the Price of Translation: the lack of post-reunion assistance

[Note: there is a "Part 2," or follow-up post, to this, if you are interested: "a Metaphor for the 'Price of Translation']

Okay, I have a gripe. It has been building for a while.

It's simple: translation. Post-reunion translation and assistance.

It's practically non-existent, particularly through the adopting agency. This increasingly disgusts and incenses me.

I know taking on the role of victim is not going to get me very far. Ultimately, I have to be proactive and do my part. I say this simply to clarify that I'm not looking for a pity party.

I just think it's ridiculous that an adoption agency that specializes in mediating and promoting inter-country or transnational adoption provides so little post-reunion services.

The adoption agency is a major reason as to why the adoption even took place in the first place. Would it not be logical and considerate that the agency would provide equally developed services and assistance programs for post-reunion, since the agency's adopting practices are a primary reason the adoptee was adopted out to another country?

But instead, if I were to go through the adoption agency for translation, I would have to pay $15-$25 a page to have a letter to or from either one of my Korean parents translated. If it happens to be a two-page letter, well, then I'd be paying half a benjamin. Ouch.

Or I can pay $75 an hour for translation services during a [conference] phone call. Slap.

So, basically, I have to pay in order to communicate with my own flesh and blood. And in particular, I have to pay, even though I didn't make the decision to lose my original language and culture. I have to pay, even though I had no control over the circumstances and choices that determined my fate.

I have to pay, even though the agency is in large part, the entity responsible for my current predicament.

I know all the things people would say to justify and support the agency's fees and practices. Well, their staff can't work for free, you know. This post-reunion stuff takes a lot of energy and time, and well, the demand is so high these days...

Exactly my point. Well, then, maybe the agency needs to consider this and pay to have someone on staff to provide translation and post-reunion services, so that the adoptee doesn't have to shell out hundreds and hundreds of dollars just to say hello, how are you, to her own flesh and blood.

Maybe the agency needs to be a little more willing to focus not only on the front-end but on the back-end of its adoption practices. Maybe the adoption agency needs to think a little more thoroughly about the consequences and repercussions of what it's doing, and change accordingly. And of course, the consequences and repercussions go much deeper than translation services. But that's another post.

Learn the language. Sure, okay. No problem. Become fluent enough to discuss deep issues like "Why did you relinquish me?" or "Why didn't you tell my Appa?" Sure.

It's one thing to have a basic conversation but dealing with intense and unresolved emotional issues requires an understanding and fluency in the relevant language that normally comes only with a lifetime of exposure.

Or at the least, it requires living in the nation of origin for years and years. And even then, expecting to speak like a native understanding all the nuances and subtleties is something that even years of experience may not fully develop.

Yes, maybe I'm feeling a little resentful, bitter, angry at the moment. I won't allow it to consume me or steal away the good in my life. And as I stated earlier, I ultimately have to take responsibility for my part.

At the same time, this is a very real dilemma--one that affects my every day life and obviously, my ongoing relationships with my Korean parents-- that resulted from a set of circumstances and a series of decisions over thirty years ago that had nothing to do with me but affected and continues to affect everything about me.

So much is lost in translation--more than simply words and meanings. Who you are, who they are remains lost...Finding one another has certainly been a dream come true. But trying to know one another has been and will continue to be a slow, daunting, and painful process.

Only so much can be grasped when getting to know one another through translation.

the language barrier

I received a letter from each birth parent last Friday.

Of course, someone else had to translate the letters from Hangul into English so that I could actually read them.

But once I could read them, both letters were parturient with deep emotion and longing. Even after a year has passed since the News, so much remains unfinished, incomplete, and almost desperate at times.

The rift of the language differences remains expansive and not easily bridged. I am grieved deeply by the inability to communicate with them directly, yet I am equally UNmotivated to learn the language. I know it is what I need to do if ever I am to have a functional, more normalized relationship with each parent. But I seem to shrink back and somewhat wither beneath the heat of such intense pressure.

Even though it was only six months ago that I last saw my Omma and my Appa, the language barrier makes the months seem like years.

For instance, I don't actually get the chance to visit my Mom and Dad but once a year or every other year, yet we can talk on the phone at any time. I can fire off an email to them whenever I'm thinking of them. We can talk weekly or daily, and hence, close the distance that would otherwise corrode and steal away the time that we must be apart.

But with my Omma and Appa, time apart is truly time lost. I cannot simply pick up the phone and ask my Omma, "How was your day? What have you been up to?" I cannot call up my Appa and have a conversation about how each of us has been spending our time over the past month or week. The time is lost.

