In July 2006 my son and I visited South Korea. Parker Sae-Bin was born in Daegu, South Korea and came home to his thrilled Dad and me in September 1996.
A friend of mine is there now, with her two Korean-born sons who are visiting their birth land for the first time since they were adopted. Reading her blog made me nostalgic so I went in search of my photos. That little sidetrack became a post of my own about those really special nine days with my son.
It was an amazing and awesome trip. As an adoption social worker and an adoptive parent, I was longing to be part of the tenth annual KAAN (Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network) Conference, which was being held in Seoul that year. I’d attended the very first KAAN Conference, so I decided to go to Seoul and take Parker with me. We made the nine day journey to Korea in June/July 2006.
After our three days at the Conference, we visited the Demilitarized Zone, a place where only non-Korean citizens are allowed to go. There, you’re actually straddling the two Koreas, and can look across the 38th parallel into North Korea. This was a day-long trip with rules about personal behavior, dress code and picture-taking, all strictly enforced. Much to his utter chagrin Parker was made to don a pair of trousers in lieu of the shorts he’d had on. The pants did not fit and looked ridiculous, which annoyed him to no end. I was forced to wear a pair of flat, closed sneakers instead of the mules I was wearing and if you know me, you know I don’t wear flats, ever, and sneakers, only to the gym. But despite our mutual dress code violations, we had a good trip into the DMZ, something that not many people experience in their lives.
(A North Korean soldier stands at attention.)
(Parker in those hated trousers.)
Another day, we shopped for a long time in Insadong, which I loved. After a while, my good son was bored so I let him spend some time in an arcade. Thus renewed, he willingly accompanied me to more of Insadong’s unique shops and galleries.
(A shop in Insadong I enjoyed very much with my American dollars.)
(A shop where I did buy two fabric panels, similar to the ones behind Parker.)
We also visited the Seoul Tower, Namdaemun Market, and Lotte World Amusement Park just to name a few more sites. We took the subway and okay, plenty of taxi rides all around town. Lots of won (Korean currency), but I liked getting more familiar with Seoul’s most excellent cityscape.
(Parker with our friend Chae Eun at Lotte World Amusement Park, a girnormous Disney-esque fantasy world for kids.)
The KAAN Conference was held in a business district, so afterwards we moved across the river to the Ibis Hotel in Myeong Dong, an area that’s filled with shops and cafes and people all day and night.
A special part of the trip was meeting Parker’s sweet foster mother, Mrs. Choi Jung Hee. I’d met her nine years earlier when I was in Korea to bring our daughter home. Mrs. Choi came to the agency both times to meet us, and both times we exchanged meaningful gifts and spent some poignant time together. Mrs. Choi fostered many, many children in her years as a foster mom for the children of Social Welfare Society. Her own sons are now grown, and she is the second mother to numerous sons and daughters now living throughout the world. Mrs. Choi brought Parker a very popular Be The Reds soccer jersey. South Korea is crazy for soccer (as is most of the world – why isn’t the U.S.?).
(Parker signs the guest book at Social Welfare Society)
We spent time with my good friend Park Min Hyung and her cute little girl Chae Eun. Min Hyung and I have been friends for nearly 11 years now and she speaks English wonderfully so we’re able to talk as real friends do. Her daughter’s also learning English, and we gave Chae Eun the English name of Bella.
Min Hyung is really stylish and enjoys fashion. I call her the Carrie Bradshaw of Seoul because she has such a distinctive personal style. She’s gorgeous, intelligent, and a very warm person. She’s been a good friend to me.
Seoul is a fantastic, huge, metropolitan city and I loved it. It rocks, 24/7. During our nine days there we were on the go constantly but only scratched the surface of the city. Parker was exhausted by 9:00pm and while I could have kept going, for his sake we returned to the hotel where he flopped into bed and unwound with his Game Boy.
