About program
 
- Korean culture Classes
1. Korean Cuisine Cooking : Distinct cooking curriculum to learn the traditional and modern Korean cuisines
2. Taekwondo : Learning basic posture of Korean traditional military art
3. Calligraphy : Experience Korean Traditional art of writing
4. Visiting Korean Demilitarized Zone(DMZ): See the other side of Korea and army base
5. Traditional Korean Games : Play Korean traditional games by team
6. B-boy performance or Nanta performance
 
- Gathering with Korean young adults
 
- Tours
This year’s recommended place to travel is the southern providence where you can experience traditional Korean culture and it’s beauty of nature. Since the historical times, this providence is famous for its abundant eatery and maritime culture with warm Korean folk sentiments.
Detail of program
DateDetails
8/1 FriCheck in
8/2 SatKorean Speech Contest at the National Assembly building
8/3 Sun5:00-8:00 : Welcoming Party
8/4 Mon9:30-3:00 : Korean culture activity 1
3:00-  : Free time
8/5 Tue9:30-3:00 : Korean culture activity 2
4:00- B-boy or Nanta performance
8/6 Wed9:30-3:00 : Korean culture activity 3
3:00- : Free time
8/7 Thu9:30-3:00 : Korean culture activity 4
3:00- : Free time
8/8 Fri9:30-3:00 : Visiting DMZ and Korean Army base
8/9(Sat) - 8/13(Wed)Trip to Southern Province
8/14 ThuCheck out

 
- Korean speech contest : We are going to have Korean speech contest during summer school. If you are interested in participating this contest, please let us know.
- An adult adoptee, who is also practicing as a social worker and has experienced in birth family search will join the summer school programs and tour as a coordinator
How to apply
- Application due date:
Applications begin on April 25rh. Deadline will be July 25th.

- Email to InKAS :
inkas21@yahoo.co.kr, Send your completed application form and one photocopy of passport by email

- Selections:
InKAS will only select 30 candidates from our application pool. Applicants must be 18 years or old and will be selected in a first come first serve basis. So don’t be too late!
 
Other Information

- Accommodations:
Please check-in to the hotel by 1st of July, and check out on 14th of August, at hotel in Sinchon area. If you would like to personally extend the stay at this hotel there will be a charge of 100,000KW.
 
- Pick-up service :
If you would like to request a pick-up service from the airport on your date of arrival, please personally email InKAS with your date, time and gate of arrival at the Incheon International Airport. A  volunteer will be waiting for you at your gate on your date of arrival
(Limosine bus Fare will not extend 10,000KRW)
 
- Fees:
Room and board free (two people per room), airfare is not included.
For questions and applying: inkas21@yahoo.co.kr
* Schedule is subject to change without notice *
 InKAS (International Korean Adoptee Service)
4F, 101-12 Daehyun-dong, Seodaemun-Gu, Seoul Korea 120-809
Tel. +822-3148-0258
Fax. +822-3148-0259
E-mail : inkas21@yahoo.co.kr
Website : www.inkas.org

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International Participants to Gather in Honolulu in October

Korean Adoptees of Hawai’i (KAHI), a nonprofit organization based on O’ahu, is pleased to announce the first-ever Asian Adoptee Film Festival, to be held in conjunction with the Asian Adult Adoptee Gathering in Honolulu from Oct. 10-13, 2008. Screenings of films by artists adopted from Asian countries will primarily be held at the Doris Duke Theatre at the Honolulu Academy of Arts on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008.

KAHI invites film submissions that are original works addressing the theme of adoption or the experience of being adoptees, either directed, written or produced by adult Asian adoptees. Films may be narratives, documentaries or features of any length. Multiple submissions are encouraged.

Entries should be submitted in DVD format no later than March 30, 2008, to:

Korean Adoptees of Hawai’i

ATTN: Film Festival Selection Committee

47-671 Hui Kelu Street, Unit 2

Kaneohe HI  96744-4627

USA

Entries will not be returned. For more information or for additional submission guidelines, please contact KAHI at info@KAHawaii.org, or visit www.KAHawaii.org/mini08.

The Asian Adult Adoptee Gathering and Film Festival is an event that has evolved from previous international gatherings of transnationally adopted Koreans, held since 1999 in locations including Seoul, Oslo and Washington, D.C., and smaller-scale gatherings in U.S. cities such as New York, Las Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and Minneapolis. This is the first-ever event of its kind to be held in Hawai’i.