Rather, we communicate in truncated, concentrated chunks of information, saturated with emotion.

So, although we have "reunited," it is as though we cannot move past the initial stages. Our relationships remain somewhat stunted and unable to grow.

However, I am not complaining nor am I taking for granted the incredible opportunity I have to even be able to deal with such a dilemma.

It is simply the reality of the situation. Although I feel very fortunate and grateful to have found those whom I thought were lost forever, I would be lying if I said that it's easy, or that it's everything that I ever dreamed it would be.

The dream of finding my biological parents has no doubt been realized. Now, the dream of having a functional, healthy relationship with each of them--well, that remains to be seen. I am ever hopeful, but one never hopes for what one already has. The very nature of hope is to seek after that which seems intangible, untouchable.

Ultimately, I suppose all that I am saying--like I always say--is that being an adoptee, particularly one who is in post-reunion, is not the fairy tale that some would be inclined to assume.

It just is.

Beauty and the Beast, a universal & useful cliche

So, I decided to take the plunge. That is, the Korean language plunge. Yipes. The class begins this Saturday and runs through the middle of December. Every Saturday from 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM.

We all had dinner at Haeyoung's last night.

I pop outside, where Haeyoung is grilling ribs, Korean-style. I dramatically proclaim to her, "I think I'm going to do it. I'm going to take the Korean class."

She simply says, "You sure? Okay. What time I pick you up?" She has enrolled her seven-year old daughter in a Korean language class at the same Korean church. I'm thanking God that they happen to have an adult class.

I tell her that I'm scared, nervous. She laughs and smiles, "Don't be nervous! You don't need to be nervous! They speak English, so they can help you!"

I'm thinking to myself, Korean people scare me...I don't know the last time I was around so many Korean people.

I tell my husband, I'm afraid they're going to hate me.

I think I have an irrational complex.

Nonetheless, I am resolved. I'm going to do it.

This feels like such a big deal. This feels monumental to me. It feels to me as though I'm climbing atop this giant milestone and staking my flag in it--attempting to show myself that I can conquer these lifelong fears and insecurities. I will emerge triumphant. Confident. Collected. I will show myself that I can do this Korean thing...

Seriously?

Seriously, I feel incredibly intimidated. Almost to tears. If I am going to be honest, in that uncomfortable, vulnerable kind of way, I am dreading Saturday morning. I'm terrified. I feel like a five-year old kid sitting on the doctor's table, squinting my eyes, waiting for the needle to pierce my skin.

We all need to get our immunizations. We all need to be inoculated.

It's good for you, I tell myself. This is good for you.

There is a small part of me that hopes each little exposure to this elusive, ambiguous beast I know as "Korea" will, over time, inoculate me to the intense pain and hurt that I experience whenever even a thought of this creature rustles in my mind.

But this kind of pain is a funny thing. It's more of the chronic type. There are ways to cope with it and ease it. There are ways to live with it. But I don't know that it ever fully heals. There are good days and hard days. But it is always there.

And I suppose, this beast, is more the size of a bacterium. Hard to pin down. You catch sight of it only when you are willing to look closely. You can begin to understand it only when you are willing to pause and take the time to examine it. Yet, regardless of whether you choose to acknowledge its existence, its effects can be pervasive and even pandemic. It will wreak havoc on your life if you don't deal with it.

I do desire to be reconciled with this perceived advesary of mine. For so long I have tried to wrestle it to the ground, to chain it up in some cage, never to have it wander into my thoughts or life again.

But I am beginning to realize that this beast, Korea, will always be a part of me, no matter how much I try to fight it or suppress it.

Besides, not all bacteria are bad. In fact, there are many that we need, that are indeed, good for us. The symbiotic relationship is one that remains crucial to the maintenance and survival of our delicate and fragile ecosystem.

Of my delicate and fragile psychesystem.

I realize that this beast is more than just a beast. There is a beauty within the beast. I just have to give the beast a chance, get to know it. Just as much pain as the beast brings, just as much healing as the beauty brings.

It's not an easy thing taming the beast. And just when one catches a glimpse of its beauty, the beast re-emerges.

But I imagine that we all know that feeling of beauty and the beast, because, although it's something that we often encounter in others, it's when we encounter it in ourselves that we hopefully gain true understanding and compassion not simply for ourselves but furthermore for others.

Whether we like it or not, we all have our beauty and our beast.

Hopefully, on Saturday, while I'm fumbling Korean syllables, they'll play nicely with one another on the playground.