school assemblies with their Korean classmates.

In cutting, mixing, and assembling the ingredients for 만두 mandu with Korean women who work the land here on Jeju Island.

In singing in a 노래방 noraebang room with a KAD brother and his Korean friends where I learned that you exclaim: “Unniiiii!” when your chingu is singing and killing it.

In sitting around an airbnb with my group of KAD friends after the KAAN conference this summer, eating a meal my wifey has made for us while sitting next to the love of my life, feeling comfortable in my own skin, not masking, not pretending, not doing anything other than being me for the very first time.

And in moments with my 아빠 Appa: Riding on a tandem bike with him along the country roads by his farm. Standing on a beach on the very southern part of the Korean peninsula as we talked about my birth mother. Drinking 소주 soju with him and my half sister around a 밥상 bapsang in his home in Haenam. Watching him watch my daughter, thinking about how he must wonder about the time when I was her age and couldn’t be with me.

That’s another thing about healing. In taking steps to find parts of our Selves, we may just help others find parts of their Selves, too.

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Be sure you’re subscribed to this newsletter and “follow” me on Spotify so you never miss an episode!

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Read the transcript at jennaleekim.substack.com.

Questions? Comments? Please comment below or send me an email at jenna.tae.hee.kim@gmail.com. I’ll respond to your questions - unscripted - on my podcast.

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If my work resonates with you or you would like to support my mission of exploring identity and belonging through connections and storytelling while living in Korea, you can pay to subscribe (for perks including occasional exclusive excerpts from my upcoming memoir!), Buy Me A Coffee, and subscribe to the Exploring with Jenna Lee Kim Podcast on Spotify. Thanks for reading (and listening).

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Here’s what I think happened:

After 36 hours of nonstop traveling (a dear friend driving me to the airport in Philadelphia, catching a flight to Atlanta for a layover, 14+ hours in the air to Incheon, arriving at 4:00 a.m. KST, switching airports in Seoul via the metro to puddle jump down to Jeju Island only to end with an erratic, hour-long cab ride to the very southwest point of the island where I live…)

… my body and brain were so tired.

And unprepared.

It’s not just that I didn’t give it a second thought: “It” being returning to Korea to begin year 4 of residency -

- after all - I’d already spent the past 3 years painstakingly figuring out how to live in a different country. Right?

… It’s also that I didn’t clock just how quickly I fall back into the ease and all-encompassing familiarity I feel when being back in the States. Why would I? Things that are easy hardly ever cross our minds in an intentional way.

What’s become an annual tradition I refer to as The Whirlwind Friends and Family Tour each summer, I hardly have time to think at all as I hop from home to home, meal to meal, catch-up to catch-up around Pennsylvania. I don’t say this as a complaint. It’s the most privileged thing in the world to be wanted and taken care of so seamlessly by so many people each summer.

The not thinking part feels so decadent. Reading this, I’m sure you’ve also hardly given any of it a second thought: any of the things you can easily do if you speak the same language as everyone else.

When I’m back in the States, it just IS so easy. I can sell a house, open and close bank accounts, transfer money to different institutions, call customer service if I have a question, know exactly where I can get something if I need it, make reservations, and navigate complex scheduling situations with dozens of loved ones without much effort or a second thought.

And then I walk into my tiny apartment on Jeju Island after limited sleep and literal trains, planes, and automobiles behind me, to find mold on my couch and in my car from sitting for a summer in the island’s humidity. A fridge full of perishable foods that my house sitter forgot to discard of before he left a month before, a gas range that didn’t work right away, online bills that gave me error messages when I tried to pay them, and food deliveries that took too long for the chicken to arrive still frozen, which meant lots of unexpected freezer meal prepping while still painfully jetlagged and solo parenting.

Traveling so far means feeling discombobulated (a word not used nearly enough) by where my loved ones are in the world and what time zone they’re in. You were only 3 hours behind me and now you’re 14. I’m now starting my Sunday when most of you are just beginning your adult beverage consumption on Saturday night.

I’m staring at the puffy clouds out my window while the sun is setting over there.

And everything is good. It simply took me a bit of time to readjust.

Year four in Korea: it took 2 full weeks to get reacclimated to the cozy, precise life I’ve built for myself here.

As I sat in those two weeks of struggle - a thin veil of it blanketing everything I do here as someone who looks like she belongs but doesn’t quite fit in - I was taking for granted tasks and moments that come easily to me in one place… while also being a bit too arrogant about how far I’d come in another place. Living in Korea - it’s taken literal individual baby steps of understanding life as a non-native speaking foreigner

on an island

in a country

on the other side of the planet.

No one likes to feel incompetent, least of all me. Being in a foreign country is at least a 4.5 on the struggle train at all times.

But here’s the good news:

It was a readjustment. But it wasn’t starting from the beginning.

Immediately, close friends Kylie and JaeHee helped me navigate paying some bills and figuring out a government website to book some ferry tickets for Chuseok. They each put dates on my calendar so we can spend time together, which means the world to me on this quiet island.

Taking a deep breath, I slowly eased back into a routine of things I have learned. I knew enough to head down to my neighborhood 5-day farmers market to pick up about $60 worth of produce for only $27. An upholstery cleaner showed up less than 36 hours after I ordered it, and I Tom Sawyered my kids into helping me clean the couch. My bills are now paid. My car is now clean (the car wash is only $2.75), and that first weekend back I went out with the Jeju Island Korean adoptees - a small group of us who hold on to one another in this beautiful, secluded existence we’ve found ourselves in here in Korea.

Soon, the man I love will visit me and my kids in Korea, and my autumn will be filled with travel, friends, and an international conference that will bring Korean adoptees from all over the world to Seoul.

Things may not always be intuitive, easy, or so natural that I take it for granted. No. Not here. Not in Korea.

But the intentionality behind moving about my day, taking literal steps to put effort into activities, people, and moments that are worth the tiny bit of extra effort.

As I start year 4 here in Korea, I’m reminded of just how far I’ve come. A little bit of ongoing struggle goes a long way in knowing I’ve made it all happen.

And who am I to question the life I rebuilt just for me?

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Originally published on October 20, 2025

When I met Sonny, I was visiting Seoul just 4 months after moving to Jeju. At a Korean BBQ table, I was several soju glasses into the night when I looked up to see he’d moved to the seat across from me. The sleeves of his collared shirt rolled up, he wore a fitted blue vest, and was assessing me with curious eyes and likely a bit of amusement before I looked up to meet them.

I remember asking him about himself, not accepting any brief or tidy summaries about his job or his research. Later, he would offer that he saw in me a particular kind of longing and restlessness. I’d come to learn that not much about others gets by him unnoticed. And anything worth talking about we’ll end up discussing.

Since meeting almost 2 years ago to the day, Sonny has become a friend, securely attached on the inner circle of my journey. He’s someone I trust with all of the essentials: Random thoughts, unhinged emotions, and - let’s face it - when we walk down city streets, I don’t give a second thought to my safety.

After KAAN (The Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network Conference) 2025 this June, he shared a written reflection with a small group of us KADs [Korean adoptees], and it moved me in a way that I couldn’t shake. Sometimes, I’ll be going about my day and excerpts suddenly skip across my brain like a pebble on a pond. Like everything in this life, the reflection keeps shifting on what once appeared to be simple, still waters.

I want to thank my friend for agreeing to publish his reflections with all of us here.

When I say it’s a privilege to have in our possession a glimpse into his feelings and experiences, I mean it. I mean it in every way you can imagine: acknowledging, respecting, and fully embracing every vulnerable and brutal word, insight, and unfiltered nugget of honesty.

Let’s not take it for granted. I hope you’ll absorb every word.

**A note that this narrative includes explicit graphics and descriptions of war: the during and the aftermath.**

Here’s Sonny:

Invictus: Even the Universe Needs Its Champions

Introduction

I wanted to be a star, a celestial colossus, but the universe had other ideas; it made me a warrior instead. Jenna asked that I write this to tell [at least a portion of] my story. After having nearly died in silence more times than I can remember, I thought it might be good to live out loud for once.

When asked, most people would rather be the sun. But, why not be the moon, to shine as a beacon of light in someone’s darkest hour?

Preface

This is my first written experience on anything related to Korean adoption, and it will probably be my last. I’m not much of a writer, never have been. So I’d ask that you try and bear with me. Anyway, I suppose I should start by providing a short synopsis of myself for context, but beyond the following, I try to maintain a sense of quiet professionalism about most of the things that I’ve done and still do in my life. It’s not in an effort to be purposefully cryptic or annoyingly mysterious, I’m just still personally and professionally connected to many of the organizations that you will read about in the story.

In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you.

My name is Sonny Cho, a Korean adoptee. I was adopted from Seoul at two years old, and my story is very similar to other adoptees’ stories–nothing really that special that I’ll waste your time over. I was raised in Salem, Oregon with my biological sister. I never really had a great relationship with her or my [adopted] parents. They always wanted a girl, but apparently the adoption agency said that they didn’t want to separate us, so I was adopted along with her. They always joke that I’m the leftover crap of the family.

Since I wasn’t really academically gifted, I found myself excelling in the combat arts: Wrestling, Judo, kickboxing, etc. Turns out I was really good at fighting; still am.

Fast forward, the World Trade Center was attacked, and I joined the military serving in Special Operations. If you don’t know, all special operations pipelines from all the branches of the military are particularly brutal, so I was grateful to have passed my first time through. Again, I won’t bore you with the details. There are plenty of books and TV shows if you want more information on that. Anyway, from there I served in Iraq, Somalia, Colombia, and Yemen.

After hanging my uniform up for the last time, I jumped back into professional sports, and then to university, which seemed never ending. Somewhere between all of that nonsense, I was asked to come back to military life as a government civilian working for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC); if you know, you know. From there I got the opportunity to save some American missionary idiots who decided they wanted to plant tomatoes in the middle of the desert, surrounded by insurgents. I wish that were a joke. I also played a small role in the pull-out of Afghanistan in 2021, as well as the rescue of American civilians in Israel in October of 2023.

Good times.

If you’re not confused yet, somewhere between all of that ridiculousness, I found myself in Korea conducting research at Yonsei University, which is kind of the first time I discovered KADs existed beyond my sister and I, which sucked because I was really beginning to think I was special.

And I just so happened to find my biological mother.

So to recap, I somehow managed to attend university, work for JSOC, and conduct research at Yonsei University–kind of all at the same time. It’s now the middle of 2025 and I’m a scientist. If you’re wondering how I got here, I suppose I just Forrest Gump’ed it.

Lastly, I’m just going to insert random quotes, metaphors, and lessons into this. Now hold onto your butts; let’s get this party started!

BTW, as I write this, I'm listening to this playlist. Feel free to read along to it by clicking this link.

Death walks into the bar and sits next to a man, “Finish your drink, it’s time to go.”

The man says, “If I knew you were coming, I would have ordered the good stuff.”

Death: “You knew I’d be here sooner or later. You should’ve ordered the good stuff your whole life.”

Invictus: Even the Universe Needs its Champions

As a scientist, I like starting my lectures with some statistics. It allows people who don’t want to be here to not have their time wasted.

Did you know that the probability of you being alive is approximately one in 400 trillion? That’s trillion–with a T: A four with 14 zeros behind it. It’s a number so large that your brain really doesn’t understand, even in cosmological terms. But I’ll do my best to make a reasonable comparison: The chances of you winning the lottery are approximately one in 300 million. You might think that’s a pretty big number, and you’d be right, but let’s do some simple math. An average human lifespan is 75 years-ish, so with that in mind, you’re more likely to win the Powerball 30 times a day, every day of your life for the rest of your life than you are of actually having a life. So as I write this and you read it, we are kind of the lucky ones. But I’ve never really felt lucky, have you?

PreKAAN

In late 2021, I found myself conducting research at Yonsei University in Seoul, and after a while I’d built up this routine: Wake up, gym, breakfast at the local tteokboki stand outside of my apartment in Hongdae, go terrorize some undergrads. After many weeks of the tteokboki lady getting to know me, I finally told her I was adopted. She grabbed my hand and said, “You’re Korean. You belong here. Welcome home.” At 35 years old, it was the first time I’d ever felt my heart shake. Following this encounter, I serendipitously ran into a few other KADs at a cafe in Insadong a few weeks later. And that turned into a Pandora’s box that I would have never expected.

To make a long story short, the next year I took some mushrooms, unlocked a memory or two that was associated with the motherland, and I decided to go look for my biological parents.

It didn’t take long for me to find my mother. She lives in a small village, where she coincidentally prays to God and grows tomatoes. I’d love to say this encounter was filled with love and longing, and hugs (Appendix). My biological father is dead, buried outside of Seoul. I left a bullet casing at his final resting place to let him know his son became a warrior.

We cannot simply sit and stare at our wounds forever.

KAAN ‘23

The Battle of Ramadi in Iraq was one of the most brutal campaigns during Operation Iraqi Freedom. One quarter of all American casualties from the entire twenty years occurred in that one city: To call it vicious is somewhat of an understatement.