The Asian Adult Adoptee Gathering and Film Festival is a celebration of the range of experiences - from the unique to the unifying - found among the diverse diaspora and global community of adoptees of Asian descent. The Gathering and Film Festival are expected to draw upward of 100 visitors from Hawai’i and the mainland United States, and such international locations as Sweden, Denmark, Australia and South Korea.

KAHI will also welcome members of the general public to the Oct. 11 film screenings, which will represent a unique aspect of the Asian-Pacific immigrant experience that has been historically underrepresented in the mainstream and even art-house film circuits. The Doris Duke Theatre will manage ticketing for this special event this autumn and will feature selected films in its newsletter.

Businesses, organizations and individuals interested in sponsorship opportunities for the film festival or the Asian Adult Adoptee Gathering are invited to contact KAHI for further information.

————-

Korean Adoptees of Hawai’i (KAHI) is a nonprofit organization founded upon the experiences of adult Korean adoptees, working to build a supportive community in Hawai’i through public outreach, networking, education and sharing resources. KAHI believes in fostering awareness about adoption and identity, recognizing that we, as a community, can extend our reach beyond what we can accomplish individually.

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Korean Adoptees of Hawai`i are pleased to host:The Asian Adult Adoptee Gathering & Film Festival
October 10-13, 2008 Honolulu, Hawai`iPlease visit www.kahawaii.org/mini08 for more information and film submission guidelines.Please pass this along!Mahalo,

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 Kino has a personal connection with adoption. His  biological sister was adopted to a Danish family and he met her last year for the first time in 20 years. A short clip about their reunion can be seen on youtube.

Kino can be contacted at Kinomans(at)hotmail(dot)com

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By Benedict Carey

Thursday, December 20, 2007

The results of U.S. research in Romania, being published on Friday in the journal Science, found that toddlers placed in foster families developed significantly higher I.Q.’s by age 4, on average, than peers who spent those years in an orphanage.

Psychologists have long believed that growing up in an institution like an orphanage stunts children’s mental development but have never had direct evidence to back it up.

Now they do, from an experiment in Romania that compared the effects of foster care with those of institutional child-rearing.

The study, being published on Friday in the journal Science, found that toddlers placed in foster families developed significantly higher I.Q.’s by age 4, on average, than peers who spent those years in an orphanage.

The difference was large - eight I.Q. points - and the study found that the earlier children joined a foster family, the better they did. Children who moved from institutional care to families after age 2 made few gains on average, though the experience varied from child to child. Both groups, however, had significantly lower I.Q.’s than a comparison group of children raised by their biological families.

Some developmental psychologists had sharply criticized the study and its sponsor, the MacArthur Foundation, for researching a question whose answer seemed obvious. But previous attempts to compare institutional and foster care suffered from serious flaws, mainly because no one knew whether children who landed in orphanages were different in unknown ways from those in foster care.

Experts said the new study should put to rest any doubts about the harmful effects of institutionalization - and might help speed up adoptions from countries that still allow them.

“Most of us take it as almost intuitive that being in a family is better for humans than being in an orphanage,” said Seth Pollak, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the research. “But other governments don’t like to be told how to handle policy issues based on intuition.

“What makes this study important is that it gives objective data to say that if you’re going to allow international adoptions, then it’s a good idea to speed things up and get kids into families quickly.”

In recent years many countries, including Romania, have banned or sharply restricted adoptions of local children. In other countries, adoption procedures can drag on for many months.

The authors of the new paper, led by Dr. Charles Zeanah of Tulane University and Charles Nelson of Harvard and Children’s Hospital in Boston, approached Romanian officials in the late 1990s about conducting the study. The country had been working to improve conditions at its orphanages, which became infamous in the early 1990s as Dickensian warehouses for abandoned children.

After gaining clearance from the government, the researchers began to track 136 children who had been abandoned at birth. They administered developmental tests to the children and then randomly assigned them to continue at one of Bucharest’s six large orphanages, or join an adoptive family. The foster families were carefully screened and provided “very high-quality care,” Nelson said.

On I.Q. tests taken at 54 months, the foster children scored an average of 81, compared with 73 among the children who continued in an institution. The children who moved into foster care at the youngest ages tended to show the most improvement, the researchers found.

The comparison group of youngsters who grew up in their biological families had an average I.Q. of 109 at the same age, found the researchers, who announced their preliminary findings as soon as they were known.

