Resources for Adoptees

Housing for adoptees

http://www.koroot.org/

Service organizations for adoptees – help with basic living, search, and accessing resources such as language scholarships

http://www.goal.or.kr/

http://www.inkas.or.kr/eng/

Go here if you have problems in your search

http://www.kcare.or.kr/en3/

Learning Korean in Korea

http://talk.go.kr/ <– New government program of teaching and learning

http://www.geumgang.ac.kr/english/Inernational_Students/language.html

http://home.inje.ac.kr/~iiihr/intro/introinenglish.htm

Also

http://www.sogang.ac.kr/english/program/04_program.html

http://elc.ewha.ac.kr:1004/en/template/info01.asp

http://www.useoul.edu/admission/adm0701_1.jsp

http://www.yskli.com/index.asp

Teaching English in Korea

http://talk.go.kr/ <– New government program of teaching and learning

http://www.worknplay.co.kr/

http://www.eslcafe.com/

Found on the bus

Ad found on the bus targets four types of Koreans who should go to this hagwon (not all pictured): 1. The person who can’t stand to go to one more English class. 2. The person who always goes to English class and always fails. 3. The person who can’t go to class steadily who can’t make progress and 4. The person who can’t open his mouth in front of foreigners.

The Korean character says, “In front of foreigners, why do I become like a deaf-mute who ate honey?”

“Because that foreigner is an arrogant prick ! That’s why,” says Jane.

New interviews

with Jennifer Kwon Dobbs in A View From the Loft.

with Emily Hartley in the Northfield News

and a pre-Baptist interview with Amy Goetzman in the Minnesota Post

Upcoming talks

My credit cards, cash card, and driver’s license are all expired, but I’m coming to the U.S. anyway! I’m going to talk about writing and TRACK. Here’s a list of upcoming events. Please check the events page for further updates.

Thursday, Feb, 18, 2010, Kennesaw State University, Georgia. 3:30-5:00.

Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010. Moorhead State University. Asian American Studies class visit.

Monday, Feb. 15, 2010 – Moorhead State University, Minnesota. Craft talk 4:00. Reading 8:00.

Friday, Feb. 12, 2010 – St. Olaf College, Minnesota. Reading 7:00-9:00.

Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010 – University of Minnesota, Minneapolis campus. 1:00-2:00 public lecture, evening reading at Coffman.

Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2010 - East Side Arts Alliance, Oakland, California. 6:30-8:00

Monday, Feb. 8,  Stanford University, California. 3:15-4:45.

Thursday, Jan. 28, Yeoi Yeon lecture series, Seoul 7:00-9:00.

On and Beyond Korean Adoption

Lee Herrick’s guest edited edition of Asian American Poetry and Writing is out.

My contribution is an interview with Jennifer Kwon Dobbs and Sun Yung Shin.

There’s also an excerpt from Fugitive Visions in it, and here is another different excerpt of FV from Korean Adoption Studies Journal. Enjoy.

Blogging at Conducive

I started blogging at Conducive in an effort to reach a wider audience.

I’ll still post things here, but I’ll also direct you over to Conducive for some articles.

Cruise on over now to read my new article and see a photo of my birthmother mother.

What does “Gotcha” mean?

November is National Adoption Month. What would such a celebration of adoption, whether in the U.S. or another country, mean to my Korean birthmother?

At the time my mother became a “birthmother,” I was six months old, and my sister was four years old. Because she passed away about nine years ago, I will take the liberty of imagining what she might say about the meaning of adoption in her life, if she could read other people’s blogs in English, and if she could blog back.

What Adoption Means to Me
By Lee Pil-rye

 

Nothing About Us Without Us

Do you believe that access to medical information is important for all people, including adoptees and the children of adoptees? Are you a Korean adoptee who believes that you should have a say in the laws that Korea makes about the lives of existing adoptees and future adoptees? Would you like fair laws to govern the birthfamily search process? Do believe that unwed Korean mothers should be educated and supported in keeping their own children? If you said “yes” to any of these questions, you may be interested in what is happening this fall in Seoul with the revisions of Korea’s adoption laws.

Please click here to read the full article.

Domestic Adoption in Korea

Despite a lot of positive publicity, domestic adoption is actually going DOWN, very steadily, in South Korea. The government should use its funds to support single moms in raising their children whom they love, and who have a home already — not promote domestic adoption.  Check out the statistics at

http://justicespeaking.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/domestic-vs-overseas-korean-adoption/

Chuseok is not Thanksgiving.

I had a new essay published in Korean in Pressian, and I put the original English on the TRACK blog here:

http://justicespeaking.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/갔다-올께/

Delivery gone wild

South Korea is the land of convenience. Here, you see that you can be so lazy that not only can you eat at McDonald’s — you can also get it DELIVERED to you by motorcycle.

Whoever thought of delivering babies for adoption was really smart. I bet they make more for delivering babies than ice cream cones.  Plus that, babies don’t melt.