Adult Korean adoptees: Join me in Seoul!

According to the countdown clock on my personalized Google home page, just 81 short days stand between me and my glorious return to the mothership.

Actually, I am traveling to Korea sooner than that, but there are 81 days until the IKAA Gathering, and that’s what I’m counting down to. This will be the fourth international gathering of adult Korean adoptees, but the first to be entirely organized by adult adoptee organizations, which truly makes this a landmark event for us.

This will also be the first international adult Korean adoptee gathering that I will have attended. Although I’ve been to mini-gatherings and conferences, I haven’t yet had the experience of attending a gathering of this magnitude, with hundreds of adult adoptees in one spot — and the fact that this summer’s big event is in Korea makes it that much more exciting.

I’m honored to be participating in one of the panel sessions at the Gathering, along with some other adoptees who have been active in various ways among the online Korean adoptee community. Beyond that, I’m looking forward to the first-ever international research symposium on Korean adoption studies, art exhibitions, the other conference sessions and workshops, and the many social activities. Most of all, I can’t wait to be among so many of my fellow Korean adoptee friends, old and new, from near and far. In Korea.

Crazy.

I firmly believe that there’s no better way for us adoptees to experience Korea than with others who can share in the same sensations … of joy, anxiety, hope, sadness, giddiness and/or delirium … as only an adoptee can know. Although many of us often find that, having been transplanted from our birth country as children, we now “fit in” with Korean Koreans no better than we have “fit in” among our surrogate populace in certain ways, we can at least find belonging with our fellow Korean adoptees. This can be a comforting thought when all other comforts seem scarce.

So, Korean adoptees age 19+ (and spouses and children of Korean adoptees age 19+): Register now (registration fee increases after June 15!), book that discounted airfare and those discounted hotel rooms, and meet me in Seoul in 81 days for six days of fun, friends, fun, fellowship, fun, food and fun! Who knows when another opportunity quite like this one will present itself again?

See you there?