My Birthday in Korea: The First Since the Day I Was Born

My 23rd birthday…

For some reason, I always picture people having babies in the middle of the night, waking up and saying, “It’s time,” and rushing to the hospital still half asleep. So this year, when June 12, 2:40 pm rolled around, I was able to visualize what the day may have been like on my “birth day”. It was hot, the sun still high in the sky.

It was more profound than I thought it would be. It felt really special to celebrate my day of birth in the country where it actually took place. It was also special because I was celebrating on the “real” day, June 12 and not the 13th.

When my parents and I came to Korea in 2005, we learned that I was born on June 12, 1986 at 2:40 pm. I think this holds more significance and weight in my heart than it does for anyone else… I’ve always celebrated on June 13th, that’s what’s on my birth certificate, passport, driver’s license, etc. It’s my legal birthday in the U.S. But to know that I was actually born one day sooner… It’s hard to explain the feeling. I’m not angry or expect anyone to change my birthday on their calendar, it’s not like I care enough to go and change all the legal documents (if that’s even possible). Maybe I can just have two birthdays from now on, with double the presents, obviously. :)

Lots of people have known all their life the exact day, the precise hour and minute they were born. On the other end of the spectrum, there are many people who don’t know when they were actually born, their birth date is just an estimation, which could be “off” by months or years.

Many people can have their mothers tell them their entire birth story, even what they were like inside the womb. Just learning simple details of my birth in ‘05 was like a gift. That knowledge is something I definitely do not take for granted. Don’t read this post and take it the wrong way… I don’t pity myself that my mom couldn’t tell me the same intimate details as other mothers, nor do I expect people to remember the date and time I was born in Korea. I just find it all very interesting and thought-provoking, and I hope readers do as well. Adoption is still often misunderstood and is a complex and sensitive subject. I just hope readers can gain some sort of insight from this one adoptee’s experience.

To celebrate my birthday, I invited my co-workers to dinner. We ate at a really nice restaurant in Itaewon called Gecko’s Garden. We got to sit outside and we could actually see stars. My co-workers gave me some really nice gifts - slippers, a rice cooker (yay!), badminton set, soaps, make up, tea, scarves… But the gift that I found the most special was from Mr. Kim.

Mr. Kim is the handyman at our school. He’s always building things, fixing things, he’s in charge of the school buses… He drove everyone to the restaurant in Itaewon (his vehicle is actually one of the school buses, and he’s always shuttling us around). Mr. Kim’s present was two small traditional Korean masks. They’re from some historic area in Seoul and made of some traditional wood (hah, wish I could be more specific here). Apparently, these kinds of masks were owned by middle class people as a kind of good luck charm. The masks represented good fortune and success of a higher class, and the middle class people owned them in hopes such good fortune would rub off on them… This is my understanding anyway, wish I knew more!

He wrapped the present with such care, and as soon as I saw the masks smiling up at me from the box, I lost it. I had to hold back so many tears! It felt so special to receive this traditional Korean gift on my birthday in my birth country. There are times I seriously forget I’m living in a “foreign” country. Korea feels so much like the U.S. - it’s so Western and modernized. The masks were a reminder that yes, I am in my homeland. It also reminded me just how profound this whole experience is. Everything - having my birthday here, living here, being surrounded by people who look like me, blending in, wondering about my birth family in the back of my mind each and every day.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much time to sit and contemplate it all. Before coming here, I figured I would be journaling every day all my feelings related to being adopted and living in my homeland. But really, I just don’t have the time to explore every emotion I feel, which is just the reality of life I suppose. I’m too busy teaching, spending time with friends, traveling around. And it’s fine, now I realize I can just contemplate things here and there, whenever they “come up.” Like last night, suddenly crying over two little masks. It’s nice to be able to understand these feelings now. I am able to pinpoint why I was emotional and connect to those feelings, whereas in middle and high school, I would have intense emotions and not understand or connect to where they stemmed from. I couldn’t sort through them, so I just tried to cover them up and not deal with them. Anyway, it’s nice to be more conscious of my adoption-related feelings. I think being an adoptee is an emotional journey - not necessarily in a bad way - I’ll be on the rest of my life. For instance, when the day comes for Cory and I to have and raise children, I’ll have new thoughts and emotions to contemplate.

Thanks for reading.