In the winter of ‘06, my team and I found ourselves in a reasonably large firefight. Between the two streets where the bullets were flying, two little girls hid behind some debris trying not to get killed. My team leader, Hammy, who is the bravest human I’d ever met, decided we would go retrieve them–I told him we’d die. He said, “I know,” and we both dashed out into the middle of the street. On our way back with two little humans in our arms, a white flash blinded me.

KaBoom.

Lying on my back, I realized I just rocked by an explosion. I reached around my body armor to feel for any holes and bleeding. Nothing too serious. I tried to move my legs–couldn’t feel anything. Fuck. My vision was very blurry and I could only see people moving toward me, not my people. For some reason, I kept hearing my [adoptive] mother screaming in my ear; it felt like Dolby Surround Sound. “Sonny! Sonny! Get up! Not here! Get up!” I yelled back [in my head] “K”. Just as I was talking back to my mother, I felt the pain rush into my body and through my legs. And at that point, I’d wished my legs were no longer attached. I picked up my rifle, wiped my eyes, and got to work. As I was firing (for what seemed like forever), Hammy came rushing out of the dust left by that god damn bomb that had just detonated 20 ft away along with my other teammates who were limping behind him. They picked up the little girls and Hammy grabbed my body armor, dragging me out of the street behind a house. On the way he tripped (or so I thought), and we both landed in another pile of debris. When the medevac finally came, my friends kissed me on my forehead [1], and I closed my eyes.

I came back to reality six weeks later in Germany, still with legs, still in pain. Hammy, my team leader, was killed. That little tumble we took into a bunch of rocks was a bullet going through his leg, exiting out of his back. Hammy was awarded the silver star, and he now resides in Arlington National Cemetery where he belongs–with other heroes. I visit him as often as I can. The two little girls made it; their names were Omnia and Hasinah. Omnia means “wish” in Arabic, Hasinah means “beautiful”.

Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least heave heard of brave nights and heroic courage

I got a dog after that, and named her Hasinah. I’d constantly wondered what became of those two girls; were they eventually killed in the war, did they make it to another country, did they have any family, were they sold into slavery? In one of the most amazing twists of events in the history of me, during my first year of graduate school I walked into a meeting with my department head, advisors, and classmates. Sitting there, waiting for me were two grown up girls–Omnia and Hasinah. They made their way to the United States, settling in Dallas, Texas, and found me through social media and some unit friends of mine. They met Hasinah (with a tail), and we took a road trip to visit Hammy. My dog died in January 2019 from kidney failure. A few months later I found out Hasinah was killed in a motor vehicle accident coming home from work.

I never really felt lucky.

If you know people like me, or you’re anything like me then this photo, or what this photo represents shouldn’t really be a surprise. This is the corner of my room. This corner has seen more hatred, and anger, and tears, and heart break than my family will ever understand. Even lit up, I’ve never come across a darker place in my life; it’s where my demons live. I used to keep a blanket on the floor because I had often found it was easier to sleep with my shadows than it was to surround myself with those who sent me thoughts and prayers. There was a time I forced those demons into an uneasy truce: Either you learn to live with me, or none of us will leave here.

There were two reasons I was scared to let people in; the damage they could do, and the damage they could find, – Chris McGeown

Everywhere I go, the world seems to want something from me. It wants to take from me: Did you ever kill anyone? Why did you go to war? What’s it like? If you liked it so much why did you get out? It [the world] wants a piece of me, to live through me. But whatever I have left, I want to keep. Have you ever heard a seoul cry?

Like I said earlier, I opened a Pandora’s box. I found KAD groups on Facebook and I watched, and I read; I was a lurker. I just wanted to read some good stories, some stories that were better than mine. I eventually landed in a KAD fitness group for which I am now grateful.

So there I was - KAAN 2023 in Chicago. I spoke with other KADs, I drank with them, and I melted into obscurity. I really connected with Mindy, who is a psychologist. We never really say much to each other; we can just sit in silence, and I think that says more about our friendship than constant noise. Anyway, no one asked me about war, or violence, no one asked me about my “story”. KAAN 2023 was the first time I took my armor off in over a decade, and I found that my shoulders were really quite sore. The first night, I went back to my hotel room across the street from the conference, drunk (obviously). I sat in the corner of that room, and for the first time in my life I didn’t feel so hurt. The shadows left me alone, my chest wasn’t so tight, and barring the inevitable hangover, I was hopeful. So, have you ever heard a seoul cry?

Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise? – Mitch Albom

KAAN ‘24

On October 7th, 2023, Hamas launched an attack on Israel. I arrived in Tel Aviv four days later to help with the evacuation of American citizens who wanted to leave. Ten days after that I was teaching at university in Seoul again; it was my first time meeting Rodney. If you don’t know him, Rodney is the hyung.

No one knew that ten days prior, I was covered in dust and dirt, throwing Americans onto planes, while stepping over dead children. I ate with the KADs in Seoul, I drank and sang with them, and then I left a bit early. I couldn’t help but think about my biological mother, and I walked a lot that night. It’s funny how our best dreams and worst nightmares have the same people in them, don’t they?

I felt less lonely before I found her.

The universe will take everything from you to show you who you are with them.

As KAAN 2024 approached, I felt myself getting a bit anxious. I hadn’t seen Mindy or Abby in a year. I was nervous that they might see I was hurt, that the deployments were really starting to get to me. So I did what I always do: When I got to the hotel, I slammed some bourbon, I lifted my chin, and I pretended that nothing was wrong. I’m told this is called toxic masculinity; I call it empty. Searching for my friends, I walked into a room under the lobby where a few women were sitting. Startling them, one mentioned that I walked like I was a punishment from God. I did my best to smile and walk out. Yikes.

The military teaches us a lot of things, and they teach it very well. But when the running, and yelling, and explosions stop, they do not teach us how to deal with the silence that follows.

You could find Mindy in any crowd–she looks like the Asian Wednesday from The Addams Family. Mindy, with Abby right behind her, walked up to me and gave me a hug. No smile or fanfare, just, “we missed you.” No one’s ever said that to me before. Abby is a tiny human, so I bent down to give her a hug. Unlike Mindy, she can actually smile, and when she’s smiling at you, the noise of the world seems to disappear. It felt like a thousand pound backpack was taken off my shoulders.

As KAAN ‘24 moved forward, I began to move forward as well. I felt this paradigm shift in me, or maybe I just had to poop really bad, who knows?

The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God’s paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle–and not lose it. – GK Chesterton

Anyway, during dinner on Saturday night, I ran into a bunch of kids. They asked for my advice on problems they were having, and they wanted me to show them handshakes. I found myself cheering for them; I realized I was also cheering for myself. In that small, seemingly insignificant moment I realized I could be useful to the world and to a beloved community that didn’t involve me deploying to another shithole where the people hated me and my friends died. I found myself cheering for me because in that epiphany, if someone else had survived what I survived, I’d be cheering for them. But when it was me, it was never good enough. That previous way of thinking cost me nearly everything. One in 400 trillion, you know? I decided then and there, that I was done with that life. I was done lamenting over my biological mother, I was done chasing a dragon that could never be slain. In a world full of unknowns, and after having been where I’d been, and done what I’d done, the bravest thing I could do was to choose my KAD family. I quit my job at JSOC in August of 2024, two months after KAAN.

The first step towards getting somewhere is deciding that you’re not going to stay where you are.

KAAN ‘25

My last research semester in Korea was in the Spring of ‘25, and it just so happened that Mindy and Abby would be in Korea at the same time; It would be Mindy’s first time back to the motherland. I love seeing the usual faces whenever I go back: Rodney, Jenna, Jen… I love grabbing a drink with them and catching up. But meeting my original KAD family at Seoul Station was especially profound for me. We traveled around Seoul together, and then to Busan, and I could go on for pages and pages about what it meant to me, as well as seeing how much it meant to Mindy– so I’ll just stop here. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that trip.

As my last research semester was winding down, I started to spend more time with the KAD Zoom group, originally led by Callie, and then branching out to Nick and Kate. When KAAN ‘25 was mentioned, it was actually surprising about the amount of people who were actually going and who I’d likely meet for the first time. The difference was, for me at least, was I wasn’t coming off of a deployment. There wasn’t much to push down or hide–I’d kept the armor off for some time now, and while I missed it, I did feel more free. It can be weird meeting people in person that you’d only ever met online, especially like, twenty of those people. It’s kind of like flirting on Hinge, and then meeting in person and being like, “So, are you gonna put your hand on my ass? Are we gonna do this dance or what?” But having done this three times now, it’s actually not as awkward as it seems.

Hi, I’m Sonny. Drink?

I never said I never did nothing wrong, but now I’m doing it right. – Lil Wayne

Honestly, it was the best KAAN I’d been to; it truly was an amazing time. Not enough soju, but I digress. So what made it amazing? I got to see my squad who flew in from Korea. I got tattoos with my original KAD family, Mindy and Abby, and I got to have a drink with everyone from the weekly Zoom calls. I could go on about this stuff, so I will.

Proportionally speaking, the Korean adoptee community is not evenly distributed. Women actually represent about two-thirds of the population. So, it’s actually kind of difficult to find men to relate to, but this time I found some. I had the privilege of having a heart-warming conversation with Nick appa, I drank with David, hung out with the walking Korean flag, Tim, and had a great dinner reserved by Brad. What was really incredible was I was able to share war stories with another combat veteran, Mitch. It felt like the universe finally granted me some peace, and the words are escaping me to describe what it feels like to find another person who has been through what I’ve been through, and who’s also been through what I’ve been through…you know what I’m saying? Everybody says they like dark humor until the two combat veterans walk in the room, ha!

You have a chance to vanish and start a new life. No one would know you, and no one would remember you either.

Would you do it?

If you had asked me this question even a year ago, I would have probably said yes, or at least I would have thought about it for some time. I have a lot of work to do, but I’m just not as hurt anymore–I don’t feel empty anymore. I’m almost certainly wrong about this, but I like to think the universe has some sort of cosmic scale, a balance. Maybe we were adopted because we were the ones who could handle this loss. Maybe we took that hurt away from others who wouldn’t have been able to shoulder it the same way. And if that’s the case, I’d volunteer to do this all over again. To that end, would I start a new life? Well, we’ve already done the hardest thing, haven’t we? In a sea of 8 billion souls, we’ve found each other. Looking back, if I had to go through this loss and heartbreak to find you all again, I’d shake my fist at the Cosmos, and remind it that my body armor is still hanging in my closet. I suppose I do feel lucky.

Battle born.

Appendix

I served approximately eleven years working for various parts of the federal government - in uniform, as a government civilian, and as a contractor. I fought two wars in four countries, on three continents, been blown up twice, had near catastrophic diving accidents, and bone-breaking parachute accidents. My medical record is about the size of a phonebook, which is not an exaggeration.

I won’t go into how I found my biological mother, but I’ll just say she wasn’t difficult to track down. When we did finally meet, I brought a translator with me and we had a conversation in her house; it was empty. As I looked around, I saw photos of her new family, baby photos, marriage photos, all of it. I searched around for any pictures of my sister and I. When I asked her about it, she told me she was not willing to add a picture of us to her collection.

Omma, I became a Judo champion, and I went to the Olympic trials, and I served in the military at the highest levels, and I’ve gone to combat, and I brought a Korean flag with me on my deployments. I have a bachelors degree, and a masters certificate, and I’m working on my Ph.D. I’ve done everything that would be demanded of a son of Korea. What more do I have to do for you to put a picture of me on your table?

She looked at me and she said, “There is nothing you can do. The world would shame me if they knew you were mine.”

Nothing has ever hurt me more.

Sometimes someone’s behavior is the answer you need. And I hope hurting me healed something in you. But now…now, I am no longer willing to miss anyone who knows where to find me, including the one who was supposed to love me the most.

[1] During the Global War on Terror, if your teammates kissed you on your forehead, it meant they didn’t plan on seeing you again. It is a last act of unconditional love shared between brothers.

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Questions? Comments? Leave a comment here and I’ll respond to it on my Spotify Podcast: Exploring with Jenna Lee Kim in an “unplugged” and unscripted way! You can also email me at jenna.tae.hee.kim@gmail.com

Thanks again to you, dear community. I’ll be presenting an excerpt from my eventual memoir at the end of the summer. Love, Jenna

Note: Spoiler Alerts for the Netflix Show: When Life Gives You Tangerines: 푹싹 속았수다

Originally published on April 21, 2025

Early on during my time on Jeju Island in Korea, I was walking down some steps on the path of an Olle along the southern coast. It was the end of summer. The day was hot and sticky, with only the slightest bit of relief from an occasional breeze off the water below.

My family and I had the path to ourselves. In those moments, you do feel as though you’re the only ones in an entire country, experiencing peace and beauty in an all-encompassing way.

Approaching us along the path was a woman about my age. Sad and soulful music was blaring from her cellphone. The sound was tinny and shallow, trying to reach beyond the scope of its capacity in the open air against the sea. It grew louder as she approached and so too did her weeping.

