Disappointing reunions of long-lost kin

A brother and sister who were reunited after 51 years looked embarrassed. At a DNA test lab, a 56-year-old man and his 52-year-old sister felt awkward on International Missing Children’s Day on Friday. After hearing that a DNA test proved that they were siblings, they just nodded without saying anything. Such a scene would seem awkward since neither sibling had seen each other for half a century. They were separated after their parents sent the sister to an orphanage as a baby. The brother said, “My sister asked me to lend her 10 million won (8,500 U.S. dollars) several days ago, but I had to say no because I eke out a living delivering chicken.” The sister, however, said, “I`ve been poorly treated by people so I want to rely on my biological brother.” Their long-awaited reunion, however, seems to have turned into the start of another scar.

A 25-year-old Korean adoptee was waiting for her older sister for seven hours at the DNA test lab the same day. Raised in the Netherlands, the adoptee was making her third attempt to find her biological family. To be able to converse with her family in Korean, she even studied at a private Korean university last year. By asking around more than 200 households, she found her older sister and had the latter take a DNA test to prove it. The test showed that the latter was her older sister but a meeting would not happen. The older sister said, “My parents deny that they had put up their daughter for adoption, so I cannot accept her as my younger sister.”

After the box-office success of the Korean film “Architecture 10,” more than 10,000 people daily download a smartphone app that helps find their first love. Given this, one can easily imagine how big the desire of Korean adoptees to find their biological parents is. The process of trying to reconnect with long-lost kin or loved ones can prove to be anything but sentimental or romantic. More than 76,000 Korean adoptees came to Korea between 1995 and 2005 to find their biological parents, but just 2.7 percent or 2,113 succeeded.

The Dutch adoptive parents consoled the adoptee from the Netherlands. She is now participating in a Buddhist temple stay in South Jeolla Province with her adoptive parents, who came all the way to Korea after hearing that her older sister refused to meet her. Fleur Pellerin, the first Korean adoptee to be named a French Cabinet minister, said, “I’ve never wanted to look for my Korean family. The French family who has always loved me is my real family.” On what grounds can Koreans feel pride in a successful Korean adoptee? Korea has hosted the G-20 summit but “exported” 916 children for adoption last year.

City Desk Reporter Shin Gwang-yeong (neo@donga.com)