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May 12, 2012
AdoptiveFamiliesCircle
The Korean War Baby has found this site as a great resource for adoptees who are dealing realistically with the issues. It is also a resource for the Adoptive families.
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Monica Cho-Upcoming Artist chosen to illustrate Korean War Baby biography
Biography
Monica Cho is a Korean-American painter born in Torrance, California. She was inspired by art at an early age by her aunt on her mother’s side but hadn't seen it as a passion until several years later. Monica started to pursue art further in high school and college. Monica attended the Art Institute of Chicago for a year. Then she transferred to the University of Parkside Kenosha. Monica plans on pursuing Art History as well as studying abroad. She decided to move back to Chicago to try to establish herself as an artist. Monica currently has a studio at Morpho Gallery which is a private artist gallery located in the area of Bowmansville.
Monica focuses mainly on oils, watercolor, and mixed media. Some of her inspirations are Matisse, Rothko, Monet, and Kandinsky. “The strokes of the paintbrush are like playing music and the colors are the notes. It can be a fast and exciting, or an emotional somber piece.”Although Monica loves to experiment with all different mediums of fine art, she finds a niche in painting, particularly oil painting.
Morpho Gallery
Is please to present:
Monica Cho Art Exhibition
May 4th to 6th
Join us to see New Work by Monica Cho
Contact Info
Website
May 6, 2012
Adoption Healing Supplement by Joe Soll
Adoption Healing Supplement by Joe Soll
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Reviews
Joe Soll조 살, LCSW, DAPA
Author of, AdoptionHealing… a path to recovery ( 1 for moms, 1 for adoptees, 1 for both )
Co-author of Evil Exchange and Fatal Flight.
"I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell." - Harry S. Truman
"The horrors of war pale beside the loss of a mother [or child]." - Anna Freud, J.S.
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If you order any of the other Adoption Healing books at the same time,
you may take a 20% discount on both!
doption Healing… a path to recovery Supplement
Joe Soll 조살, LCSW, DAPA
This supplement to the Adoption Healing series offers brand new ways for
understanding the profound effects of, and ways of healing from, the wounds of the separation of mother and child. Through more focused inner child work, using new techniques for self-understanding and navigating personal, reunion and relationship difficulties, the reader is given more toolsfor his/her self-help toolbox.
Using the same format as the previous editions, each chapter focuses on different issues
and provides exercises that one can do on one’s own. I believe and have seen that healing, recovery, peace and contentment is possible, however it is a journey that begins with you. Are you ready?
"Injuries caused by separation of mother and child can, in time and with work, be dealt with
effectively to the point where the loss will not interfere daily in our lives. Instead, the pain might rear it's head a few times a year. We may need to cry--get a hug and perhaps vent our anger--but the pain will pass more quickly each time." |
Reviews
"Joe Soll has probably worked with adoptees and first parents more than anyone else on the planet. His approach has always involved empathy, intuition and introspection, without which dialogue runs dry. Few know the depth of the adoptee and first parent experience as well as Joe Soll, especially the dark side, where loss and loneliness reside.
Combining his experience, or perhaps we should say wisdom, with current therapeutic approaches, Joe creates an environment where growth can occur. Read his work, try it out, see how it works for you." -
Robert Andersen, M.D., psychiatrist, author of Second Choice: Growing Up Adopted and A Bridge Less Travelled: Twice Visited
"Loss, loss, and more loss. Joe Soll, in his latest book about adoption, knows well how the pain of loss can undermine relationships, including in reunion. Delving deeply into both the loss of the child and of the mother are necessary preludes to reunions if they are to proceed without another devastation. In this book, Joe gives many helpful suggestions and ideas toward healing these rifts. One of the most important is to deal with reality. Then there is allowing for the grief and persevering toward empathy, both for self and for other. This requires courage, tenacity, and strength. This book will help those affected by adoption to find these qualities and permit themselves to engage in fulfilling relationships." - Nancy Verrier, psychotherapist, author of Primal Wound: Legacy of the adopted child, andComing Home to Self: The Adopted Child Grows Up
"This Supplement to the Adoption Healing series creates a way for anyone reading it to gain insights into what "affected by adoption" truly means. This book creates a means for those affected by adoption to fully grieve the losses inherent in adoption by simply opening the book, reading, and doing the work contained within the pages. In this book, Joe Soll brings together the painful experiences of adoptees and their mothers and ties together the two previous books into one clean, comprehensive, and easy to read package. For those who are directly affected by adoption and those who interact with them, this book provides a way to examine 'the adoption experience' in a gentle and sincere way allowing for a unique healing opportunity." - Jean Provance LCSW, psychotherapist and adoption educator.