Wailing loudly in a world of her own, she walked slowly and deliberately, skirt waving around her legs, tears streaming down her face, music accompanying her sobs. When she saw us, her crying stopped. She bowed hastily in polite acknowledgement and then carried on with her sobbing as soon as she passed.

I’ll never forget this woman and the feelings she was freely putting out into the world at that moment.

I felt for and admired her at the same time.

It was like being an extra in her own personal K-Drama.

If you haven’t heard of K-Dramas, you’re not paying attention. In a world with too many options, 25%(ish) of American households are consistently adding K-Dramas to their binging repertoire.

I’d like to delve into this topic a bit deeper at another time, but for now, I’m still babying my puffy face thanks to the uncontrollable weeping I did last night after rotting on my couch to finish Korea’s latest hit, When Life Gives you Tangerines on Netflix. I gave in to the weeping on the final episode.

Something to understand about anything Korean is the underlying (but usually overt) sadness that supports the majority of storylines, layered with a moody, heart-wrenching foundation. I’ll often say to my friends about a Korean book (Human Acts, Island of Sea Women, Sex in The Big City, Pachinko) or K-Drama: “If it’s not sad, is it even about Korea?”

When Life Gives you Tangerines takes place here on Jeju Island. A K-Drama that spans four generations of a Korean family (and history) on Jeju? That’s double the sadness for double the feels.

Jeju has its own specific culture, dialect, and disproportionate share of human atrocities that have occurred in modern history. When Life Gives You Tangerines manages to add humor, raw emotion, and relatability to 16, hour-long episodes.

A few things struck me as I watched: This is a real portrayal of Korean and Jeju culture. This is an insider’s view of what it’s like to peel dozens of quail eggs, rinse seaweed, and ladle soup for your in-laws. Watching, you actually feel what it’s like to sit on the floor of your mother’s bedroom next to her mother-of-pearl wardrobe, rifling through the drawers to find hair clips and jewelry, and pulling out comforters and blankets to sleep on the floor with your family at night.

This is what it’s really like to navigate excruciating family dynamics related to marriage and inheriting someone else’s children through that marriage, what happens when your mother doesn’t like your girlfriend, and the hard work of selling produce and seafood on the streets every single day. From my knowledge of Haenyeo (Jeju’s famous women divers) culture - bantering, bickering, and - ultimately - loving each other - the portrayals shown in this show are on-point. Squid and fish boat captains, local town politics and elections, schoolyard culture of mid-century Korea, the academic pressures to succeed, money, economics, and how individual reputations follow you for generations… all of this tracks.

Minimally, if you’re interested in a realistic portrayal of life in Korea, Tangerines provides an intimate look into Jeju and Seoul - of the wealthy and those who struggled - and doesn’t try to add gloss or shine where it wouldn’t be.

This also makes the beauty of the scenery of Jeju stand out: the yellow Canola flower fields, the lava rocks along the cliffs of the ocean and that line the neighborhood paths, stacked with precision and care to protect crops and laundry from the strong winds... there’s nothing one needs to do to enhance any of this natural beauty. All of what you see in the cinematography is true to what it’s like to live here.

All of this - on top of beginning to recognize the cadence and common Korean expressions throughout the film - is information I feel privileged to know from living here.

Okay, real talk.

If you can get through the (somewhat insufferable) sobbing of the first couple of episodes and can keep up with the quick and smart transitions of time and flashbacks, you’re in for a heavy, gratuitous treat for your emotions. The utter gut punches of this family’s storyline will leave you holding on for dear life, wondering how you will ever survive knowing that people have experienced such pure love, loss, and sorrow. You come to love them in earnest, not just because the show dictates that you should.

It’s presented honestly. The themes are as relatable to you and me if the characters were sitting around a Thanksgiving table with mid-century modern furniture instead of shoulder-to-shoulder on the floor around a Korean bapsang.

What was most surprising to me was how deeply I related to the notes of motherhood - the all-encompassing love, the wonder, the anxiety, the constant feeling of guilt and inadequacy, and the deep appreciation we eventually feel for the mothers in our lives. All of this can be pulled out of each episode in tangible ways. In many ways, the characters in this show gave me some of the best insights and advice about motherhood that I’ve ever received.

Unlike other shows, Tangerines doesn’t hit on the major plot point of a tragic death like a punctuation mark and then move on. It unpacks the loss of a child in a thorough, painstaking, and beautiful way, like watching the tide ever-so-slowly recede into the great expanse of its ocean. It’s a slow burn, as it should be. It impacts a family’s life and it doesn’t let the audience forget it, even when there are moments when the characters themselves do what they can to cope by burying it.

Who, as parents - especially mothers - can’t relate to feeling overwhelmed, exasperated, and at a loss for how to best care for a strong-willed toddler or teenager? Who doesn’t know the feeling of seeing their child as a perpetual kid waving to us as they ride away?

Who, as former children, doesn’t understand the pressures we feel from our parents - whether eldest, youngest, or somewhere in between? Who can’t recognize the expectations we have to succeed, meeting the bar set for us - whether it was high or low - all while feeling a pull to resent our parents and simultaneously knowing they gave us their all?

Who, as humans yearning to connect and belong, can’t remember a time when the most passionate of loves wasn’t enough? When something - family, a job, distance, time, basic misunderstandings - stood in the way of making it work? Or when it’s more painful to watch the person you love hurting than any pain that may be inflicted upon yourself? It left me, as many K-Dramas do, wondering if I’ll ever have someone love me like Gwan-sik actively expresses love for Ae-Sun.

Perhaps, each of us will take away whatever is most buried within our emotions at this very moment.

Tangerines is clever as it illustrates the passage of time. It connects scenes you thought were insignificant to the present in the most satisfying way, like watching breadcrumbs transform into the most decadent layer cake.

Crying is an emotion many of us are taught to suppress. If you’re like me and practicing the art of feeling or you’re simply looking for an excuse to put aside your own worries for some indulgent, unapologetic crying, watch this show.

Oh, and When Life Gives You Tangerines is most certainly not the original Korean title. Modified for an English-speaking audience, you can tell it’s a play on words that we in the west will understand. The original title is something that can’t quite be translated directly from Jejuian: “푹싹 속았수다” roughly translated means: “You worked hard, thank you for your hard work, you’ve suffered a lot.” On mainland Korean you might say: 고생 했어요.

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My guess is that this is a phrase common in Korea used to express the hard work and suffering Korea understands all too intimately. Recognizing both is key to beginning to understand the history and culture of the people of Jeju Island and their peers on the mainland.

Have you watched When Life Gives you Tangerines? Let me know what you thought. Questions? Comments? Leave a comment here and I’ll respond to it on my Spotify Podcast: Exploring with Jenna Lee Kim in an “unplugged” and unscripted way! You can also send a message here or email me at jenna.tae.hee.kim@gmail.com.

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This summer, I present to you a “Best Of” series of past essays, revisiting them for new subscribers and dedicated followers who may remember a Jenna who has already evolved greatly from a recent past. Thank you. (Paid subscribers have access to my entire portfolio via the Substack app or website.)

If you’re not already following, you can also listen to any of my essays in audio form for free on Spotify.

Thanks again to you, dear community. I’ll be presenting an excerpt from my eventual memoir at the end of the summer. Love, Jenna

p.s. If you’re on Facebook, I’ll be launching my new page in the fall. Check it out here if you haven’t already! Thanks for sharing.

Originally published on January 13, 2025

If you didn’t know, there is a house in Media, Pennsylvania called the Dr. Philip Jaisohn** House (known as Seo JaePil in Korea). I’ll always remember meeting a woman there in the spring of 2022, who, at the time, I believe was serving on the board for the Philip Jaisohn Memorial Foundation.

If I met her today, I would refer to her as unni (or older sister). She didn't stay still to talk to me. In a way that I have come to learn as being very Korean, she busied herself while we made small talk, tending to the gardens of the stately, brick house while I told her about my upcoming trip and reunion with family in Korea.

Looking back, I’m chagrined at how incredibly green I was, knowing nothing about Korean history outside of the very basics: that there had once been a Korean conflict that resulted in the establishment of a North and a South Korea. A tiny country, invaded over the years due to its unfortunate geographical position as a peninsula, engulfed by its bigger neighbors, Japan and China. I had some sense that there has been suffering: poverty, war, occupation. But not one to be naturally drawn to the intricacies of history, and even despite the fact that it was the country of my birth, I lived like most basic Americans my age.

That's Korea "over there."

Whatever is in its past, it seems to be doing pretty well now.

At the Philip Jaisohn house, my newly found unni told me about how she learned of Dr. Jaisohn and his role in the Korean independence movement. Said with a coy tone of playful jest and a hint of seriousness, she mentioned a budding crush on him: A natural admiration for someone who did so much in history for us: Koreans.

After a pause, pulling up a weed and tossing it into a growing pile, she said, "My goal is to plant two thousand red flowers here in honor of the 2,000 students who died in the uprising." She said it as a matter of fact, as much to herself as anything directed toward me.

It hadn’t been her intention, but her words were startling.

Uprising? 2,000 students?

Some piece of my subconscious understood I should store away this bit of information for a later time when I needed to access it.

Not then.

At that moment, there were other, more urgent matters for my brain to process, like preparing to meet a man who, three months prior, I didn't know existed. Who, three months later, would materialize into my birth father.

18 months later, I wasn’t thinking about those 2,000 flowers, but I did find myself conducting a search for "Korean books translated into English." It was my turn to select something for my book club, arranged by my friend, Brenda, a retired Korean American journalist from LA who built a Jeju-style stone house with her husband on the island less than an hour's drive from my new home in Korea. (She wrote a book called “Stone House on Jeju Island” you can find here.) With the time and quiet to read for the first time since college, I felt determined to use the opportunity effectively: I wanted to choose something that would educate as well as entertain.

I chose a book called Blood Sisters by Kim Yideum set just before I was born in the early 1980s, focused on young people, setting the tone for what it must have been like in Korea 40+ years ago... a country filled with political unrest, only a generation removed from the Korean Conflict, two from Japanese occupation, and under the dictator-style leadership.

A remnant of my American education, I had always been under the impression that a true democracy was established after the Republic of Korea was formed. After all, the USA had been an aid in its independence and helped divide and separate from the interests, ideals, and allies of North Korea.

In reality, for the past 70 years, nuanced conflicts have continued to exist on the ground in Korea. The pattern of unrest in politics, presidents, and protests has continued to be controversial, wrapped up in corruption, scapegoating, and a fair share of scandals up to and including the political landscape of present day.

Blood Sisters was not a crowd pleaser among my club: the protagonist was unlikable and the translation, perhaps, was a bit clunky. I, however, understood and felt the palpable pain and fear in its pages, the directionless loss, and the conflict between the main character’s desire to stay and please or cut and run. I understood the environment of 1980s Korea that the author was conveying: it was not a safe time for young people, especially women. Especially young women.

Time went by, and my life in Korea began to plateau into something that looked quite different from when I made my first book club selection in the fall of 2023.

On December 4, I woke up to the rude notification of my alarm, rolled over to grab my phone, and started to aimlessly scroll on the screen, a daily ritual of attempting to catch up on all that I’d missed on the east coast while sleeping. About a dozen messages popped up from friends and family.

"Saw the news! Are you okay?"

Still half asleep, I had to look up Korea on Google to try and decipher what they might be referring to. A declaration of martial law by the president? What exactly did that mean? There I was on the island of Jeju, an hour flight from Seoul. As far as I could tell, everything was fine.

At morning drop-off at my kids' school, I ran into a Korean mom friend. "Did you hear? What do you think?" She looked at me blankly for a moment, eyes with question marks, and I saw her brain shift with understanding and her smile emerged. "Oh, yes! It's okay. I think it's over now, anyway!" She shrugged off my question and we went about our days.

"Don't worry!" I wrote back to people who had reached out. "Literally no one here seems remotely concerned."

And they didn't.

Moms were dropping off kids as usual. Classes had not been canceled. No messages of importance had come through the official (or even unofficial) school apps. Close friends and family members in Korea - who would have known I’d need some extra instructions and information - had not contacted me with special warnings. I didn't hear sirens. Had I not received messages from friends in the west - who were watching events unfold during their afternoon and while I was asleep - I would not have known anything had happened.

I went about my day as usual, driving to my new friend Jill's apartment, just a stone's throw from my house by the ocean. She drove us toward the center of the island to meet her friend, I'll call her MinJee.

Earlier that fall, I had asked Jill - a resident of Korea since the 90s, if she had any older, Korean friends who spoke English. I had questions about life in Korea, family dynamics, and the intricacies of birthdays that Koreans my age simply could not speak to with as much familiarity.

MinJee was finishing up lunch at the small international school where she works when Jill and I arrived. We all drove together to a nearby cafe, famous for its milk tea and modern-style meeting rooms.