“Institutions and environments vary enormously across the world and within countries,” Nelson said, “but I think these findings generalize to many situations, from kids in institutions to those in abusive households and even bad foster care arrangements.” The study’s message, he said, is that children should be moved into more caring environments, ideally before age 2.

In setting up the study, the researchers directly addressed the ethical issue of assigning children to institutional care, which was suspected to be harmful.

“If a government is to consider alternatives to institutional care for abandoned children, it must know how the alternative compares to the standard care it provides,” they wrote. “In Romania, this meant comparing the standard of care to a new and alternative form of care.”

Any number of factors common to institutions could work to delay or blunt intellectual development, experts say: the regimentation, the indifference to individual differences in children’s habits and needs and, most of all, the limited access to caregivers, who in some institutions can be responsible for more than 20 children at a time.

“The evidence seems to say,” said Pollak, “that for humans, we need a lot of responsive care giving, an adult who recognizes your distinct cry, knows when you’re hungry or in pain and gives you the opportunity to crawl around and handle different things, safely, when you’re ready.”

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/20/europe/orphans.php

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We are making a film called RESILIENCE, a documentary about Korean birth mothers and international adoption. We hope this film will create greater awareness and deeper understanding about a side of adoption that has been rarely looked.

An independent film project this size is costly, and we still have a long way to go in raising the necessary funds to finish the film. We are currently looking for personal donations and financial sponsors to help fund the film’s completion. The funds raised will be used for film production costs, including costs for equipment and rentals, editing, labor and translations. We have been actively raising funds for the film but have yet to raise enough.

We need your help in bringing this important film to completion. Please consider making a donation to this significant project and help us make these women’s stories heard, and please pass on this info. For more info about the project, please view the attached press kit.
Thank you very much,

Tammy Chu
Director/ Co-Producer, RESILIENCE
www.resiliencefilm.com

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Where Boys Were Kings, a Shift Toward Baby Girls
By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea � When Park He-ran was a young mother, other women
would approach her to ask what her secret was. She had given birth to
three boys in a row at a time when South Korean women considered it
their paramount duty to bear a son.

Ms. Park, a 61-year-old newspaper executive, gets a different
reaction today. “When I tell people I have three sons and no
daughter, they say they are sorry for my misfortune,” she
said. “Within a generation, I have turned from the luckiest woman
possible to a pitiful mother.”

In South Korea, once one of Asia’s most rigidly patriarchal
societies, a centuries-old preference for baby boys is fast receding.
And that has led to what seems to be a decrease in the number of
abortions performed after ultrasounds that reveal the sex of a fetus.

According to a study released by the World Bank in October, South
Korea is the first of several Asian countries with large sex
imbalances at birth to reverse the trend, moving toward greater
parity between the sexes. Last year, the ratio was 107.4 boys born
for every 100 girls, still above what is considered normal, but down
from a peak of 116.5 boys born for every 100 girls in 1990.

The most important factor in changing attitudes toward girls was the
radical shift in the country’s economy that opened the doors to women
in the work force as never before and dismantled long-held
traditions, which so devalued daughters that mothers would often
apologize for giving birth to a girl.

The government also played a small role starting in the 1970s. After
growing alarmed by the rise in sex-preference abortions, leaders
mounted campaigns to change people’s attitudes, including one that
featured the popular slogan “One daughter raised well is worth 10
sons!”

In 1987, the government banned doctors from revealing the sex of a
fetus before birth. But experts say enforcement was lax because
officials feared too many doctors would be caught.

Demographers say the rapid change in South Koreans’ feelings about
female babies gives them hope that sex imbalances will begin to
shrink in other rapidly developing Asian countries � notably China
and India � where the same combination of a preference for boys and
new technology has led to the widespread practice of aborting female
fetuses.

“China and India are closely studying South Korea as a trendsetter in
Asia,” said Chung Woo-jin, a professor at Yonsei University in
Seoul. “They are curious whether the same social and economic changes
can occur in their countries as fast as they did in South Korea’s
relatively small and densely populated society.”

In China in 2005, the ratio was 120 boys born for every 100 girls,
according to the United Nations Population Fund. Vietnam reported a
ratio of 110 boys to 100 girls last year. And although India recorded
about 108 boys for every 100 girls in 2001, when the last census was
taken, experts say the number is sure to have climbed by now.

The Population Fund warned in an October report that the rampant
tinkering with nature’s probabilities in Asia could eventually lead
to increased sexual violence and trafficking of women as a generation
of boys find marriage prospects severely limited.

