Ah yes. I wrote this in September 2013 and for reasons I cannot understand, it lay dormant in my drafts folder until now! I sure had my ranty pants on, but to be fair, the issue has been a persistent one throughout my life. It shits me still! I am asked this question ALL the time. My story is actually quite interesting when I’m able to sit back and be objective about it, but honestly? I am a bit blasé about it. I was adopted from South Korea when I was 5 months old. I’ve been Aussie ever since, but there’s this one thing that gives me away. My looks. My…
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Trip of a lifetime: One year later.
Exactly one year ago, my family took a very important trip. We went to South Korea. We also couldn’t help but add Singapore and Japan to the list (which were AMAZING), but let’s face it. Korea was where it was at on a very personal level. If you’re new to the blog, let me quickly catch you up. My brother and I were adopted from South Korea when we were only a handful of months old. We’ve been raised as Aussies and until 2014, we’d never been back to Korea before. The opportunity came up (after years of talking about it) because everyone in the family was free to do…
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“Um…I speak English?”
I knew there was something I forgot to do! It’s weird when you look JUST LIKE a bunch of people, but you know very little about their culture and ZILCH about their language. Which was basically my (and my brother’s) experience in South Korea. People understandably spent all their time speaking to us in Korean, while we flailed our arms around with dazed looks on our faces. It just became a daily way of life. Go out, get talked to in Korean, awkwardly mime a bit and say, “English, sorry!” Repeat x 50 Get back to the hotel, go to bed. It wasn’t annoying and it wasn’t frustrating. It just happened…
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Sometimes you just have to laugh.
image Being an intercultural/international adoptee has its challenges sometimes. People are never quite sure where you fit into the scheme of things. Are you Asian? Are you Australian? Are you somewhere in between? But how can that be? Why does she not look like her parents? Is she related by blood to her brother? WHAT IS THAT CHICK’S DEAL? I think it can be human nature to want to categorise people into a nice neat picture in our minds, so that everything can make sense and we can go on with our day. Funny humans. And I’m just talking about the first five minutes in which we meet someone!!…
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It’s all about your attitude.
image As some of you might know, I was struggling with feelings surrounding my adoption that reappeared as we started planning our first holiday to my birth country for later this year (it’s coming up fast – hold me). However, I blogged about it and I reached out to my family and loved ones. I felt encouraged and supported and despite being drained and confused, I felt like I could just release those feelings – throw them up in the air and surrender to letting them fall where they may. It turns out I got quite a quick (but unexpected) cure for this recent unrest the other night. There was…
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Why I shouldn’t blog late at night.
Lately I’ve been feeling confused. Sh*t got real when we booked plane tickets (and now a couple of hotels) for a trip to South Korea. The place where I was born. The place where I was given up for adoption from. It was never supposed to be a crazy emotional journey. We’ve always maintained that it will be just a touristy trip to soak up some culture and see some new stuff. I have always been down with that. So cool about it that I kind of surprised myself. Turns out I might have been in denial. And now I’m as confused as f*ck. image When I was younger, I…
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Five months: What it means to me.
Pic April marks five months of my Little Mister’s life. It’s an odd age to consider a special milestone, but to me it really is an important one. I didn’t realise just how important it was to me until it arrived and it brought with it the revelation that I had been waiting for this date for all of my adult life (and perhaps even before that). I have spent my whole life trotting out my little life story to anyone and everyone who seems particularly interested in my “background”. You see, I look Asian on the outside but on the inside I’ve always been an Aussie. It brings with…
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Gestational Diabetes. I has it.
Pic Pregnancy is a little freaky (well, it is). Especially the first one, I’m guessing. It’s all the unknown. It’s not like you’ve ever done it before. You have no idea what to expect. Well, other than the basic stuff – maybe getting morning sickness, eventually forgetting what your feet look like and having a baby at some point. Oh and the waddle. It will get ya. You can read lots of books and you can do all that is within your control to prepare for every possible symptom or outcome, but at the end of the day you can’t help but feel awesomely unprepared for it all. Each person…
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I can’t sing (not for lack of trying) but I have a damn good life.
OK, so there’s this kid from Korea who made worldwide headlines when he auditioned on Korea’s Got Talent (I didn’t even know they had a Korean version until this incident). It’s one of those feel good stories where a young man who was orphaned at three years old, living on the streets by himself after being beaten and abused in an orphanage, discovered his passion for singing and somehow wound up on a televised talent show (making all the judges and the audience cry their eyes out). Check the video out below (I know you’re a busy person and all but it’s totally worth it): [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BewknNW2b8Y&w=425&h=349] So now that…