"You'll have to forgive me," she said when we settled in the car. "I was up all night watching the live coverage."

Jill and I asked for her to share more.

Over lattes and apple crumb cake at the cafe, she explained. "I was in college in 1980 during the last order for martial law. It was truly horrible. I suppose I have some lingering PTSD."

I listened intently. She was almost exactly the age of my birth parents, both of whom grew up in and near the South Jeolla Province, in the cities of Mokpo and Gwangju, where influence and wealth had not necessarily fallen as Korea began to grow out of the war years. Gwangju: the location of what is known as the Uprising where anywhere from 200 to 2,000 young people were brutally killed during their attempt to protest their government in 1980.

Something in my brain rolled over. I thought about my unni at the Philip Jaisohn house back in Pennsylvania, unlocking the memory of her goal to plant 2,000 red flowers in their honor.

Listening to MinJee’s perspective, I began to understand why a president declaring martial law would impact her and her generation in a way that it would not for others my age and younger.

We didn’t live through a time when people were being gunned down in the streets at the hands of our government.

In the coming days, clued-in to the seriousness of the situation, I watched the headlines and followed the current president's statement for motives, learned of the Korean parliament members who went in during the early morning hours to vote against the declaration of martial law, breaking into the building, doing everything they could to stop it as soon as possible. I watched reels and headlines that went viral, of Korean celebrities buying coffees for thousands of protestors in the streets, songs being sung, signs being held, and the general unity and tidy peacefulness of a country holding on to democracy.

Korean political protests in recent years have not necessarily been this peaceful or harmonious. Even still, I felt a sort of pride, especially being a witness to American news where similar protests can turn into violence and vandalism.

I have never heard of anyone giving out free coffees to crowds in Washington, DC.

"Let's read Han Kang's Human Acts," Brenda said. It seemed fitting in light of the author being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature earlier in the year, and Brenda, I suspect, understood the timing of reading it would be significant given the current political climate.

The Human Acts introduction from its translator, Deborah Smith, said the following:

“... Recently, [the president] had succumbed to the classic authoritarian temptation to institute increasingly repressive measures… Park’s declaration of martial law in response to demonstrations in the far south was, to some, a sign that something had to give… By May Chun had used the excuse of rumored North Korean infiltration to expand martial law to the entire country.”

... and it struck me that parts of this statement, published in 2016 written about 1979 and 1980, could be directly applied to today. History had begun to repeat itself and the Korean people have been on the streets with a clear message.

No more.

Not again.

I brought Human Acts on the plane with me and my children, flying to the mainland from the island via Jeju Air just 5 days after the tragedy of flight 2216 where 179 souls senselessly died in Muan.

It was the 11th time I had been in the air within three months. I have never felt a fear of flying. Fear, in general, is not a go-to emotion for me.

But that day, I felt it.

It engulfed me, starting with anxiety leading up to the trip (I had booked it prior to the day of the accident), jumping to asking trusted loved ones if they thought I should still go (as if their knowledge of the future and aviation safety was greater than mine). I felt fear gripping me as I tossed and turned the night before, waking up every couple of hours to check the time, and reaching a climax when I walked onto the plane at that moment, finding my seat, my kids beside me.

As I walked onto the plane, I eyed the familiar sight of its open door and huge nose taking up the peripheral vision to my left.

My brain buzzed. “The mothers on that flight, they didn’t know this was the last sight they’d ever see on solid ground.”

Strapping in, we were sitting above the wing of the plane, the Jeju Air logo directly in my line of sight as I stared out at the “Welcome to Jeju” sign prominently displayed on the airport, my kids content with their tablets plugged into their headphones.

I eyed their bookbags pushed neatly and thoroughly under the seats in front of them, as if this specific act would save them in the event of a crash or a failed engine. The pilot’s voice filled the air of the cabin. Wistfully, I thought, he must be saying something meaningful and profound, a message to quell our fears and anxieties, paying tribute to the lives lost only days before. But the English translation confirmed he was relaying routine details about the flight, which felt hollow and inappropriate in the face of what I was feeling.

I handed each child a Starburst candy to relieve the pressure in their ears when we ascended and I sent messages to friends. "I swear I'm close to an actual panic attack," I wrote. "Sit with your feet flat on the ground and concentrate on your breathing," one wrote back.

I did as I was told.

I closed my eyes and breathed.

Overcome, tears dripped down my face. And though rationally, I knew my kids and I would be safe on this very routine flight to the mainland, I felt afraid.

Fear for the last moments the people on that plane must have felt. Overwhelming grief for what family and community members of each victim of that crash must have faced when they saw the fire, heard the news, understood the reality. Anxiety for Koreans who had to live through watching their president recklessly declare martial law after having witnessed the fallout of such an act 45 years before. Fear thinking about the innocence of my kids, trusting me to make decisions for them while they sat, unaware of horrendous accidents and unspeakable atrocities that humans must face in their world.

When we landed safely, the fear immediately dissipated.

The anxiety and grief clung to my heart.

And the weekend with my Appa, his wife, and my sister went on as planned, me reading Human Acts in between meals while they napped or stayed glued to the news and updates on the president’s situation. On my last night with them, I tapped into the translation app on my phone, "Appa, I am reading this book. Do you know it?" He nodded, a small smile on his face.

"You were 24 during the Gwangju Uprising." He nodded, this time with more conviction.

"Do you think the Korean government was honest about what happened back then?"

He looked up sharply. "NO!" he said, the sound coming from his toes.

I asked if he knew people who were impacted, and he nodded, yes.

Pausing, I typed more, "They say that 200 or as many as 2,000 people were killed. What do you think?"

He leaned over, understanding the process. He could speak slowly into my phone and it would - hopefully - translate it into English for me. His South Jeolla accent curbed as much as he could, he spoke clearly.

I turned the screen to face me and was awe-struck by his words:

2천명도 더 주고서 민주화 운동

We would give another 2,000 lives for the pro-democracy movement.

I have watched many tragic and soul-crushing moments on the news and in communities where I’ve lived. None have ever impacted me so directly and with such force as the culmination of national events Korea experienced this fall.

It could be that I’m older, my frontal lobe fully developed, capable of awareness and fear. It could be that as a good friend of mine often says, the more we experience in life, the more capable our hearts are for empathy.

No matter the reason, it is a strange time to be in Korea.

I can’t help but think that it is a strange time to be anywhere.

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**Philip Jaisohn was the first official Korean naturalized American citizen, escaping to the US for asylum after a failed attempt at a grassroots coup he and some friends were leading. Born in 1864, he went on to become a medical doctor, married with kids, and one of the leaders of the independence movement in the greater Philadelphia area, mobilizing Korean Americans with information in print (the first American newspaper written in Hangul) about what was going on back in Korea. Currently, the Philip Jaisohn Memorial Foundation arranges medical and health care, social services, and education in the community. You can arrange to tour the museum, his former home, in Media, PA.

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Writing regularly has kept both my mind and heart grounded, nimble, and humble through some personally challenging times. I want to thank everyone who has subscribed and supported me - almost 500 strong! - particularly those of you who have paid to support my efforts. This kind gesture has allowed me to travel in Korea. Other times, it has kept the literal heat on during cold winter months.

This summer, I present to you a “Best Of” series of past essays, revisiting them for new subscribers and dedicated followers who may remember a Jenna who has already evolved greatly from a recent past. Thank you. (Paid subscribers have access to my entire portfolio via the Substack app or website.)

If you’re not already following, you can also listen to any of my essays in audio form for free on Spotify.

Thanks again to you, dear community. I’ll be presenting an excerpt from my eventual memoir at the end of the summer. Love, Jenna

Author’s Note: This essay isn’t “just” about camping. :)

Originally published on October 14, 2024

The first time I accidentally went camping was in April of 2024. It’s not merely the first time it was accidental. It is the first time I have *ever* been camping.  

In Korea, it’s a whole “thing.” You can search for reels about it on social media. In a culture of food and togetherness, camping is vibrant, elaborate, delicious, and an experience.

… But it still entails walking outside to use the restroom, sleeping in a camper or a tent, and being exposed to the elements. If you know me personally, I know you’re chuckling at my expense. If you don’t, just know that I describe myself as “outsidey:” an avid patio-sitter when the weather is 72 degrees and perfect. I like the outdoors. I simply need to be able to relocate to a temperature-controlled environment whenever I want to. 

The first time it happened - the accidental camping - I was with my 4-year-old daughter on a gals’ trip to visit my appa and his wife over spring break. We took a short ferry ride to the mainland from Jeju, and he met us on the island of Jindo which connects to the southernmost part of the Korean peninsula. 

The next morning, after a night at their home in the very rural outskirts of Mokpo, the port city where I was born, my Korean parents motioned for us to climb into the camper. It didn’t faze me. It’s our usual mode of transportation when I visit.

However, after driving over an hour to a beach, an afternoon of food and chatting, and watching the sun begin to lower in the sky, I slowly began to understand my fate: sleeping in a camper when I had brought along no toiletries, change of clothes, or even my glasses. 

Needless to say, I did survive. And my daughter had a blast. 

Setting aside my typical layer of anxiety and a need to control my environment, I had grown accustomed to settling in, being well cared for, and never quite knowing what’s going on when I’m with my Korean family. I actually bask in the feeling of being led around to different relatives’ houses, tourist sites, cafes, or walks around my appa’s farm. During the first year of living in Korea, I had never taken the time to ask anyone, “What’s happening next?”

But now that camping was an option, next time, I vowed, I wouldn’t be caught off guard.

So, over Chuseok this year, affectionately known to some as “Korean Thanksgiving,” a harvest festival around a full moon of autumn when families return to their hometown, eat, pay tribute to their ancestors, and spend about three days in celebration with one another, the kids and I - now 5 and 8 - took the ferry once again to the mainland to see my appa and his side of my Korean family.

… And this time… this time, I was prepared.

The morning after we arrived, I spied my appa’s wife walking outside with a large metal bowl filled with cans of Cass and Coke, bottles of soju, and waters… and I knew. 

“Appa,” I wrote in the translation app. “Where are we going?”

“A beautiful, clear beach,” he said. And I marched inside to grab our prepared bag of toiletries, glasses, change of clothes, rain coats, boots, flip flops, bug repellent, snacks, battery packs, Kindles, and a book. 

Something I never thought about is just how much coastline there is in Korea. I don’t think beaches are the first thing that come to mind when we hear the name of the little country of my birth, but there are hundreds of islands off the coast, more than 5,200 miles of shoreline around the entire peninsula, and the tropical paradise of Jeju, my current home.

Both beaches where I’ve camped in Korea have been pristine, humbly presenting white sand and tiny shells, crabs, and fish. You can walk out to the place where the water reaches the shoreline and have the entire space to yourself. There’s quiet around the sound of the waves. The sky is vast against the horizon. And you may just think to yourself, “I can’t believe this is Korea.”

My appa’s wife set out to work as soon as we arrived with the camper, settling it between some tall, evergreen trees behind the sand. Camping chairs, a sturdy folding table, a dozen or so banchan (side dishes), a gas grill off to the side, and a cooler of beverages were brought out, set up, and soon, we were feasting on pork belly, rice, spicy scallions, kimchi, and other spicy vegetables and dipping sauces.

A folding mat was set out for the kids and I to lay around playing games if we weren’t walking to the beach. 

My son and daughter were content to settle inside the camper, making videos on their kindles and playing together in the novelty of the tiny space they could claim as their own for a time. 

I sat under the camper’s awning with my appa, his wife, and his friends, a couple who met us there to celebrate Chuseok by the ocean. With them were their three teenage daughters who appeared when food was laid out, disappearing again when meals were finished.

My appa finds it easier to speak to another Korean who can relay his message via the translation app on my phone, rather than attempting to speak into it himself. 

It’s a cumbersome process that takes a bit of time; this tedious game of whisper-down-the-lane must also go the opposite direction when I have something to say. Those of us involved are never quite sure if what is being communicated is accurate. Once in a while, I take screenshots of appa’s messages to show to Korean-speaking friends at a later time. Korean has so many expressions and figures of speech that do not always translate accurately in English. 

Using this method, we had a conversation by the ocean on the day before Chuseok. With soju in our bellies, the sea air cradling our heads, and the children content to play, I felt in my core that it was time. 

I shared the news with my birth father that earlier this year, I met my birth mother. 

Surprised but not shocked or upset, he understood, asking questions and nodding, the skin around his eyes - eyes that match mine - rested in a solemn place.

Later, just after sunset, I walked alone to the empty beach. On either side of me in the distance, fellow campers were setting off small fireworks, cutting through the sound of the ocean waves and the stillness of the darkness against the sand.

Appa followed and stood beside me, with no friend to help us communicate, we faced the ocean, side-by-side on the beach. He asked to see the picture I had of my omma, one I had cropped and placed in a grid next to a picture of me smiling with the same expression.

She and I have the same upper cheek dimples and the same shape to our face, a face that I also see when I look at my son. Studying our pictures together, I’m an equal mix of both my appa and my omma. 

