Omoni,
Shortly after mine first visit I found a cookbook in Korea1 with photos that make your mouth water and with recipes that were fairly easy to follow for an amateur chef. This was at a time when the internet was in its infancy, YouTube had probably not yet even emerged as a concept in anyone's brain and bookstores were still the gateway to other worlds. At the back of the book there is a chapter devoted to dishes for special days. It states that Koreans celebrate the 100th anniversary of a baby's life. Apparently an old habit when infant mortality used to be high, especially in the first 3 months. I wonder if this day is still celebrated, because in the last few decades this early mortality will have decreased considerably due to rapidly increasing prosperity.
Have you also experienced anxious moments after my birth? Afraid that I might not make it? Did you laugh blissfully when I recognized you and looked up for your warmth? And finally relaxed when I was 100 days old?
I write you 100 letters in the hope that after the 100th I can experience the same kind of peace and finally let go of the past and let it be as it was. Can accept that I will never get answers to my questions and can fully focus on what is.
Ever since I started asking questions and looking for answers so long ago, I tried to rationalize all the emotions or vomit them out in diaries. My story is no more special or exceptional than all the other thousands of adoption stories. On the contrary, meeting other adoptees made me realize that everything I felt was so recognizable, but on the other hand, the urge to do something with that part of myself did not go away.
I have no special talents, in fact I am average, maybe on average a little more obsessed with looking for patterns, cycles, a beginning and an end.
The second time I went to Korea 10 years later during an incredibly beautiful autumn period, exceptionally warm for that season. The third time was also 10 years later. This time with my daughter in the summer after she had graduated from high school and would start university studies in the new school year. My obsession tells me that there really is a pattern and that my very last visit will be in 2 years at the same time of year when my toddler life took a different direction.
In 2017, the news (The Lancet) reported the results of a study into future life expectancy of 35 industrialized countries. The result is that Korean girls born in 2030 have the highest life expectancy.
A strange idea that in 60 years children were given up for adoption, usually due to poverty or other (cultural) reasons and that the 3rd generation has the highest life expectancy. What will the Koreans do with these oldies? Would you also like to put it up for adoption?
It has been almost 19,260 days since an Air France plane landed at a small-scale Schiphol Airport around twelve on a Wednesday morning. Flight AS913 changed my life, even though I was probably completely unaware of it at the time.
I now have two years to make a last-ditch effort to find you, my biological family, and to give everything that has to do with that whole other world a place in what will become my Magnum opus and so I can sincerely say: I have closed it.
- A Korean Mother's Cooking Notes, Chang Sun-Young, 1997 Ewha Womans University Press ↩︎