In South Korea, the gap in the ratio of boys to girls born began to
widen in the 1970s, but experts say it became especially pronounced
in the mid-1980s as ultrasound technology became more widespread and
increasing wages allowed more families to pay for the tests. The
imbalance was widest from 1990 to 1995, when it remained above 112 to
100.

The imbalance began to close steadily only in 2002. Last year’s ratio
of 107.4 boys for every 100 girls was closer to the ratio of 105 to
100 that demographers consider normal and, according to The World
Factbook, published by the Central Intelligence Agency, just above
the global average of 107 boys born for every 100 girls.

The preference for boys here is centuries old and was rooted in part
in an agrarian society that relied on sons to do the hard work on
family farms. But in Asia’s Confucian societies, men were also
accorded special status because they were considered the carriers of
the family’s all-important bloodline.

That elevated status came with certain perquisites � men received
their families’ inheritance � but also responsibilities. Once the
eldest son married, he and his wife went to live with his family; he
was expected to support his parents financially while his wife was
expected to care for them in their old age.

The wife’s lowly role in her new family was constantly reinforced by
customs that included requiring a daughter-in- -law to serve her father-
in-law food while on her knees.

“In the old days, when there was no adequate social safety net,
Korean parents regarded having a son as kind of making an investment
for old age security,” Professor Chung said. It was common for
married Korean men to feel ashamed if they had no sons. Some went so
far as to divorce wives who did not bear boys.

Then in the 1970s and 80s, the country threw itself into an
industrial revolution that would remake society in ways few South
Koreans could have imagined.

Sons drifted away to higher-paying jobs in the cities, leaving their
parents behind. And older Koreans found their own incomes rising,
allowing them to save money for retirement rather than relying on
their sons for support.

Married daughters, no longer shackled to their husbands’ families,
returned to provide emotional or financial support for their own
elderly parents.

“Daughters are much better at emotional contact with their parents,
visiting them more often, while Korean sons tend to be distant,” said
Kim Seung-kwon, a demographer at the government’s Korea Institute for
Health and Social Affairs.

Ms. Park, the newspaper executive, said such changes forced people to
rethink their old biases. “In restaurants and parks, when you see a
large family out for a dinner or picnic, 9 out of 10, it’s the wife
who brings the family together with her parents, not the husband with
his parents,” she said. “To be practical, for an old Korean parent,
having a daughter sometimes is much better than having a son.”

The economic changes also unleashed a revolution of a different sort.
With the economy heating up, men could no longer afford to keep women
out of the workforce, and women began slowly to gain confidence, and
grudging respect.

Although change is coming slowly and deep prejudices remain � in some
businesses, women are pressured to leave their jobs when pregnant �
women are more accepted now in the workplace and at the best
universities that send graduates to the top corporations.

Six of 10 South Korean women entered college last year; fewer than
one out of 10 did so in 1981. And in the National Assembly, once one
of the nation’s most male-dominated institutions, women now hold
about 13 percent of the seats, about double the percentage they held
just four years ago.

“When I first joined the company in 1995, a woman was expected to
quit her job once she got married; we called it a `resignation on a
company suggestion,’ -” said Shin Hye-sun, a 39-year-old who works at
the TBC television station in Taegu in central South Korea, Now, she
said, women take a three-month break after giving birth before
returning to work. “If someone suggests that a woman should quit
after marriage, female workers in my company will take it as an
insult and say so,” Ms. Shin said.

According to the World Bank study, one of the surprises in South
Korea was that it took as long as it did for the effects of a booming
economy to translate into changes in people’s attitudes toward the
birth of daughters.

The study suggests that the country’s former authoritarian rulers
helped slow the transition by upholding laws and devising policies
that supported a continuation of Confucian hierarchy, which
encourages fealty not only to family patriarchs, but also to the
nation’s leaders.

With the move toward democracy in the late 1980s, the concept of
equal rights for men and women began to creep into Koreans’ thinking.
In 1990, the law guaranteeing men their family’s inheritance � a
cornerstone of the Confucian system � was the first of the so-called
family laws to fall; the rest would be dismantled over the next 15
years.

In 2002, the narrowing of the gender gap signaled that attitudes
about the value of women � and ultimately of daughters � had begun to
catch up to the seismic changes in the economy and the law.

And last year, a study by the Korea Institute for Health and Social
Affairs showed that of 5,400 married South Korean women younger than
45 who were surveyed, only 10 percent said they felt that they must
have a son. That was down from 40 percent in 1991.