He stared at the picture.

“Did you love each other?” I asked. Without answering the question directly, or perhaps this is the question he believed he was answering, he said, “You love your mom and dad. Your mom and your dad love you very much.” His face was what I can only describe as wistful, a heaviness and nostalgia in his presence and his gaze, remembering a time I would never know from 40 years ago. 

As I sit and write this, I’m overlooking the ocean. Mara Island, or Mara-Do is on the horizon of crashing waves, fishing boats moving toward it in the foreground. My favorite coffee cafe has seats situated to face this view out of large picture windows. A moment before, the proprietor, who always brings me a complimentary baked good with my espresso and cream, motioned for us to step outside to watch the dolphins in the water.

While I can’t go back in time to know what happened between my birth parents in 1983, I can stand with my birth father during a camping trip along the coast of the southernmost point of the country where I was born. 

I can sit in the present and look out toward the waves on a Tuesday afternoon while my kids are at school.

And I can work for the rest of my life to be at peace with the neverending questions and sorrow of my past. It led to many imperfect people’s lives being different because of it, including mine.

I don’t like camping. 

But I will be forever grateful for Chuseok 2024 when I went camping with my appa.

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It was the era of low-rise fitted jeans and cute tops. Wavy hair. Expendable income! My first full-time job, a new car, and something to prove.

Having to make my own goal posts, rules, and playbook with no report cards or ascending grade level to aim for… only the rest of my life and endless choices for what to do with it.

The world and my future were both full of possibilities. Wide open. Shiny.

And scary AF.

It was during this year of freedom, confusion, second-guessing, excitement, fun, recklessness, and youth that I began practicing yoga regularly.

I was introduced to it a few years prior as an undergrad during annual Resident Assistant training with the Department of Residence Life & Housing at my alma mater in central Pennsylvania (although in Pennsylvania, we just say “PA”). Apart from occasional small-town market festivals, dirt speedway spectatorship, Walmart, 24-hour Dunkin Donuts, exactly 5 bars, and a couple of restaurants, there wasn’t a lot to do.

But this little yoga studio - with a straight-up yogi who I remember calling himself Sadharma - was the site of one of the first true cross-cultural experiences I can remember.

There we were - a bunch of teens and young adults, squeezing into the sanctuary of an old church, all of its pews removed, as we listened to Sadharma’s pleasant, peppy, yet soothing voice fill the tall, open, warm space. His long beard and flowy, white cotton outfit made us feel like we were in another world.

He’d sit, his old nimble knees hitting the floor to his sides, a small smile on his gentle face as he talked to us about life. How as a baby, all of us are able to do each pose in yoga with no problems, as the stressors and tension and expectations of life have not yet hit our muscles and our bones.

Each of the poses came easily to me. He stood over me, the rest of my peers watching, instructing me to put my leg that way, my arm under there, my other leg there. “Do you feel a stretch yet?” he asked. I paused, believing I was supposed to say, “Yes,” but feeling bold and comfortable enough to tell the truth - a rarity in those days - “No…”

Put that arm there, then. Move your shoulder that direction, open up your chest.

Eventually, we found a position where my body turned outward and I felt a satisfying stretch in my limbs.

It’s a privilege to discover something that is effortless for your body to do, like any athlete who first throws a ball or hits a puck. But I’m no athlete. My body is naturally flexible, but the yin to this yang is my lack of physical strength to accompany it.

That year after college, with more expendable time than I’d ever experienced in my life, no one to answer to, and each decadent day to make my own… I panicked. Slowly. Instead of reveling in the spare time, it gave me anxiety.

Too much time to be in my own thoughts.

Restlessness.

These are feelings I wouldn’t recognize or address for another 20 years.

But it was during that time I started yoga in the tiny living room of that first long winter after college.

Across 2 DVDs, it was the kind of yoga that featured slow, swoony, melodic music while a woman with impossibly controlled movements and a great ass practiced yoga on a beach at sunset, waves behind her. This wasn’t hot yoga, aerobic yoga, aerial yoga, or anything that would be trendy by today’s standards.

From these DVDs, I learned the movements of the sun salutation, how to position my body to stand correctly by pushing my thighs with my hands, creating the proper alignment of my back.

At 23, I didn’t have to worry about pulling a muscle in my tense neck, and I didn’t think much about engaging my core while I did the movements. It was simply enough to get into Warrior 1, 2, and 3 and move my body, taking it for granted the way only a young person can. Lying in savasana at the end is the closest thing to peace I felt that year in between weeping unexpectedly in parking lots, unsure of what direction to take with my life, putting pressure on my Self to make all of the “right” decisions.”

At some point, I had a decision to make: take a leap and move to NYC… try and make it there the way I’d always fantasized about. Get back together with my toxic, on-again, off-again boyfriend from college. Stay in that suburban town in Maryland for another year, bored at work, doing yoga, having fun on the weekends. Or return to central PA, to the tiny town next door to Sadharma, for a great job opportunity, familiar friends and places.

My therapist at the time - her name was Robin and the first person in my life to really challenge the way I was thinking - told me in so many words: Don’t take the path of least resistance.

Back then, I didn’t understand what this meant.

I never returned to see Robin after the session where she told me something I knew to be correct in my heart but rejected strongly with my brain. It was easier. At 23, I was decades away from understanding what it meant to listen to my body, to push back against my logical brain, to stop trying to do anything that starts or ends with a “should.”

So, I packed up, and I moved back to a small town of 5,000 people. I went on to succeed in a career that I built for myself, with great friends, amazing experiences, a marriage, a first house, a fence (black aluminum, not picket, but close), and a couple of dogs… and eventually, a different small, 5,000-person town, another fence (split board), and a couple of kids.

And zero time for yoga.

Instead, I spent many years being busy. Very busy, putting myself last but believing I was building a life I should be creating. The stress, tension, and weight of this slow and invasive pressure creeping into my body like liquid lead.

Until the day I stepped into a yoga studio in Korea, 20 years after my own personal living-room sessions in Maryland.

There, amongst other Korean moms, the instructor with her low, calming voice, her body moving with control and grace, making each chaturanga look easy and fluid.

Still flexible, there are differences now.

My neck and shoulders are tight.

My knees crack during floor exercises.

I’m aware of my lower back in downward dog and how my arms shake when lowering myself to the ground, my shoulders devoid of any strength from these past 20 years of writing at my laptop.

And.

After yoga, I feel incredible.

I feel physically and mentally good in a way that someone in her young 20s, who can still move in any direction without thinking about it, is unable to understand without the life experience in front of her.

Because the class is in Korean, I have to stay present and in tune the entire time, completely in the moment with the women around me, watching them from the corner of my eye to know which direction to turn, listening to the tones of our instructor’s voice that tell me she’s simply speaking in a soft cadence to encourage us, or asking us to change, move, or try something new.

She walks around, giving gentle corrections with her hands, showing us what our bodies are capable of, how they’re meant to be.

“Power,” she said to me once, pulling my hips upward, tapping my stomach. Engage your core. Lift up from your center. Feel the stretch along the entire side of your body. Use the natural angles your body is creating to build strength as you place a hand on your leg, or push your hips to the side, look behind you.

The earth is your resistance but also your guide. You can fall into her, use her to brace yourself, and find center as you balance on one leg, your favorite mountain out the window in front of you.

Standing with my hands clasped behind me, pulling my shoulders and head backwards toward the ground, I couldn’t relax my upper body enough to let my head drop naturally and not feel pain.

I felt our instructor’s warm presence in front of me even before I felt her touch.

She looped her arms through mine and pulled up, elongating my spine toward the sky. I swear I could actually feel my vertebrae unclick and release, one by one. Because she was there, I knew I wouldn’t fall backwards. I let my neck release and my head drop. And for a moment, I felt suspended in the air, safe in my own body in this room with Koreans, in the country where I was born, where I have felt the most amount of the world’s hardships and personal stress, expectations, disappointments, struggle, and grief.

… And the place where I learned - slowly - to let all of that go. Vertebrae by vertebrae.

Like Sadharma said more than 20 years ago… before his unexpected and untimely death… when he was living a simple and peaceful life in central PA with the rest of us, talking to a bunch of teenagers, imparting life wisdom and knowledge onto us long before we were ready to understand the true meaning of his words…

We were all able to be free and fluid, moving easily when we were babies. Before the world made us rigid and unsure.

I don’t know yet if I’m in touch with that baby. That little girl. That inner child people talk about. But I do know the woman I am right now is someone she would be in awe of.

Together, though there are STILL no clear goal posts, rules, or playbook for determining success or what’s next… we now understand the specific path and however we define “success” aren’t what’s important.

Whatever is next is open and free. Instead of being scary, it’s now full of peace, knowing that whatever comes, I can trust myself to take us there: Me and that little baby inside.

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Thanks! Read on…

I don’t remember when I first learned of the “Korean Mermaids,” “The Korean Women Divers,” or “The Korean Women of the Sea.” Haenyeo. 해녀. Sea Women.

Like everything else about the country where I was born - but not where I became me - they seemed far away and foreign, impossible to be acquainted with or understand.

Looking at me, you might be surprised by this. I have the face of a Korean. But for most of my life, it was rare that I noticed her in the mirror.

I didn’t feel close to Korea: a country with a distinct history and culture that didn’t feel like my own.

But then I unexpectedly met my birth father - my Appa - and moved with my family to Jeju Island in Korea.

Jeju Island. The island of wind, rock… and women. A place where I would - slowly - begin to observe, learn, heal, and absorb tiny connections to the land where my face blends in and belongs, though the rest of me may never catch up.

The autumn after moving to Korea, I read Island of Sea Women. Historical fiction, the author, Lisa See, spent time on the island doing research, including with a Korean American friend of mine, Brenda Paik Sunoo, a journalist and author from LA who spent time researching the culture of Haenyeo.

The book haunted me for months, scenes from the life of Jeju women who, out of necessity to feed their families, dove into the frigid cold and dangerous waters, hunting to catch abalone, octopus, sea urchin and cucumber, various shellfish, and seaweed along the shores.

Today, they dive in rubber wet suits and flippers, but they began generations ago in short uniforms made of cotton. They won’t use air tanks, because they only want to catch what is natural and not deplete the growth and supply of seafood in their area of the ocean.

Women, with more body fat and - arguably - temperaments more conducive to the patience and mental endurance needed for sea harvesting, have been diving for generations around Korea, Japan, and even Russia. Up until the late 1900s they often began their training at age 8 or 9.

A friend of mine, Soonja, born in 1959 and raised on the island, says she could swim in the waters near Hallim before she learned to walk. I can imagine a world, so big and bright when you’re a child, surrounded by water and women who dive in the sea the same as if they were walking to the market.

Men were often taken away for military service or work on fishing boats. Women were the matriarchs of tiny villages, leading movements during Japanese occupation to fight for independence, protest taxes on what they sold from their ocean harvests, all while earning enough money to feed their families, send their boys to college, and provide dowries for their girls.

Because these women are not only part of a rich tradition, culture, and history, Korea has recognized Haenyeo as nationally recognized treasures, supported by the government with health benefits, financial assistance, and even a retirement plan (many Haenyeo retiring well into their 80s and 90s).

There is some general controversy over the world’s interest in them. Taking pictures, seeing them as some kind of a spectacle… Seeing Haenyeo stickers, plushies, and cartoonish statues in tourist shops makes me raise an eyebrow. I can’t help but compare it to coming to your place of work and taking pictures, drawing cartoons of you at your desk, and putting you on a coffee tumbler as a caricature. Their growing popularity, the interest in their work, culture, and history - beginning perhaps 15 – 20 years ago - is recent enough that I have met friends on the island who arrived before the rest of the world knew about them, and when everyone began to show curiosity.

At first, these women, tough as the lava rock around their gardens and pragmatic as the ocean is wide, were – understandably – skeptical. Maybe confused. Why would you want a “recipe” for my soups? I don’t have one. I make it to feed my family just like my mother and grandmother did before me. Women didn’t begin this for glory or recognition. They did it while pregnant. They did it while nursing. They did it for the survival of their families.

On the other hand, Koreans are full of pride in their culture, and the Haenyeo women I have met are happy to show off their skills, pleased that others are interested in them, and don’t seem to mind welcoming friends if there is respect, honest curiosity, and good conversation along with some treats to say a respectable “thank you!” for their time.

Yes, Haenyeo culture is alive and well on Jeju Island, with perhaps about 2,400 still active in fishing villages (run by a head of a fishing association) all along the coasts.

Often, when I’m out for a drive to a cafe or to do some errands, I’ll spy them on their matching motorbikes, their signature bright orange buoys or tewak (테왁) slung off their side, diving mask on top of their head, caravaning to the place they will jump into the sea for an afternoon of work. I’ve watched, flippers moving the air just above the surface as their owner’s head is 180 degrees south in the water, using her kkakkuri (까꾸리) to pull sea life off of a rock.