"This 'supplement' offers practical advice for adoptees, their parents and therapists - much of it updated, or not available in Joe Soll's original 2000 edition of Adoption Healing. There are also well-organized appendices, such as a fascinating one entitled Myths and Facts, and a needed emphasis on concepts such as Healing the Fracture in Adoptees. The focus throughout, is on the healing power of openness, truth and validation of self, in adoption (rather than the toxic secrets, lies and myths, still so prevalent in the adoption world). This is an important book .a must read." - David Kirschner, PhD., Psychoanalyst, author ofADOPTION: UNCHARTED WATERS. . A Psychologist's Case Studies. . Clinical & Forensic Issues. "We have been given a gift; a ground breaking, deeply insightful analysis of the complex reasons why adoption reunions are so often interrupted or destroyed by the lack of self-knowledge. Soll explains that in order for reunions to be successful, adoptees and their mothers must first individually climb the ‘mountain of recovery’ to understand and overcome the devastating effects of the ‘profound’ loss experienced by both at the moment of their separation.
Adoption creates powerful emotional conflicts caused by layers of trauma and the false belief systems that grew up around adoption and which sabotage reunions. This book shows adoptees and their mothers, those brave survivors of the excruciating trauma induced when they were separated, how to heal their own selves in order to prepare for and deal with reunion. How both parties conduct their reunion journey determines success or failure at the shared destination.
This book teaches mothers, adoptees and their therapists about the extensive preparation required to prepare for success. Barriers to success are named as traumatic sorrow, loss and pain but the good news is adoptees and their mothers will no longer need to bring their accumulated traumas along to disrupt their reuniting. Soll has provided a detailed set of psychological skills for reunion travelers to follow, enabling them to travel safely and well." -Joss Shawyer, author of Death by Adoption
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Joe Soll조 살, LCSW, DAPA
Author of, AdoptionHealing… a path to recovery ( 1 for moms, 1 for adoptees, 1 for both )
Co-author of Evil Exchange and Fatal Flight.
"I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell." - Harry S. Truman
"The horrors of war pale beside the loss of a mother [or child]." - Anna Freud, J.S.
May 5, 2012
Well, it has been a long time. I have been very busy, learning new things about websites, design, graphic programs, combining audio/graphic/text files, etc. I am living back in the Philippines, where I once lived for ten years, back in 1975 to 1985 when I worked in local and international films. I am divorced, again! Thankfully no children involved in either marriages. I guess that I was too late to really understand what it takes to keep a marriage together. Oh, WELL. "Too Late, Too late," cried St. Augustine.
For seven months I have been here in the Philippines, discovering that though many years (26) have passed since I last lived here, the Filipino people are basically the same, in the majority they continue to be open and friendly. Of course, there is the elements that prey on stupid tourists or conceited foreign 'devils' who consider their 'culture and technology' some how superior. I have met some of these in the streets of passion in Angeles City, the entertainment/sex tour capital of the Philippines. It is what it is...life goes on.
It is myself who has changed so much, some for the better, alot for the worse, LOL. I guess aging and maturity, plus realizing that life must be lived as well as I can, respecting all others if possible to the best of our ability, has produced many of these differences on my outlook of life.
When I left Korea last May, 2011, I explored across the USA, driving from Chicago, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennesse, across Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and finall California. I met with KAD and family, lingered in Tennesse working on my biography book, then stayed with my Dad and my new step-mother. Throughout I met with many Korean Adult Adoptees and heard their stories.
It was a great time to re-connect with the land of my adoption, the great US of A. I had lived for 16 years in my mother's land, the "land of the morning calm", known as the Republic of Korea, or Da Han Min Gook. I had found that being of mixed-blood had good and bad consequences.
I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children.Psa_69:8
I came across this verse from the Old Testament that really 'jumped out' at me. For after living in Korea and constantly hearing Koreans tell me "you don't look Korean at all" or that "well, you aren't REALLY Korean" and other choice bits, made me realize that my mother who gave me birth had indeed realized that growing up in Korea would have been almost impossible for me.