“When my father took me to our ancestral graves for worshiping, my
grandfather used to say, `Why did you bring a daughter here?’” said
Park Su-mi, 29, a newlywed. “But my husband and I have no preference
at all for boys. We don’t care whether we have a boy or girl.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/world/asia/23skorea.html

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By Ellen Connolly

December 23, 2007 12:00am

ACTOR Deborra-lee Furness and The Sunday Telegraph have won
a major victory in a campaign to overhaul Australia’s
anti-adoption culture.

The Rudd Government announced last week it would create a
federal governing body to streamline the system, cut waiting
lists and make overseas adoption a “priority”.

The Government said while the states would still have
carriage of applications, Canberra would establish national
uniform regulations, as well as open up new adoption
programs with more overseas countries.

A peak federal body of state representatives is also being
formed.

“I’m absolutely thrilled,” Furness said. “It’s the first
sign of the new leadership taking charge of this issue.

“This is the beginning - now we have many more steps to go.”

It follows a four-month campaign by Furness and The Sunday
Telegraph in highlighting the inadequacies of Australia’s
inter-country adoption procedures. Australia currently has
the second-lowest rate of overseas adoption in the world.

Furness brought the issue into the public arena in August
when she spoke of the obstacles she and husband Hugh Jackman
encountered when they tried to adopt in Australia eight
years ago.

The couple endured a series of bureaucratic blocks and an
unsupportive Community Services Department. In the end they
gave up and returned to the US, where the process of
adopting their two children, Oscar and Ava, was efficient
and supportive to parents.

Since then, Furness has formed an action group and held
meetings with the Attorney-General’ s department and deputy
leader Julia Gillard.

International Adoptive Families of Queensland president Mark
Byrne praised the campaign for bringing the issue to the
fore.

“We’ve been pushing for these changes for years but it took
Deborra-lee and your paper to make it happen much more
quickly,” he said.

He said, as the number of local adoptions in Australia
continued to fall, the demand from childless couples to
adopt overseas would only grow.

A spokesman for Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the
renegotiated Commonwealth- State agreement on adoption was
being formalised.

“We are eager to work with the states to ensure the best
outcomes for Australian families. We are committed to the
harmonising of Australia’s intercountry adoption practices
and reduced waiting lists are obviously desirable,” the
spokesman said.

Ricky Brisson, who runs Australian Intercountry Adoption
Network, wants the Government to allow accredited
specialised agencies to take over the role of state DoCS in
adoption applications.

Alison Rigby, who adopted orphaned twins from Colombia, said
the process was “very drawn out” and cost $80,000.

“I really feel very concerned for people now who are just
starting to adopt because there are fewer countries, the age
criteria is getting younger, and families are waiting longer
and longer,” Ms Rigby said.

When she was in Colombia she met couples from the US, Norway
and Sweden, who spoke of the ease and tax concessions they
were offered by their countries.

Furness said she wanted Australia to bring new countries
into the Hague Convention, which would cut the seven-year
waiting lists.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22963873-5006009,00.html

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WANT TO GET AWAY?� NEED A MID-WINTER BREAK IN THE SUN?

Come to Las Vegas January 13 - 16, 2008 for some great fun, sun and entertainment…you might even learn a thing or two!� For a small registration fee of only $60, you will get some great workshops, 3 breakfasts, 2 lunches and 2 dinners, and be able to see some old friends, and make some new ones, too!� This is primarily for adoptees, but friends and family are invited, too!

Airfares are extremely cheap right now, but seats are going fast (Alaska & Southwest from the West Coast, Southwest, United, Northwest, Delta & others from the rest of the country).� And we’ve obtained a group rate on a block of hotel rooms at the Flamingo Hotel, right in the center of the world famous Las Vegas Strip!�
Rooms are only $130/room/night - call the hotel directly at 1-800-835-5686 and give them code # SFKAA8, or mention International Korean Adoptee Associations (if you book through a third party source like Expedia or Travelocity, we don’t get “credit” for your reservation, so call directly!). The special nightly rate will be available from January 12 - January 17, 2008.

You can register for the Mini-Gathering AND reserve your room at the Flamingo at the IKAA website: http://www.ikaa.org.

Also, please keep checking the website as we update the itinerary for the weekend.

DON’T BE LEFT OUT IN THE COLD, REGISTER TODAY!� www.ikaa.org

Who can register?

