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Name:
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MrHodja
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Subject:
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The bigger they are....(long)
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Date:
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9/25/2012 9:08:43 PM
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I chuckle at your reference to asking a Korean for a birth certificate. Korean birth certificates don't exist. Instead at the local court house equivalent they maintain family registers. When a child is born to a family, that child's name is entered into his or her family register until they die. At that time their name is crossed off the family register in red ink. (For that reason a Korean considers it bad luck to have their name written in red ink).
While we were in Seoul we adopted a Korean daughter. In Korea the custom is that when a family has a child they can't afford to raise, it is culturally acceptable for that family to abandon the child, either at the doorsteps of a wealthy family or at a church. The thought is that the wealthy family or the church is better able to care for the child than the destitute birth family.
Our daughter was abandoned at a church, in a pair of head-to-toe pajamas, and with a note pinned to them. That note contained the four pieces of information necessary to declare her legally an orphan (if the child's name is ever entered into a family registry that family is responsible for it and the child can never be adopted).
OK, please stick with me....So our daughter was declared an orphan and put up for adoption. My secretary had adopted so when she took her child for a well baby check I went along and let the adoption agency know that we were interested. Time passes, and our daughter is identified as a match comes to live with us at age 19 months. We had heard stories about how the children are weak and sickly, but she was hale and hearty and had obviously been well cared for.
So, on to the birth certificate issue. As an orphan she was listed by the Korean authorities as the first entry on a new family register. We adopted her, and she imigrated one Christmas during our Korean tour of duty when we went to Hawaii (me for business, family for fun). When we returned to Montgomery she was officially naturalized as a US citizen. Problem is that none of this included a birth certificate (and anyone who has raised a child in Alabama knows the need for a BC, especially if the child plays school sports). Had she been born to us in Korea the State Department would have provided one. But we went to the Montgomery County Court House, the State, and even to our Congressman, all to no avail. To this day she has no birth certificate and relies on her Passport as proof of citizenship and age.
I apologize for the long-winded response but our daughter has been and continues to be a true blessing to us, and when MM mentioned Korea and birth certificate in the same sentence it tripped my "tell our story" trigger.
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