In the fall of 2025, I had the honor of accompanying a Korean adoptee friend to observe a typical day of diving for a local village. My friend, Kylie, now trained and certified to be Haenyeo and join this rich tradition of women, arranged for us to visit.

We walked with Kylie and her colleagues along a coastal road to an entry point. Some of the women stopped every so often, the 8 to 16 pounds of weight around their waist (helpful to make them sink in the water, but not-so-comfortable while walking on the asphalt of dry land) making their hips and knees hurt, the average age among them about 70 years old. The eldest was 93.

Watching these women arrive at their diving location, walk carefully over lava rock, the bright orange highlights of their wet suits like starbursts against the porous black surfaces before they unceremoniously jumped into the ocean… it is a moment I’ll always remember.

Later, Kylie - at the time known as a “Baby Haenyeo” - and I would join my friend and her Korean birth family for a visit at her maternal grandparents’ home. They treated us to lunch afterwards. Her grandparents, mother, and two siblings. Afterwards, we tagged along as they showed us greenhouses of their tangerine farm. I took family portraits for them at a local cafe overlooking the ocean.

Wow.

It’s these surreal blips on my personal timeline that remind me that I’m not living a typical life of a Korean adoptee or an American. I live two blocks from the ocean and 3 lighthouses, 8 minutes of a drive away from two beautiful mountains that sit by the sea, and actual mermaids who work during the winter months to feed their families.

There is something startling and bright about learning pieces of any history connected to a country and culture that - slowly - I am embracing as my own.

It’s about meeting women of Jeju Island who have told me that this island makes women strong… including me. About knowing, in the back of my mind, that my birth mother’s surname is uniquely Jejuian, and that perhaps somewhere, I have familial roots on this island, too. It’s about living in a place that is so unique with something so spectacular… and yet seen as so common among the people who live, work, and play here.

The Haenyeo are an incredible reminder to me that even in difficult times, we can still move forward in whatever village we consider to be ours - together and for one another - as we move haphazardly along the beautiful struggle of our days.

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The backseat of the car when you’re a little kid and one or both of your parents is in the front. Remember not ever wanting to open your eyes from the woozy feeling of falling asleep in that warm corner, no matter how uncomfortably your head had fallen against your neck? You can’t imagine ever wanting to wake up or move from that spot.

Is there any deeper, more secure feeling? Your parents have it all under control. The wheels of the car along a country road, having lulled you to sleep as the streetlights dimly flash in regular beats out the window. You don’t have to worry about a thing. You’re too little for any dangers to occur to you in those moments. And your dad will carry you inside to your bed when you arrive home.

It was my Dad who taught me to drive. We started off in the middle school parking lot in the largest car anyone at my school had ever seen – a 1988 Mercury Marquis Brougham, blue. The paint on it was faded, the hood beginning to turn an unseemly brown color. The doors locked automatically when you put it into drive, slamming down like hammers falling onto a steel plate.

“You see that telephone pole right there?” he said. My Dad was a calm and pragmatic instructor.

“Mmhm,” I said, a 16-year-old with an undeveloped frontal lobe.

“That pole will not move if you run into it. But a deer will. Never swerve for the deer.”

My parents raised me to be risk-averse and especially cautious, responsible for my Self and whatever happened to me. I knew from an early age they wouldn’t bail me out of jail or financial holes. To this day, I don’t charge anything to a credit card unless I know I can pay it off in full at the end of a month. I’ve always kept a planner. There are never dirty dishes in my sink, and I’ll always send a sympathy card or a thank you note when it’s needed.

I’m a classic people-pleasing perfectionist. I tilt to the side of worrier: a planner in my best moments and a control-freak at my worst.

I think wistfully about those moments when I was a kid, falling asleep in the backseat of the car: Not in control and not needing to be. In most of my adult life, relaxing has felt like wasting time. Sleeping? Even worse.

When we moved to Korea and I first began to spend time with my birth father in the very southwest corner of the peninsula in Jeollanam-Do, an area near the coast just south of Mokpo, the city where I was born, I realized I had no idea what was going on. Ever.

We’d get into an uncle’s car or my Appa’s camping van or a Bongo truck, and away we would go. Sometimes we’d be traveling to see a relative or a friend. Other times we’d be checking out a mountain trail to hike or a port to explore.

One time we went camping.

“Where are we going?” My son always asks. He’s inherited some of my anxiety and wariness of uncertainty. I try not to imagine that it’s because we moved him from his mother country and brought him to a strange place when he was 5-years-old.

“I don’t know, baby,” I always say. “I never know what we’re doing. We just have to go with the flow.”

Easier said than done with our temperments. But even so, during those first few visits to my Appa’s farm, I felt myself beginning to relax.

The thing is, I couldn’t control what was going to happen next even if I wanted to.

There we were, in a foreign country driving by signs I couldn’t read, with people who spoke a language I didn’t know, in an area of the world I’d never been to before.

A recipe for even more anxiety? You’d think so. Instead, it resulted in the opposite effect. With no real or perceived control, I let my Self give in to the moment and whatever scenario we found ourselves experiencing.

This was my - our - family. We could trust them. And quickly, I did.

Every time we stop somewhere, out comes a cooler of snacks and sodas, coffees and beers, waters and other treats. Sometimes, it’s on the side of the road under a wooden pavilion, common along highways everywhere, and meats are grilled to eat alongside containers of kimchi, packages of gim, and little paper cups of soju for whoever isn’t driving.

It brings flashbacks to mind of folded-over plastic baggies of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, undoing twist ties to eat some potato chips, and tearing open packages of Little Debbie cakes and cookies whenever we’d go to amusement parks or took road trips to the beach.

It’s a strange sensation – feeling like a kid again – starting over with a new language and meeting family members for the first time, learning everyone’s name and how they’re related to you, looking into their faces and mannerisms for something that is familiar.

Except this time, I’m not a kid.

I think about the Jenna, or Tae Hee - as I’m known by my Korean family - and what she would have been like had she stayed in Korea and not been sent away.

She wouldn’t have grown up on the farm. My Appa didn’t start living here until about 25 years ago. He worked in recycling and trash before that. His siblings work office jobs. My uncle once said to me that he does not know why my father works such difficult, physical jobs.

I have some idea.

I look around at the tiny kingdom he’s created for himself, coming and going as he pleases, working hard in the spring, summer, and autumn, seeing what he’s produced after each month with direct, physical work and effort.

My sister is the same only in business, starting a hot pot franchise and selling it at the age of 32. She navigates her black BMW around cities like it’s Tokyo Drift, in and out of the tightest parking spots in the city, a tiny poodle on her lap, golf clubs in the trunk, a Dior purse flung on the backseat behind her.

Would I have been a rule follower in Korea? A good student like I was in the USA? Would I have a lot of friends and love writing in the Korean language the same as I do in English? Would I be a worrier? A perfectionist? Or maybe reckless or intent on going against social norms?

Who knows who I would have been with no mother in my life, in a city by the sea, with college an unlikelihood, never having tried a proper sandwich? The Korean sashimi and octopus my entire family loves is something I know I would also love, instead of it being unfamiliar and chewy on my tongue when I try it.

I’ve watched my Appa befriend strangers at camp sites along the ocean, sitting around camp fires that he’s prepared, grilling meats on portable wood stoves, setting up chairs and mats for me and the kids to settle in for the day and evening. I’ve found that he’s traditional but not stuffy or strict about the formalities. He has a sense of humor and an easy-going nature. He’s personable and social, calling friends on speakerphone throughout the day, going to festivals during his downtime.

Is he the one who taught my sister to drive? Did he worry about her dating? Was he strict about her grades and what she did after school? Was she allowed to go to parties? Do Korean high schoolers go to parties?

I can almost bet she wasn’t taking private piano or voice lessons, ballet as a child, or going to Europe on an exchange program when she was in high school. She wasn’t going to camps during the summertime or being driven home from a restaurant gig on weekends when she called her Dad at 2:00 in the morning, like I was.

My Appa loves to sing, drink soju, eat food, and watch videos on YouTube. One time, he told me I inherited his fire.

It’s probably true, as I have also inherited most of his face.

I look around the common room of his home that includes the kitchen, the table, and the floor space where we eat, sit to play games with the kids, or fall asleep after a meal. I look at the bow legged walk of my stepmother, the dark face of my Appa, and the smile he gives me when I coax him to for pictures. And I think of my parents back in Pennsylvania who wish my kids and I were sitting with them at their kitchen table, falling asleep on their family room floor after a meal.

No matter how they entered my life, there are people all over the world loving and looking out for me.

It’s hard not to think about the differences, make comparisons, or wonder what could have been.

Uncovering different pieces of my past over the last four years has knocked me from my pedestal. After all, I used to walk around believing I had everything under control and a clear direction of where my life was headed.

After spending some time processing, understanding loss and gains, recognizing points of privilege, grieving realities I will never know, the only conclusion I’ve reached at present day is that the way my life unfolded has been full of circumstances I’ll never know and moments so beautiful I can’t imagine not having experienced them.

It’s both. It’s all of it. And things I don’t yet know and won’t until I’m ready to see them.

At the end of the last trip visiting my Appa for Seollal, he wheeled out a red tandem bike, hosed it off, and gestured to it. This did not feel as uncomfortable as the time we unexpectedly went camping, but close.

I took a deep breath and hopped on. I haven’t been on a bike in at least 15 years. Maybe 25.

He started pedaling and we began to coast down his narrow driveway, winding our way to the main road.

After a brief moment of sheer panic as my frontal lobe kicked into gear, I started to relax. He was in control of the brakes, the steering, and most of the pedaling.

We rode alongside fields, seeing the occasional dog, passing burial sites, mountains in the distance, a white heron taking off from a water source. My Appa had it under control. The wheels of the bike along a country road, it could have lulled me to sleep as the breeze blew steadily through my hair along the way.

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Summer vacations are scheduled. Flights are booked. Visitors are peppered on my calendar throughout the remainder of the year.

And before I know it, it’s April. It may as well be December.

Januaries themselves are arduous and slow, coming down off a high of the holidays, daylight barely gracing us with a whisper, wind and chill oppressively making our nervous systems work that much harder to feel normal.

And lately, Januaries have fallen on big, pivotal personal milestones – wonderful ones – horrible ones. Laid out 12 months apart… the timing seems both glib and symbolic: a moment when everyone’s thinking about new beginnings and resolutions. My life has taken deep dives and momentous turns. All within a couple of years.

2026. Unplanned moments of joy.

I stood in the center of Myeongdong with Sonny, our friends Gianna and Young Joo, and we watched fireworks arrange themselves in the sky around Namsan Tower. We hadn’t planned to be there. We had specifically planned NOT to be there. We were going to be inside where it was warm. Bowling.

But then we walked out of a hotel room after a couple episodes of Physical Asia and found ourselves literally following a crowd, being calmly directed by police officers to “keep moving.” Before we knew it, we were standing in a fenced-in area in the bitter cold, awaiting midnight.

When the fireworks began, I stood there in the present. My first outdoor NYE experience. I was experiencing it in Seoul amongst a crowd of Koreans. It wasn’t planned, but I felt wholly at peace.

Earlier that night, Sonny and I had hopped around to different restaurants near Lotte World Tower, hunger slowly taking over our brains (without a reservation) on the last day of the calendar year. “Things don’t always work out,” Sonny had said on repeat, as a matter of fact and sound reasoning. Managing emotions and expectations.

The thing is, lately, they have been.

Working out, I mean.

Especially compared to the previous Januaries.

2025. I was cold.

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I remember thinking, This is either a mansion, an apartment complex, or a farm.

In the summer of 2022, I rode in the passenger seat of his white KIA Bongo truck as he held my hand and shifted it into gear. We drove along those roads, like a camera zeroing in on the moving vehicle from 10,000 feet above, focusing as it moved toward his home.

It was like a dream.

While he watched the road, I watched his profile.

When people asked me later what it was like, I didn’t quite know how to reply.

“He’s a dad.”

Having grown up with an excellent one myself, it was the only way I could think to describe him.

With my Appa, it feels like he can go anywhere, fix it all, and make sure I’m not in want of anything.

Except, he wasn’t the Dad to do or be this in my life.

When we first met, he lamented that he didn’t have any milk to give me when my birth mother left (the exact circumstances of which I’ll never know). He was young and had to work. There was no one to take care of me. Just like the story so many international adoptees are told, he really did do what he thought was best for me.

Out of desperation? Love? Both?

The part that wasn’t true were the records that were sent to my adoption agency, which changed the story of how I was found and could have kept me from ever finding him again.

I never feel more like I’m in Korea than when I’m at my Appa’s farm.

His wife – who I call Omma – grills fish on a portable gas stovetop while she squats on the floor in the foyer next to the extra fridge.

We often eat around a bapsang on the floor in front of the TV where YTN News, flamboyant game shows, and Korean soap operas blast at high decibels in the morning and before bed. There’s a noraebang machine next to the TV. And quilts and blankets are folded neatly in the corner to be laid out for sleeping each night.