When people looked at me they saw a Westerner and a Native Speaker. Often students in group classes disappeared after I announced that my mother was a Korean. The majority, maybe 75 percent had no problem, and actually more and more of Korean society is accepting the Mixed-blood AND the Kyopos (Koreans who have emigrated to other lands and returned for a visit or to live and work). With 170,000 multicultural marriages and 120,000 offspring Korea is now waking up to the fact they are a NOT homogeous people. Welcome to the 21st Century and Globalization!
My identity will always be an American, of mixed-heritage but totally a 'red-blooded Yankee'. I saw across the cities and towns of America the diversity of the land, though we know that prejudice exists everywhere at least the majority of folks accept that an American is not a 'rich white' person as some would suggest.
Often across the cyberworld I read of Korean Adult Adoptees (some empasize that many of us are now adults) who complain bitterly that "they lost their culture, language, family" when they were adopted to other countries. This is true, but they seem to ignore the many reasons that mothers in Korea were pressured, even forced by circumstances to give up or relinquish their children.
Relinquishment may have been due to the child being a war orphan in the early period after the Korean War, with thousands of children on the streets. It may be because of children of "mixed-blood" a result of foreign 'boyfriends'; "a disabled person- premature, mental or physical disability"; one too many "females"; or simply a 'love child' born to an unwed woman. The list is long, and the reasons changed over the decades, with the limited research done it is obvious that most Korean women had little choice because of the lack of support from boyfriends who ran like a scared rabbit; pressure to have an abortion for unwanted pregnancy from their own families to hide the shame; lack of support from the government and social programs to support Single Motherhood.
The issues are complex and diverse, and no solution is simple. The facts are that each year thousands of children are born to Unwed Mothers and Korean society has not yet caught up with the idea that being Single Divorced or Unwed has a place in society. Within the last decade Divorce laws have given more rights to women for custody of children that they never had before. Society is moving forward, but it takes time.
All these things I have pondered for many years, as I have sought to understand This Thing of Ours-Adoption. One thing I have seen over and over is this: The spectrum of lives and how they each are finding their own Identity is across the board, from extreme to extreme. There is no "black and white", no right answers, no simple solutions. What has been, can not be changed. How each of us deals with our own lives must be done with careful research of other's lives from every part of the spectrum. Reading only stories of those who had horrible things happen to them does not represent the greater majority. Life in many "natural" families suffer from the same abuses and problems, having nothing to do with Adoption.
Certainly there are those who believe that Adoption is only wonderful and the "Christian thing to do". I disagree partially with this notion, for it tends to ignore the bond between a human being growing inside a woman's body. Even a Surrogate mother who is not biologically a fetus's genetic mother has this bonding, and science is finding this out only recently. Science has helped to create a human being, that a family may be, but that child also MAY have the desire to meet the biological 'parents'. These are the complexities that were never thought of when Sperm Donors later found out that dozens of their 'children' were born of their 'seed'. Some of them wanted to find them, some just don't care. Again the Spectrum of life.
All these things must be considered, in a balanced way because they cannot be undone, can they? Each must find their own answers, and deal with it. What I have found is that those on Extremes have turned into PRO and CON groups, some attacking the others with great hostility and anger. Some see simple solutions that would stop adoption from one country to another but they fail to view the current state of that society on Adoption and Orphan status. The other side extols the 'blessedness of adoption' and ignore the realities that a child/adult must face throughout their lives, the many unanswered questions.
"Why?" "What really happened?" "Do I betray my parents if I look for my 'other parents'?"
Many do not even want to know, loyality may cause them to not want to search. Again, there is a vast range of emotional feelings, thoughts, desires and positions. It is a life long journey, that may stay the same or suddenly change. When some adoptees have searched they found different stories, a few have found reunion but others have been rejected twice.
You who read this, you may be an Adult Adoptee, an Adoptive Parent or family member, a Natural/1st/Birth mother, or a social worker, adoption agency staff, government official, etc. The so-called Adoption Triad has extentions of many groups and in this day and age MOST of them should work together to find the best solutions for each individual person involved.