Korean adoptees 18 years and older.
Their spouses/partners and their children.

***Please note that the minimum age requirement for gaming and clubbing is 21-years-old.

Conference fee

The registration fee covers conference material, welcome reception Sunday, lunch and breakfast on Monday and Tuesday, Tuesday night banquet, Wednesday brunch (does not include accommodation, airfare, transfers to and from the airport).

Registration before December 31, 2007: $60 USD per person
Registration from January 1 to 10, 2008: $75 USD per person
No fee for children under 6 years.Optional Dinner Buffet at Battista’s: $26 per person (incl. wine & sodas) & gratuity

Optional Poker Tournament at Bally’s: $65 per person
�

How to register?

- Go to the “Online registration” page on and follow the instructions
- Go to the “Finalize registration” page and confirm your order.You will also receive an official confirmation email from the Registration Committee within 2 business days. If you do not receive an email from the Registration Committee after 2 business days, please contact: registration@ikaa.org.Please note: Registration is not complete until payment has been received.
�

Deadline: January 8, 2008

All registrations are subject to availability and will be available on a first come, first serve basis.

IKAA POKER TOURNAMENT at BALLY’S:

Participants must be older than 21! Great cash prizes!Bally’s, another big casino across the street from the Flamingo, will host a poker tournament for IKAA. The tournament will be open to adoptees and spouses/partners.Sign up fee: $65
The fee can be paid with the registration to the general conference.

GOLFING

�For those who are interested in golfing during their visit to Las Vegas in January, a group of local adoptees will try to set up tee times for people on Tuesday, January 15th, in the morning, including golf and transportation to and from the course. Cost would be around $125 per person. Please contact golfing@ikaa.org as soon as possible, if you are interested.

AMY ANDERSON SHOW

Fresh off of two sold-out theater shows in Minneapolis, Amy has established herself as one of the hottest up-and-coming comedians in the country. Amy also created and hosted the first and longest running Asian American stand up showcase, Chop-SHTICK, at the legendary Friars of Beverly Hills and the Hollywood Improv.
Read more about Amy Anderson: www.amyanderson.net

WORKSHOPS & SESSIONS

Leadership Workshop
Facilitators: Charlotte Gullach, Liselotte Hae-Jin Birkmose & Tim Holm

The focus of this workshop is to give board/committee members, or others actively involved in an adoptee association or group, tools to develop themselves and their association. The workshop will be a mix between presentations and interaction from the participants and work will evolve from the participants own case material.

* * *

KAD Reflections On Korean Birthmothers Written Experiences
Facilitator: Mary Lee Vance, Ph.D. - Director, Center for Academic and Career Advising and Disability Support Services, University of Wisconsin - Superior

In this unique session, adoptee participants will be provided a rough draft of a book written by Korean birth mothers that is due to be published in 2008 by Yeong & Yeong (publisher of I Wish for You a Beautiful Life).�
This rough draft must be read in advance of the conference session. Discussion content from this focus group will be shared with the book’s publisher in order to incorporate some of the more productive suggestions into the book before it is published.**ADOPTEES ONLY.� Limited to 12 people. Interested participants must contact the facilitator of the session at mvance@uwsuper.edu before January 5, 2008, by identifying their age and submitting a brief paragraph describing why they want to participate in this focus group.� (Because the publisher would like a cross-section of adoptees from different ages and experiences, not all respondents may be selected, and selection will be at the discretion of the facilitator).

* * *

You�ve Got to Know When to Hold �em

Learn insider tips on how to play Texas hold ‘em, black jack, dice, roulette, and baccarat . . . from a Las Vegas dealer!

* * *

The Color of Desire: Race, Gender, and Sexuality for Asian Adoptees
Facilitator: Kathleen Ja Sook Bergquist, Ph.D. - Associate Professor, School of Social Work, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

This session will bring adult Korean adoptees together for a focus group to capture their experiences in intimate relationships as international transracial adoptees.� This unique opportunity will lay bare for examination socially constructed notions of race, sexuality, and gender.**ADOPTEES ONLY.� Information from this session will be used for the facilitator’s research.� Participants will be asked to sign an authorized consent form agreeing to participate.

