I’d like to say that my journey started when I landed in Sweden at the tender age of 3 months, but that’d be impossible. Still, I remember starting thinking about it as early as day-nursery. I may have been 4 or 5 years old back then and my dad had the honor of explaining to me why I didn’t look like the other kids. From then I’d fantasize about my birth family from time to time, picturing them as smokey figures in the back of my mind.
So I guess the day I first saw their pictures, sent to us from Korea through the Swedish adoption agency – that’s when the journey began for real.
You’ll think that you give yourself a “conclusion” by meeting your birth family or maybe you hope to find answers, or the “real” you by searching.
It took me several years to realize that this is a journey without an end. Because an adoptee’s story start where others’ end at “Happily ever after“.
Korea trips in order:
2001 Summer – Family trip for 2 weeks
2003 – Korean sisters came to Sweden for 2 weeks
2005 February – Went to Korea for 3 weeks during winter vacation, celebrated my 18th birthday with a sweet potato cake
2006 June/July – Studied for 4 weeks at Kyung Hee University. Thank you SWS Scholarship
2009 July – Went to Korea for 4 weeks to visit my nephews for the first time
2009 September 27th-March 25th 2010 – Studied at Korea University
As you can see, I’ve been to Korea 5 times since I was 14, but only one of those were with my family – a family trip so to say. After the 3rd time I decided I wanted to go with my family next. Then Life happened – I went back home, moved out and started university.
After a year, I signed up for a Korean evening class for fun, it’s the only Korean evening class at University level in the country. It turned out to be much better than my ordinary classes.
Next thing I knew I had quit all my classes and decided to go for East Asian studies with Korean as my full-time major. Passed the first exam’s re-take with together with two other late-comers from my evening-class and got permission to enroll.
Which later led me to study Korean for 6 months at Korea University during Fall and Winter semester 2009-2010.
And here I am a couple of years later, and still no family trip checked off the list. But we’re working on that.
The great thing about this journey? You’re only alone if that’s really what you wish for – and I’m tired of travelling alone.
We’ve checked the best dates and cheapest flights with Finnair, now we’re only a dream (and 800 Euros/person and ticket) away…