If Family Preservation of an Unwed Mother is possible then yes by all means; if the family of the mother is not willing then YES, a family that openly adopts within the country; but if not possible then YES, send the child to a family of another culture, making certain that international and local laws are followed. Every child deserves a home, and he or she should not have to grow up in Foster homes or Institutional Care IF A HOME CAN BE FOUND. I have the strongest disgust for those who blindly are against InterCountry Adoption (formerly called International Adoption) yet ignore the facts of a country's own ideas on Orphans/Adoptees. They scream "Family Preservation" yet there is no 'father', only a woman, a mother, faced with the realities of life. She must live with her 'decision' which may be pressured upon her by greed or those thinking it is best for the child. In certain societies now Single Motherhood is 'acceptable' but in many others it is unacceptable. We cannot 'make' a people desire 'to do the right thing' or 'take care of their own'. WHO are we to demand such?
On the other hand, corruption in Sending Countries Should/Must be exposed and governments of Receiving Countries follow the spirit of the Hague Conventions on the Rights of the Child and on Adoption. Not all adoptions have been forced upon mothers, and babies have not all been 'stolen'. Thousands of children were abandoned on the streets, because the circumstances the mothers still find themselves faced with cause them to make the decision to give up their child. Can society move forward and change? Slowly that is happening in some countries but more must be done. One-sided arguments that blame other do not solve the problems.
Children are born each day around the world in poverty, with no family, victims of war, mixed marriage, prejudices, subject to various religious and moral rules, the list is endless. The world is becoming Globalized yet we have still have our differences. How wonderful if we all respected each other...how we love the songs of peace and love. SIGH, but the realities of life in this world is not that because good and evil exist in the hearts of mankind. We can only try individually to do what we each think is right. I only wish I had learned this earlier in my own life and not made so many mistakes.
Well, enough for now. I encourage all of you to seek out what you can discover, remember to keep things in perspective, balance your viewpoint by reading many different writings by every part of This Thing of Ours-Adoption. Good luck and God (which ever one you may believe in) bless you and yours.
The Korean War Baby
May 4, 2012
Deann Borshay Liem Updates
Hello, everyone-
We have some wonderful screenings coming up this spring for In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee and First Person Plural. If you're in any of these locations please join us! I'm also pleased to announce that First Person Plural is available on Comcast this month, and we have some exciting news about our latest project, Geographies of Kinship - The Korean Adoption Story.
In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee
Association of Asian Studies Film Expo
March 17, 3:55 PM, Screening & Q&A
Sheraton Centre Toronto, Canada
Indiana University Cinema
April 3, 7:00 PM, Screening & Discussion
Bloomington, Indiana
Cinemasia Film Festival
April 7, 4:00 PM, Festival Screening
De Balie Leidseplein, Amsterdam
First Person Plural
Indiana University Cinema
Screening & Discussion
April 1, 6:30 PM
Bloomington, Indiana
City College of San Francisco
May 2, 7:00 PM, Screening & Q&A
City College, Cloud 246
Cinema Asian America, Comcast
Available as VOD during the month of March.
Please go to Movie Collections, then to Cinema Asian America to select First Person Plural
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Geographies of Kinship
Our new film, Geographies of Kinship, has received a development grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities! The film follows several Korean adoptees from the U.S. and Europe on their journeys to reconnect with their birth country and piece together their past. This is the third in a trilogy of adoption-related films and we are thrilled to have NEH support. Please check out our sample clips.You can also check updates by visiting us:
- On the web @ www.mufilms.org
- On Facebook @ www.facebook.com/inthematterofchajunghee
Thank you very much and happy viewing!
Deann Borshay Liem
Director/Producer/Writer
FIRST PERSON PLURAL
IN THE MATTER OF CHA JUNG HEE
GEOGRAPHIES OF KINSHIP
To ensure receipt of our emails, please add Mu_Films@mail.vresp.com
to your Contacts or Address Book. Thank you!
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Korean War Baby Notes: If you are a Korean ADoptee searching for Identity, understanding of your roots, or just curious about what others may have already learned, then go see these films and others. Remember that each case is similar yet different than your own life. If you are trying to reconcile the questions in your mind, then seek out information, narratives, books, etc. This Thing of Ours-Adoption is complex but we are each on our own Journey. Good Luck,
The Korean War Baby
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