Playing Cambodia Adoption Scandal

When I told Molly Holt that I had been abused by my adoptive father, she replied that it was still better for me to have been adopted: "…because you had a better life. You have an education that you wouldn't have had in Korea." she said. When I found my sister after 27 years of separation, she told me that I had not been abandoned but abandoned or not, it didn't matter because "you had a better life in Canada than in Korea." My friends who know that I have been abused also think that I was lucky in my bad luck because I had an education that I would not have if I had not been adopted.

When I watch this kind of video, it makes me think about the life that I would have had if I stayed in Korea. I lived in a similar poverty in Seoul.

During the first 5 or 6 years of my life, I confused the word "jip" (house) with the word "bang" (room). We were seven people living in a house with one room. We ate and we slept in the same room. I didn't have any toy. An electric bulb and a radio were all that I knew of the modern life. There was only one telephone in every neighbourhood and the one who had a phone was the owner of a store. Only rich people were able to have a television, black and white television.
A few months after the death of my mother, I lived in extreme poverty with my father and my sister. We lacked food. Once, we searched through garbage to find plastics to sell. My father never showed me to wash myself, I was dirty and I had lice in my hair and.

Now, I'm talking to the rich people such as Molly Holt, Lauryn Galindo, the adoption agencies, some adoptive parents (including my deceased adoptive parents), many prospective adoptive parents, and many other people…You rich people, you want to save the children from such poverty. Therefore, you remove children from their parents and you sell them to rich people living in foreign countries.

You gave me a new mother when I had not finished mourning my mother yet. You gave me a new father when I already had one. You removed me from my country; you took me away from my sisters and my brother. You wrote 9 years of my life in these few words: “unknown father, unknown mother and abandoned”.

You said: "To save you from poverty, to feed you and to give you a good education". You could have done all this without removing me from my country and my family. You could have done that without erasing my past. We only needed food and money for our basic needs, I didn’t need another family. You made money by arranging my adoption and thousands of other adoptions. What do you do with the money you earned by selling me? You just keep selling more children.

To try to understand your senseless and cruel action, I must put myself in the shoes of someone who has only known a life of wealth in the modern world. I must especially ignore the joy that I have known in poverty with my family. Yes, I said "the joy I've known in poverty." We lived seven in a one bed-room house but I remember all the attention I received from my family. I remember the words of encouragement such as "bravo, you do it well, you're so beautiful, you’re so cute…" It was very easy to make a child happy; if they gave me a chewing gum or one cookie, I was happy.
Even when I was living a life of misery in the countryside, I remember moments of joy in the nature. My stomach was empty but I was loved by my father. My definitions of wealth and poverty were very simple: for me, being rich meant having something to eat every day and being poor meant skipping some meals. I often felt rich because my father gave me permission to buy some chewing gums when he had money.

You were proud of given me everything that I've never had in Korea. You gave me candies every day. After giving me some chocolate, you told me: “What? You'd never eaten chocolate? It's terrible” No, I never missed chocolate in Korea. How can you believe that you can miss something you have never tasted before? You gave me foods and you felt generous but I missed kimchi every day.

I hated to see Barbie with so many cloths while many children in Korea had only one cloth to wear. I didn't want to live in this crazy country where even a car had its own room. The day I tried to go back to my country, you punished me and you laughed at me saying that I was a spoiled child in crisis. You said you almost died at the idea of losing me after three months. Meanwhile, my real father was dying from grief since he lost me.

After giving me toys, you asked me to play with them. I never asked for a toy. I only needed some stones or papers to play with. All I wanted was my brother to help me make a kite and my sister to draw my paper dolls; I wanted my nephew to play with and my friends of my orphanage. You gave me toys but you removed my siblings, my nephews and my friends. I had no joy playing with your toys.

 You also took away my language and my culture. After assimilating me to your culture, you often reminded me how I should be grateful for being saved from a life of poverty, a life of prostitution or a life of homeless people. You even came to tell me that I should be grateful for not having been aborted. You “saved” me from the poverty to put me in the hands of a pedophile; it's your definition of better life.

If I had stayed in Korea, I would have had a life similar to that of my sister. My sister still lives in poverty but she is neither a prostitute nor a homeless. She is happily married and she is a mother of two children. I also had moments of joy with the “better life” you offered me but I've never experienced joy of being with a family again since you removed me from my only family.

 Robin Hood was known for robbing the rich to give to the poor. The poor only have their children. You rob the poor of their children to give them to the rich. And you make million of dollars by doing your "good" action.