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| Loving Others' Children I read in the newspaper published in prison last month about people who were adopted abroad when young and returned as adults to the motherland to visit, either alone or with stepparents. I could not but feel touched and shamed as well when I thought about the fact that although their homeland had abandoned them, they came to this land again. One American mother said that she had two sons and three daughters of her own but decided on adoption out of sympathy when she read about Korean orphans. When I was in the United States, I visited Professor Reischauer in his home. He said that his son had adopted a Korean child even though he had his own child and wants to adopt yet another one. I remember that when I heard this I realized many things. We Koreans dearly love our children, of whom we are very proud. This is the simple fact and may be considered one unique characteristic of Korean society. It is a common phenomenon, however, that as dearly as we love our own children, we have suprisingly and shamefully little or no idea of loving other people's children. This can be called a shortcoming of our national character which we should regret. Furthermore, are we not a nation that treats coldly and discriminates against stepchildren who belong to hubands or wives? Such stories as Changhwa Hongnyon abound in our folklore, and this kind of bad custom persists even today so that we often witness instances where widowers and widows with children are reluctant to remarry. In the case of women in particular, the handicap is even more serious. Even now, men rarely want to accept widows with children as their spouses. Some time ago I read a tale about the former president of the United States, Gerald Ford. President Ford's mother remarried and he and his stepfather got along so well that President Ford finally dropped his real surname and changed it to his stepfather's - Ford. Recently it has become more frequent to boast about our country. I hope that this is genuine pride instead of mere pretension and that we recognize the disgraceful shortcomings of our nation and try to correct them. I hear that four thousand children every year are being adopted abroad, even now. With the economy having grown so much, how can we rationalize abandoning our children to foreign countries? This problem is a completely different issue from that of immigration. If we are to truly adopt love of children as a meritorious aspect of our national character, we must be able to extend our concern and love to other people's children who are frolicking on the streets as our own, and we must be fully loving and responsible toward stepchildren or adopted children. Improvement in this respect is a serious and urgent issue. |
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| This is an excerpt from the book "Prison Writings" written by South Korean president and most recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kim Dae Jung. This letter is dated August 25, 1982, and was addressed to his wife. It was written while President Kim was a political prisoner in Korea. President Kim is an evangelical Catholic Christian, and his writings all reflect his deep desire to imitate Christ. He credits the Lord with saving his life four times, and writes with the perspective of one who has much to be thankful for. I think this letter is interesting because it seems typical of the Korean attitude toward "foreign" adoption - an attitude of both shame and deep regret, coupled with a desire to become better collectively at taking care of its children. |