* * *

Ethnic Identity Development of Korean, International, Transracial Adoptees
Facilitator: Paul Wesolowski Kim, M.A. - Predoctoral Intern, Counseling & Psychological Services, University of California - Santa Cruz

This session focuses on a study that examines Korean, international, transracial, adoptees� (KITRAs) ethnic identity development process and factors that are related to this process.� Once participants decide to participate in the study, they will be given information about the study, informed consent, and two surveys.� The completion of the two surveys will take about fifteen minutes.� Participants will be able to share their experiences and thoughts about their ethnic identity development and contribute to the body of knowledge about Korean adoptees.��**ADOPTEES ONLY.� Information from this session will be used for the facilitator’s research.� Participants will be given information about informed consent and be asked to acknowledge receipt of the informed consent.� All information collected will be anonymous.

* * *

Homeland Journeys to Korea: Information About Organized Tours for Adoptees
Presenters/Facilitators: Kimberly J. Langrehr - Board Member, Paper Lantern Chicago; Nathan B. Kupel, President, Boston Korean Adoptees, Inc. (BKA)

This session is intended to provide information regarding organized tours to Korea tailored specifically for Korean adoptees. The presenters will discuss their experiences and knowledge with different homeland tours, providing attendees with a list of existing homeland tours. Part of the session will be dedicated to an open discussion of topics to consider when researching homeland tours. Adoptees that have previously traveled to Korea through organized tours are strongly encouraged to attend in order to share their experiences and provide suggestions. The presenters are not affiliated with any agency-specific tour and hope adoptees may benefit from their experiences when considering tours in order to have the best experience possible.

* * *

Breakout Sessions for Adoptees

These small-group discussions will be divided according to age group, and there will be one discussion group with a focus on discussing parenting (adoptees who are parents of any age are welcome).� Structured discussion topics will be determined closer to the date of the Mini-Gathering, but depending on the group, the discussion in these sessions can often be free-flowing and cover a variety of topics.

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http://www.startrib une.com/local/ 12916351. html

For five minutes, Emily Saunders was alone.

Then her twin sister was born.

Their mother, a poor South Korean woman who was not expecting twins
and gave birth out of wedlock, made a fateful decision. She would give
one girl up. That was Emily, who was adopted when she was 4 months old
by Jackie and Eric Saunders of Wyoming, Minn.

For 21 years, neither Emily nor her twin, Eunjin, had a clue the other
one existed. Their families did not tell them until this year. On
Thursday, Emily will fly to South Korea to meet her mirror image and
try to stitch her past with her present. She hopes meeting her sister
can fill a void that has contributed to turmoil in her life.

The days leading up to the trip are a mixture of excitement and
nervousness. She’s packing a lifetime of photos to share with her
sister. She also has a long list of questions for her birth mother,
who has colon cancer and told Emily she wanted to meet her before she
dies. � At the top of Emily’s list, not surprisingly, is “Why?”
When the Saunderses chose to adopt Emily, they knew she was a twin.
But Jackie Saunders says the adoption agency told them the other
sister “must have died” because as a matter of policy, they did not
separate twins.

Those words, “must have,” gnawed at Jackie Saunders, who kept after
the agency. Soon they learned the truth: Eunjin was alive and living
with her mother. The Saunderses asked the agency to contact them
immediately if the twins’ birth mother ever released Eunjin so they
could adopt her, too.

Years passed, and the Saunderses did not tell Emily that she had a twin
sister.

“Don’t tell her. Not now, not ever,” advised a woman who worked at the
Korean orphanage where she had cared for Emily when she was a baby.
The woman came to Minnesota for a visit. “Culturally, that’s not how
we do things,” she said.

Back in South Korea, Eunjin’s mother kept quiet, too.

Jackie Saunders, principal of North Lakes Academy, a charter school in
Forest Lake, says she and her husband wanted to tell Emily about her
sister, but all of the adoption experts suggested that they wait until
she got older. “She won’t understand, and it could mess up the bonding
process,” Jackie Saunders remembers being advised. “The books and
advisers all say that you should follow the child’s lead. If the child
asks questions about their birth information, of course, tell them.
But don’t push it on them.”

There were times when she wanted to blurt it out.

Like when Emily discovered Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and became
obsessed. She’d watch all the shows, talk about them constantly, and
want to play “Olsen Twins” with her friends. She even wrote to them.

Some nights, Jackie Saunders and her husband would sit up in bed and
ask each other: “Do you think it means something? Should we tell her?”

Ultimately, they’d shrug it off and say, “It is what it is.”

