Brandon Youngblood

I am adopted I went to Korea in '83-84 to search for birth parents. I was told that the orphanage in Pusan was burnt down and no records were kept, even at the Holt Orphange where I was moved to before the fire. When I was old enough, my adoptive parents let me look at my paperwork, eveything they were given before my adoption. I learned I was abandoned at 4 months, not four years old, which I always believed when I was young, since that's how old I was when I was adopted. So, it it would be impossible, at that time, for me to even do an proper search. The Korean name they gave me at the orphanage was Baek In-Chun, which is the name of a popular Korean baseball player. I guess there were a lot of orphaned boys with baseball player names. Like naming orphaned kids in the US "Derek Jeter" or "Babe Ruth." But I digress. I thought. the movie was too long. The jump in years was a little too much. One jump would have been fine. She didn't speak Korean when she visited the first time, then spent some years there, and was able to communicate with a woman across rooftops, but not able when visiting her father the second time, her boyfriend from France accompanying her. That was odd. She spoke some but then needed translation from her Korean family memeber. The ending I didn't get at all. It looked like her Korean mother just wrote down the wrong email address. Why didn't she write to her right there when they met to confirm it's correct? Why wait until much later while backpacking Europe? And what's with the piano with fade out? The part I liked, which triggered something in me, was when she looked at her adoption documents. They were exactly like the one I have, which is weird since my adoption was in 1970 and hers was around 1997, 27 years later. At least she got to reunite with her biological family. I know stories that are happy and tragic. And then there is the controversial idea of Korean black market where people steal babies out of carriages and then sell them to orphanges who then sell to foriengers, people thinking the are helping needy children. Some adoptees find out their mothers were prositututes or that their biological parents don't want them. At 57, I don't have any interest in finding out. Too old. I am also accepting that I am not part of my adoptive family either, sometimes reminded, although not intentionally, that I am not blood.So I have no "family." Or I can go the Fast and Furous route and say my friends are "family." But I digress. The movie is too long, confusing and a little boring. Adoptee stories are all unique. But we do share that one thing: Why?