There’s no wifi, cell phone service is limited, and there are farm dogs chained up at either end of the property. He grows chili peppers, cabbage, and prepares kimchi to be shipped all over Korea in the fall.

He’s got a camper, an outdoor freezer, two trucks, a motorcycle, and a large, blue tractor.

We’ve visited more than half a dozen times over 3 years, and it’s only recently that my kids and I have begun to feel accustomed to the routine and the environment.

This winter, over Seollal, bringing in the year of the Red Horse – something that only comes around every 60 years – my kids and I took the 5+ hour ferry ride from Jeju Island to Mokpo City, city of 1004 islands - 천사섬 - in the southwest corner of the peninsula. It’s lovely with gorgeous bridges, an old seaport vibe with fish markets, cobblestones, and some of the best seafood in the country.

It’s the city where I was born.

My Appa lives about a 45-minute drive away from it, like driving from upper Bucks County, PA to Philadelphia.

We travel around in the camper or squeeze into the front seat of one of the trucks.

Omma lays out a spread of spicy banchan filled with seaweed, sprouts, various kimchi, fish, fried eggs, and small bowls of fancy rice for breakfast. Each time, they look on, urging my kids to eat with their eyes, willing them to love the food of their country. I know they’ve purchased the good gim (seaweed) for the occasion, extra dry and savory. But my daughter likes the salty, oily type in the individual packages. Each of my kids prefers their rice to be plain white, not purple. It’s the Korean equivalent of wanting boxed mac & cheese made from yellow powder and milk instead of anything made from scratch.

So, after an unsuccessful breakfast, we pile into the truck and head to the nearest market, 15 minutes away, just like it was in Pennsylvania where I grew up. They fill a basket of ice creams, ramyeon, chips, cookies, candies, sweet breads, yogurts, and other junk food. We go back to the farm and have a day in front of us of wandering around to pet the dogs or waiting to see who will stop by.

I never know the plan or what’s going to happen next, even while it’s happening.

Sometimes, family or friends visit – my stepmother’s son or daughter and a niece and nephew. Neighbors. An uncle and his wife. Last time, one of my uncle’s daughters, my first cousin and her husband, stopped by with their two little girls, the same age and younger than my daughter.

Once in a while, we pile into the front of the Bongo truck to see a local mountain or tourist attraction.

One time, we went camping.

No matter what’s happening, we are eating, grilling meats on travel gas grills or an old wood stove in the shape of a drum if we stay on the farm.

Last time, I reached a new level of Koreanness and fell asleep on the floor in the middle of the common area as my relatives leaned up against the wall behind me, watching the TV as the kids played with dolls in between eating fried chicken and sweets.

Each time, my Appa asks why I don’t yet speak Korean. He asks if I will marry my boyfriend and when they can meet. He asks about the kids’ dad and if the health of my parents in America is good.

After 3 years, my Appa has become familiar to me in a way that I almost imagine I can understand what he’s saying when he speaks. Instead, we’ve learned to communicate with hand gestures using the few words each of us knows in our mother tongues.

Let’s eat (holding an imaginary spoon, moving his forearm in circular motions). Get in the car, we’re going for a ride (holding his hands far apart as if they’re at 10:00 and 2:00 on a huge truck’s steering wheel). Eat up, this is healthy and will make you strong (making an exaggerated muscle with his arm, pursing his lips, and giving a low, grunty growl). Do you want some soju? (motioning with his hand, as if he’s taking a shot)? Just a little bit (holding his thumb and pointer finger apart about an inch)?

I play along and agree. Just a little. “Jogeum.”

My sister once commented how we are our father’s daughters, able to handle our soju - Korean spirits - and function easily after drinking it in the safety of his home. During this last visit, one of my first cousins and I poured for each other after she had busied herself outside during the afternoon digging up naengi - 냉이 - from the fields around my Appa’s house to take home for banchan of her own. I was grateful to her for running to the nearest Daiso (it had to be far) to purchase some toys for my kids.

“Omma Juice” I said pointing to our glasses, 엄마 주스. She laughed and agreed. We clinked our tiny glasses together each time. “Jjan - 짠!!” and she showed me pictures of their trip to Jeju Island the month prior.

“When will I see you again?” she asked. I had heard this sentiment before from other cousins and my siblings. I hoped this time it was sincere and that she would follow through. She pointed to her phone before she left and nodded at me with a wink.

We’d stay in touch with each other.

“Tag me on Instagram,” she said. Of course I would.

Please, I felt my eyes pleading with her, the same as my Appa and his wife do when they’re watching my kids stare at bowls of purple rice. Be my person. Notice how much I want to connect to this country and this family. Take an interest in me and my kids. Love us. Invite us. Visit us. Let us be a part of your world.

My actual heart clings to hope any time I am together with or meet my younger brother or sister, a cousin, or a mom of one of my kids’ friends. I yearn to “click” the way natural friends do, so we can be close and form a relationship outside of familial obligation and be more than only relatives who see each other during the big holidays.

It’s taken 3 years of regular visits to my Appa’s farm for me and my kids to feel a level of comfort and familiarity in his space. In Korea. Away from anything we’re accustomed to in the realm of language, food, sleeping arrangements, daily routines, or rituals.

At the end of every visit, we head back to a nest of comfort and familiarity on Jeju Island - one that I created as a safe and soft place for me and my kids to land amidst a world that - outside of the door - can feel overwhelming in the many nuances of differences.

Part of our visit to the mainland to see my Appa is beginning to count down the minutes until we can begin the journey back to this place… I feel relief that the visit is coming to an end.

… And immediate guilt for feeling the relief.

Sometimes, it feels as though we have reached a pinnacle of sorts. That even if we are in Korea another 20 years, some combination of differences - age, generational, culture, language - will keep us from becoming any closer than we are now.

Maybe this is enough.

It’s more than a lot of adoptees ever have an opportunity to experience.

And yet, I’m always left simultaneously wanting more and fighting the urge to stay forever in a level of comfort, rather than continue to make an effort in the slow and grueling process of integrating myself in a world I didn’t know until recently, and perhaps was never meant to be a part of.

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When I meet you, you’re my friend. It doesn’t always work out for me, but it’s the place where we begin if we’re interacting for the first time. Several of my interviewees I consider to be my closest confidants. Others, I had the privilege of speaking to for the very first time (and we’ve remained in touch!). Others I’ve never met in real life. And every single one said, “Yes!” for an opportunity to share - and therefore provide insights - into their lives, lessons, and what they define as “belonging.” It’s not a small thing for all of us to be given an opportunity to read, absorb, and learn from them as we look inward at our own lives and journeys.

I want to thank everyone for giving us these gifts of time and vulnerability. Any instance when we share our story leaves us open to scrutiny or criticism, misinterpretation or - worse - being dismissed.

But I know my audience. And I know you have taken the words and experiences and wisdom of my guests the way they were intended. I know you’re treating the gift of their stories with care.

Thank you to Mark, my final guest in this Q&A series - for now!

We are similar in age, both east coasters, and doing our best to be better for the kids we’re raising. We both know a little something about trying to create boundaries… and what it means to find the best people in this Korean adoptee community.

Here’s Mark!

You know, I can’t be the only one… But the whole “KADness” [Korean Adoptee]... it was really heavy in the beginning for me. Maybe a couple years ago, I just really started questioning my origin data, right, and understanding it. And then last year, maybe like late 2024, is when I really started being like, holy crap, what’s going on?

And then I saw that documentary on PBS. And that really lit a fire up under me to really start digging hard on my data and doing all the things I could do in my power, where I sit over here in the US, to try to find the <birth story> data I could, right? So, that’s really kind of where it started stemming from. And now that I’m here, talking to you… it feels like a blur.

It’s like an old dream. I went through all of this stuff, and I came out of it with this deeper appreciation for my adoptive family.

It was really weird, because I had this mentality, even going into Korea. I was like, Man, they don’t get me. I feel like I don’t belong in that family.

What should we know about you?

I was adopted and lived in Connecticut. My father - and I believe also my mother - was in the Coast Guard. Eventually, my father got positioned down in Northern Virginia and I stayed there, basically, my whole life.

So, it was very suburban, white life, middle class, you know.... The thing about it is: someone could look at my life, and they could be like, wow, you had such a good life and upbringing; you should be very appreciative of that!

(Which, my adoptive mother always reminds me: “You should be appreciative of your life!” … We’ll get into that.)

<Both laugh>

In this area, it was very diverse. Going to a school, it was just a melting pot full of cultures.

So, that was really awesome and healthy growing up in that scenario. You know, I have a best friend, he’s Mexican. I have another best friend, he’s black. I have another best friend, he’s white. You know, all sorts of races and cultures around me. But, my family, yes, you could look at it, and someone would be like, Wow, you have a really great family!

But nobody knows what happens behind the curtains of what goes on in any family.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel like I’ve been fighting my entire life. I’m just… I fight all the time. I’m fighting mental health. I feel like I’ve fought to be heard with my A-Family. I fought for my Korean data and records or because someone was trying to make fun of my race as a kid.

I wouldn’t go hide and cry; I would take the stance of fighting back. And I’m so tired of fighting, you know? I’m tired of having to take on that role of trying to fight for something.

My parents divorced when I was in 4th or 5th grade. I don’t talk to my mother anymore, since 2013 when I got married. She was a single mother, right? She was doing her thing; I give her props. I even told her when I was younger, “I am proud of you for what you’re doing.”

But, she was narcissistic, you know? Like: it’s her way or the highway. And I don’t know if that just developed into her later, but that’s how I perceived her to be my whole life.

My brother - he’s two years older - he’s their biological son. He ended up having challenges when we were kids. Psychiatrists were telling my parents that he’s a sociopath and not healthy. As a young person, he was inappropriately touching kids and going down this route of being a fucking sexual offender, which he's on the national sexual offenders list to this day.

I grew up with that shit, you know? I was never abused like that, but to know I was growing up with someone like that is not something to be proud of.

And - I don’t fault this, right - but the mentality back in the 80s when we were adopted was the “melting pot” ideology. When you come to America, you’re American. You’re going to be American.

Even first generation people coming to America were telling their kids, you don’t speak our language. You speak English because we’re in America.

So, I can’t be too hard on my parents because of how it was, right? I can’t be like, well, why didn’t you put me in Korean classes and why didn’t you take me to culture camps? That’s just not what they did back then. It wasn’t the norm. And maybe it would have been really great and awesome if they did take that step to expose me to Korean stuff. But, would I have really been receptive to that as a kid? I don’t know.

Ultimately, I was really shadowed by this brother of mine; they were focused on him all the time. And when it came to me, it was like: Mark has friends. He’s good.

It felt like my adoption stuff was just brushed under the rug. Looking back at it now, I was living in the moment and in a vacuum as an American kid just living my life. I don’t give a fuck about Korea.

So, I can’t be too hard on my parents. But now…

I did have a conversation with my mother about it before I went to Korea [in the summer of 2025]. I was telling her about my Korean adoption origin data, what I’d researched, what I’d found, and my steps. And her response was: “Let me ask you: why do you even feel like you need to go to Korea? You know, why do you not appreciate your upbringing and what you’ve been given here? Wait till you go to Korea. Wait till you see how the poverty goes over there, and you’ll see how you probably would have grown up.”

My response was basically, “What the fuck? I’m 42 years old, and you’re talking to me like this!?” At some age, you realize it. “I don’t need this bullshit in my life.” My thought was, “Just because you’re listed as family now, you’re not my family if you’re going to treat me like this.” That’s something my dad is actually teaching me, too. He shared I have cousins and aunts that are his sisters. He has said: I don’t want any affiliation with certain family members anymore. I’m tired of this stuff” (there’s so much drama in the Schoonmaker family)! Y’all white people are crazy.

<Both laugh>

Growing up with a sexual offender as a brother, a mother who’s a narcissist, a father who was a workaholic… My brother didn’t have friends. So, I was sticking up for him, taking on the role of protector, getting in fights on the bus. When I was in middle school, I was fighting high schoolers.

My parents were taking my brother to psychiatrists, and my mother would respond to them saying, “You don’t know your shit.” And my dad would be like, “Excuse me, this person has a PhD in psychiatry; we should probably listen to them.” She was the one enabling that behavior, right?

Even today, she was giving him money so that he could pay off his debts in jail because people found out what his charge was, which being a sexual offender in jail is not the best place to be.

Subject change!

I’ve learned through the last two years of soul searching, that what I’m doing now is building the foundation for my own family tree. When I say my family, it’s like my blood, right?

I was talking to my son tonight and said, Do you know how important you are to me? Do you understand you’re gonna carry the bloodline?

He’s seven years old, right? He doesn’t get it. But having someone who’s blood-related to you is really cool to have. That means a lot. When it comes down to it, I don’t give a shit about anything else. I’m gonna hang out with my family, you know? That’s been the priority, obviously.

2024 was a bad year. Grace [my wife] got breast cancer. My best friend killed himself. I was going through all of my origin data and an identity crisis.

