How an adoption agency describes an older (healthy) child to the prospective adoptive parents?

On a document entitled “Child’s progress report”, which was the 2^nd report sent to my adopters, under the section “child’s development”, the agency wrote: “Dances, sings the children’s songs and paints pictures.”

We had a chance to “paint picture” when a social worker lent us a pencil to send our drawings to some rich American parents. I still have my drawing in my adoption folder; the social worker wrote next to my drawing: “she draws”. It was the only time I drew throughout my stay at the orphanage. As I stated in the post, The Wonders of adoption, my adoptive mother asked for an artistic girl and she believed that the agency had responded to her request. Did the adoption agency wrote “paints pictures” on purpose to fulfill the desire of their client or did they use a form that was supposed to describe the kids from another orphanage?

Under the section “education”, it is written that: “As the fundamental education, she learns Korean, children’s songs and mathematics from 7-8 pm in the orphanage.”

Throughout my stay at the orphanage which lasted 10 months, I never went to school, nor have learned Korean or mathematics. When we were transferred from our first orphanage to there, we were told that we, the newcomers, wouldn’t go to school because we were going to USA soon. While other children were at school or doing their homework, the newcomers were playing together or helping the nuns.
Basically, my educational background consisted of a half-year of half-days in first grade in Korea, which means that I didn’t know how to multiply or divide numbers. As a consequence of this assertion made by the adoption agency, on the second year of my arrival, I was placed in fifth grade without preparation in mathematics. My first depression which lasted one week was a result of studying too much to catch up five years of arithmetic by myself, not to mention learning French.

On page 2 of a document known as “Social history”, which was the first report sent to my adopters; under the section “teething and eating”, they wrote: “enjoys milk, bread and cookies for snack.”

I remember drinking goat milk that our neighbours gave us when I was 2-3 years old. Otherwise, I never ate diary products or bread in Korea, not even at the orphanage. Diary products and bread were the foods that I hated the most when I came to America. Being forced to eat foods that I hated the most was not a problem; I eventually got used to American foods (gradually within 3 to 7 years).
Because of the assertion saying that I enjoyed milk, my adoptive mother never listened to me when I was saying to her that I didn’t drink milk in Korea and I was forced to drink a large glass (to strengthen my health). As a consequence, as a consequence, I fell sick in a year more often than in nine years of life in Korea. It would take seven years for to learn that the milk was responsible of my illness. For me, the real responsible is not the milk but the industry of international adoption.

The report sent to my adoptive parents also describes me as being “gentle natured” and having qualities such as “takes cares of her routines chores, keeps her own thing in order by herself and clean her rooms, etc.” This could be a description given to any of the children who were at my orphanage; I wonder if the agency has once written something else than what is written on my record. I wonder if they keep some forms prepared in advance with blank spaces to be filled in front of “Name” and “Faked Birth date”.

If your child adopted at an older age tells you something that contradicts the adoption agency  or your beliefs about the international adoption world, it doesn't mean that the child has too much of imagination!