While he relaxed, I’d go to the fitness center and enjoy a different sort of relaxation: the Korean-style “baths”. I experienced a clean that was so relaxing…in the bath area guests disrobe and then shower off in a public shower space. Everything was provided: towels, facial cleansing sponges, shampoo and conditioner, soaps, moisturizers, sanitized hair brushes and combs. You’d leave your clothes in a personal locker, and go nude.
(There will be no pictures of the baths here!)
Many Korean guests where there with other women friends, and would chat while cleansing, washing their hair, scrubbing their bodies, and once everyone was sufficiently cleansed, only then would you lower your body into a communal bath of hot or cold water, jacuzzi-style.
I decided to give over to the experience, when in Rome, and all that. I let my personal and cultural inhibitions about nudity go, and just followed the rules for appropriate behavior in the baths. First rule: you must wash yourself thoroughly before using the bath. Second rule: you don’t wear clothing in the bath area – nudity is just the way it is. If I was here in the States I never could have been publicly nude (hey, it is a women only bath, of course), but in Korea you would have looked like a fool if you tried the routine while wearing a bathing suit! It wasn’t about nudity; it was about cleanliness and relaxation. No one would ever enter the bath if they hadn’t soaped up and showered off, first.
The shower heads were large, rainwater-style and I melted while standing beneath them, letting the shampoo and conditioner run through my long hair. The showering off was total relaxation, part one. The icing on the cake was when I’d step into the bath, sparkling clean with pink skin from the heat of the shower. By this time, though, the baths were nearly ready to close as it was almost 11:00pm. I’d soak for ten minutes or so, then dress and head back to the room, where I’d find my son, blissed out in his own right, still working his thumbs hard on the Game Boy.
Korea 2006 was an incredible high. I saw some people at the conference I hadn’t seen in years, and got to meet many interesting Koreans, adoptees and others who I’d known about from the online world. On the way home from Korea we traveled with a few babies who were making their way to to their adoptive homes. That was an especially moving way to complete the journey for me.
It was a joyous time for me and Parker. He was a great traveling buddy. He learned to navigate foreign airports with ease. In fact, shortly after this picture was taken, he become impatient with me because I was chatting with Dr. Sook Wilkinson (the Korean woman, who’d been a Conference speaker and was escorting this baby to the States to meet her adoptive family) in the airport in Japan. Parker decided to leave me there and find the gate for our connecting flight – by himself. It was the only time I’d been truly panicked in my life. For those few moments, when I looked up and he was not there…my heart truly felt as though it’d moved into my throat, and I was breathless. My son,an Asian child who spoke only English and who belonged to an English-speaking Caucasian woman, lost in the Narita airport. I shouted his name loudly; no embarrassment here. We’d been so careful to stick together the entire time. Down the long terminal, he heard me and stopped. I couldn’t believe he’d up and left me like that! ‘What were you thinking?’ I demanded, the relief flooding me but my pulse still racing. All casual, as is his way, he simply said he was tired of waiting and had gone on ahead to find the gate. And by gosh, he’d read the departures board, and found our gate. All of ten years old, my boy.
And now, he’s thirteen. And taller than me. And has just started a blog, my boy. I’ll be interviewing him here in the next couple of days to introduce his blog to my vast readership. And I hope both of you will visit his site 🙂
Time…as every mother before me has said, “Enjoy them while they’re young; they’ll be gone before you know it.” When he was small, I heard those words but didn’t feel them.
I feel them now. And it feels like the time with him is slipping through my fingers.
I love you Parker Sae-Bin. Thank you for being my son.
oh jeannie, i loved this. i already loved you my sweet friend, but i love you more even now. how blessed your family is. parker is so handsome! he is such a wonderful young man…i know it hurts to hear the young man part…i'm still adjusting too! thanks so much for sharing such a personal journey. my love and prayers! xo, mickey
Great post! I was especially interested in the DMZ information. This is where Mary and the boys are going today. I am not sure if they know about the dress code.
That is awesome you got to go back to Seoul too! We talked about doing this pretty soon after our first adoption from Seoul. It's such a great experience for the boys to see, and experience where they are from.