Well, of course, you want to do it at the most inopportune time.

A lot of people asked, Schoons! How are you handling all the stuff you’re going through? Like, changing a job and then supporting Grace. And then my best friend… one of those things would make someone almost break down. How are you dealing with all of those things together?

And I don’t have a good answer for them. I don’t know. I don’t know how I’m able to work or function at a high level. I think it just comes down to how we survived as, you know, being abandoned on the street at the start of our lives.

Well, I can tell you exactly how you were doing it, because your body, nervous system, brain, and makeup are used to dealing with chaos and juggling a lot of different things. In a lot of ways, that’s how we feel most comfortable because that’s how we’ve been surviving for so long.

If you were to say to me, Jenna, we’re running a marathon next year. We’re doing it. I would be like, OK, well, I sometimes walk 50 steps a day. So, how am I going to run a marathon? And anyone in the world would say, Obviously, you’re going to have to start training. You’ve never run in your life.

But when we say we have to start training ourselves after 43 years to feel emotions, to prioritize ourselves, whatever those “soft” things are in our brain, everyone goes, psh, whatever.

I can’t run a marathon tomorrow. And I also can’t be hard on myself if I can’t suddenly stop people-pleasing, start prioritizing myself and have self-worth, slow down and feel OK with just relaxing for a time. You can compartmentalize and deal with all these things because it sounds like you are used to being the guy in your family who is dependable, sticking up for other people. You’re a protector.

There’s some self-worth, I think, in seeing yourself as “looking out for my wife. I’m being a dad.” You probably had a lot of people you had to support with your best friend. So like, you’re used to that, man.

How do you become aware of that and now start to step back and take care of yourself, because you can’t stay in that place forever.

Yeah, totally. And I’m starting to make that transition; being more aware of that. That’s really the first step for me. And when I say “aware,” what that really means is prioritizing what’s really important for my life.

I think I’ve always had this big kid in me. Maybe it’s just me, but I always feel like I’m mentally late in my maturing ability sometimes because of all the stuff that I’ve dealt with. I don’t know what it is.

Now that I’m 44, I’m starting to think of older-men things, I guess. Oh, I should really be thinking about my health, my longevity for my kids, do we have enough money stacked up for the family? All those types of things are really popping up in my head. I wish I had started thinking about them when I was much younger, in my 30s.

I went to a session at KAAN and an adoptee psychologist said we all - as adoptees - have special needs when it comes to emotions. We just do. We have to catch up to everyone else who starts at this base level. Now, everyone has their shit. I’m not trying to say adoptees are special. But we need so much extra support that we’re not being given. Either because of other things going on or because of the assimilation: You’re our kid. The end. Doesn’t matter that you’re brown and we’re white. So, we were sort of gaslit our whole lives into thinking we didn’t need special attention. Also, we were being raised by a generation who didn’t believe in “special attention.”

So, I let us off the hook to a certain extent based on what you’re describing. Then we eventually have to take over the ball and go, Yep, okay. We can’t use it as an excuse anymore. We have to build our own lives.

And I really like what you said: You are building your family tree. You are starting from the ground up, literally, and building what your family legacy means apart from your brother, your mom… I love that.

When we did the Me & Korea Mosaic Tour, some people met family members and some people didn’t. I was in the position where I didn’t get any data and didn’t find any family members of origin. So, I was looking at this other side of people who did. They were facing this different emotional hurdle. Adoptees who find Korean families are just torn between two lives of living here and wanting to be there. I thought to myself: I would never be prepared to do that. That would be so fucking hard, right?

From this side, I’m glad I didn’t fucking meet anyone, because I don’t know if I could deal with that? And even when I came back, I had no time to even process. I had just started a new job.

So, that was really eye-opening to see that perspective and realizing I’m glad I don’t have to go through that right now.

That’s the mountain that I would die on: No matter what happens, it’s hard. There is bliss to the ignorance. I mean, the amount of times I told myself, Can I just go back to before this started, when I thought I was happy in my marriage, when I was Mayor Jenna, I had a picket fence, 2.5 kids. You know, I had the American dream. And then I fucking had to start this journey. And I didn’t even do it on purpose. I went on the Mosaic Tour because it was going to be a “free vacation.”

I thought, This will be great. I’ll go eat some gimbap. It’ll be fine.

And then I fucking find my family, which no one ever told me was possible.

I had a major existential crisis that I was not preparing for. So, I think all the time, like, What if we just went back to 2020?

When I got home, everyone said, Hey, how was your trip? I guess I kind of found myself thinking, I don’t want to offend them… They just don’t know.

But then I started getting more anxiety because they were tasking me with a fucking homework assignment by asking me to “let them know if there’s anything they can do for me.” It’s like, if you’re really going to be my friend, just fucking do something.

I literally switched it off into my grinding job. I was like, I can’t even focus on that right now. I can’t process that. I have to go to work and ensure that my mortgage is paid? I probably still haven’t processed everything after a year.

Well, it’s a luxury. It is a luxury to have the time and space to process it. You know how to go to work and pay your mortgage. That’s easy. We can do that all day long. I am watching many people come back from Korea and it’s either work, or it’s: Should I have this affair? Am I happy in my marriage? Should I have a kid right now? Like, everyone is coming back and freaking out.

It’s hard to admit that you’re freaking out. So, it’s much easier to pick a fight with our adoptive parents or our spouse, or have a mental breakdown and move to Korea. That’s what I did. Everybody is different.

<Both laugh>

This is all totally normal.

Another question: Looking back on your childhood, middle school, high school, how aware were you of your racial identity? I mean, you said it was somewhat diverse, like having BFFs that were of different colors. Did you really embrace that you were different? Or were you like, Nope, I’m a white guy?

If anything was brought up about being Korean, I was hesitant to boast about it, right? Yeah, I thought I was just straight up White-American. I think that’s probably why I maybe got so heated when people would try to make fun of me for being Korean or if they were trying to say I wasn’t American.

The amount of KAD males I’ve talked to, a couple things end up coming up: I was really angry as a young person. And why didn’t girls like me?

I was attracted to white girls, but I was attracted to everyone, right? But I had no problem finding white girls. I remember my Asian friends being like, Schoons, how do you get the white girls? I’m like, I don’t fucking know! How do you get the Asian girls?

<Both laugh>

Maybe I wasn’t trained enough for them. <Both laugh>

Our identities really are shaped by how we grow up, obviously. So, I love that you had lots of different kinds of kids to hang out with. I think this makes a big difference. I think that makes a difference - more than having attended “Korean classes.”

I have listened to or spoken to probably 400 adoptees in the past four years. No one ever goes to the Korean culture classes at church, like ever. Either they weren’t exposed to it, it wasn’t an option, or their adoptive parents said, hey, let’s do this, and they were like, nope. The most people have done is go to the cultural camps.

What’s been a lesson or a theme or a takeaway that you can either apply to your whole life or just adoption in general?

The first thing I can say that I learned - and it just popped up right when we were talking - is about the importance of mental health. I didn’t even think about my mental health until 2024 when shit started crashing and falling and I was breaking down, right? Like, I was holding up as much as I could, being strong for the wifey, and doing everything that we needed to do.

But that was when I really started feeling like, Holy shit, I’m not strong up here right now. And I had to actually go get third-party help and start going to therapy. At the end of it, the therapist was like, Wow, you sound like you’ve done some really good work and you’ve progressed through a lot of that stuff. I have to say it definitely helped.

And on top of all of that, and I didn’t want to say it, but I was dealing with addiction, too. I was smoking marijuana all the fucking time. I calculated it out to see how much money I’ve spent in my lifetime… and, Jenna… Jenna.

<Both laugh>

You mean you could have come to Korea a couple of times?

So, I was dealing with trying to quit that, and then my friend, and then Grace <and her breast cancer diagnosis>... trying to do all of those things, my mental health was just shaking. And then adding the KADness to it, I was just like, What is going on here? What am I doing? You know?

The whole Me & Korea Mosaic Tour came after, and I thought, This is good. It’s healthy. I need to do this. Maybe this will help with some closure, which I think it did.

Finding the data and the steps that I went through to go over there validated that everything I did here in the US was everything I possibly could have done to find the <birth record> data that was available. That was a good feeling.

So, yeah. No regrets.

I think all we do all day long is transfer our shit onto other people. Self-awareness is so hard. It is much easier to continue drinking a glass of wine, turning on the TV, throwing ourselves into work, whatever it is. It is so much easier to do that.

You very easily in 2024 could have thrown up your hands and been like, fuck it, and just gone off the deep end, because why not? It’s much easier to do that.

I hope you give yourself some credit because that sounds like a lot.

Thanks! I appreciate that. (Did I really just switch up the conversation again?!)

I will say the Mosaic Tour and being exposed to the whole KAD Community now has taught me some good lessons.

Going into it, when you don’t have any exposure to any of it, you feel like you could open up to everyone, right? You could be best friends with almost every single person. But that’s not true. You’ve got to really figure out who is in your corner and who isn’t.

Just because they’re a KAD doesn’t mean they’re going to be your best friend. Doesn’t mean you have to fight them either, but it doesn’t mean that you have to help them.

But I will say it’s not hard to find good people within the KAD community, right? The people I’ve found have always been very helpful for me saying things like, Schoons, whenever you need us, we’re here!

I think I’ve found a good crew of people within the KAD community. You stood out!

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. I mean, it’s just me paying it forward. Honestly, the hills I’ll die on: Just because you find <birth> family doesn’t make it better or easier. And also: people have to know that they’re not alone. We (Korean adoptees) have to be easy to find. Half the work I do is healing for me, but also, I just want people to like Google “Korean adoptee I can talk to” and somebody will pop up.

What does belonging mean to you? What does it mean to belong? Where do you feel you belong?

For much of my life, belonging felt like something I had — not something I questioned.

I was adopted at 10 months old and grew up being told I was loved. As a child, I felt proud to belong to the Schoonmaker family. I carried the name with pride. I believed I was fully part of something.

I especially felt that sense of belonging with my mom. She was my mother. There was never a question in my mind about that. I loved her, trusted her, and believed I belonged to her.

But belonging has become more complicated as I’ve gotten older.

Some relationships in my adoptive family have diminished or fractured over time. I’ve had to confront how much early abandonment trauma may have shaped the way I navigate connection. I’ve also had moments that left deep impressions — like when a cousin once told me I wasn’t really part of the family because I was adopted. Apologies were given and accepted, but words like that don’t disappear easily.

The most painful shift, though, has been with my mom.

As an adult, I began to see patterns in her behavior that felt emotionally unsafe — patterns that I now understand as narcissistic and destabilizing. When I got married in 2013, I wrote her a heartfelt thank-you card. She mailed it back to me with the word “mother” crossed out and wrote, “I’m not your mother anymore.”

That moment changed something in me.

Belonging cannot coexist with emotional manipulation. It cannot survive in instability. And it cannot require you to abandon your own well-being.

I’ve had to make the painful decision to stop communication with her because I felt her behavior was a threat — not just to me, but to the family I’m building now. That boundary wasn’t made out of anger. It was made out of protection.

I don’t want to belong to chaos.
I don’t want to belong to someone who is emotionally unsafe.

Belonging, I’ve learned, must include mutual respect, stability, and emotional security.

For a long time, I thought belonging meant staying — enduring — proving loyalty no matter what. Now I understand that true belonging doesn’t require you to shrink yourself or tolerate harm.

One of the most unexpected places I’ve felt belonging as an adult has been within the Korean Adoptee community. There’s something grounding about being around people who intuitively understand the layers of gratitude, grief, identity, and abandonment that coexist in us. I don’t feel like I have to over-explain myself. The work of building friendships is still there — but it feels healthy. It feels reciprocal.

That kind of belonging feels steady.

Where do you feel you belong?

Without hesitation — with my wife and children.

As a Korean adoptee, building my own family has been transformative. Creating my own family tree — my own bloodline — feels deeply grounding. In many ways, this is the first place where belonging feels chosen and secure at the same time.

I belong as a husband.
I belong as a father.

Protecting the peace and stability of my home has become my priority. That’s why I’ve worked on my mental and physical health. That’s why I’ve set boundaries where necessary. My purpose now is clear: to be emotionally present, stable, and safe for my family.

Belonging, for me today, isn’t about being accepted by the family I was placed into. It’s about intentionally nurturing the family I’m building.

I’m also trying to grow spiritually, which my wife helps me so much — to lean more into God and strengthen that relationship. That journey isn’t easy for me, but I think part of belonging is also learning to feel at home within yourself, even in the hard places. I have a life partner that helps me through this.

At this stage of my life, belonging means:

• Emotional safety

• Mutual respect

• Stability

• Being chosen and choosing in return

And sometimes, belonging also means walking away from spaces that no longer feel safe — even when that decision hurts.

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Alternate Title: “10 Reasons To Get Rid Of It: Lessons from a Move Across The World”

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An audio essay by Jenna Lee Kim. Read the transcript at jennaleekim.substack.com.

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