Meanwhile, Emily was growing up. Her teenage years were turbulent
ones. Her best friend died of cancer, as did a grandmother. Emily
developed an eating disorder and attempted suicide. She struggled in
school, but eventually graduated from Chisago Lakes High School. She
says her mother told her that during that dark period, her parents
feared that she was too fragile to handle anything else.

Jackie Saunders says they debated what the right thing to do was, but
ultimately, stuck with the advice to let Emily’s interest in learning
more about her birth family guide them.

The missing piece

Last May, in a therapist’s office, the truth finally came out.

Emily, now 21, asked her mother to tell her everything. Jackie
Saunders didn’t hesitate. “You were born a twin and your birth mother
kept your sister,” she said, finally speaking the lines she had
rehearsed for years.

Emily crumbled. Through her tears, she asked: “What was wrong with me?
Why didn’t she keep me?”

Jackie Saunders replied: “The choices she made were about her, not you.”

Feeling rejected and numb, Emily went home to her apartment she shares
with her two cats in St. Paul, accompanied by her mother. Two weeks
later, she was starting to come to terms with the news.

As a little girl, she loved to work on jigsaw puzzles with her father.

“She said, ‘Mom, it’s like I’m doing a jigsaw and there’s this one
missing piece and I’ve been shoving all kinds of crud into that
missing hole and it never fit. Now, my sister is like the missing
piece that does fit,’” Jackie Saunders said.

They started searching for Eunjin and her mother.

In South Korea, Eunjin was getting the same stunning news — that she
had a twin sister somewhere. Her mother had become seriously ill and,
based on what Jackie Saunders has learned so far, that prompted her to
reveal the secret.

Eunjin and her mother contacted the adoption agency in September and
gave the workers their contact information in the hope of finding
Emily.

Soon, Emily had two phone numbers in hand — one for Eunjin’s college
dorm, the other for her birth mother’s home.

Emily sat on the edge of her bed inside her apartment, banging the
phone on her knee a few times before dialing the long string of
numbers for Eunjin.

“It rang about three times,” Emily recalled. Then a voice, deeper than
her own, answered. “She said, ‘yobo sayo,’” which Koreans greet each
other with on the phone.

“Then, I said something like: ‘Hi, I’m your twin sister. I wanted to
meet you, talk to you, see what you sounded like. I can’t believe it’s
you.’ Then I just started to bawl!”

Eunjin, who speaks only a few English words, gasped loudly. “Are you
OK? Are you OK?” she asked Emily over and over again.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Emily told her.

They hung up and she called her birth mom. The conversation was
equally brief because they couldn’t understand one another.

But later, they found a translator to help. “She told me she’s never
stopped thinking of me for 22 years,” Emily said, noting that in South
Korean custom, newborns are considered 1 year old. The twins’ birth
mom also told Emily: “Sarang hamnida.” It means, “I love you.”

Exchanging photos

Since Emily and Eunjin found each other, they’ve been e-mailing each
other and calling. They’ve also exchanged photos, current and baby
ones.

A look at the pictures reveals strikingly different personalities.
Emily says they don’t know, without doing a blood test, whether
they’re fraternal or identical twins.

“The first thing I wanted to do when I saw her picture was give her
contacts and put makeup on her,” she said. And when Emily, who swears
a lot, told Eunjin she was learning Korean swear words, her sister
gasped and told her those weren’t nice words.

While Eunjin is in college studying to be a dental hygienist, Emily
said she was laid off from a job and is considering applying to
Metropolitan State University or St. Paul College to study law
enforcement.

Despite their differences, the language barrier and thousands of
miles, they share a bond.

“No person can get closer to a person than someone they were in the
womb with for nine months,” Emily explained. In her wallet, she
carries a copy of the only page of her birth papers that mentions
Eunjin.

On Thursday, she and her mother will fly to South Korea. They haven’t
planned everything they will do, but the main thing both sisters want
is to be together again.

Jackie Saunders says she is excited, too, but also cautious about
building up expectations.

“I’ve tried to develop a future version of ‘it is what it is,’” she
said. “I get up in the morning and I almost chant it: “It will be what
it will be.”

Both mother and daughter are hoping that the missing piece will help
Emily put her past struggles behind her. “It won’t fix her life but it
will lay a foundation to close out the hardest chapters,” Jackie
Saunders said.

Added Emily: “I believe it will fill some of the emptiness that I’ve
felt. Always like something was missing. We didn’t get the chance to
grow up together. There were 21 years we missed out on. I am looking
forward to having contact with her. She said maybe someday she might
want to live here.”

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