Cho Young-il, Meeky Woo Flippen, Simon Hokwerda, and Oh Jae-gyeong hold up photos of themselves taken around the time that they were sent abroad for adoption as children. (Kim Young-won/Hankyoreh)
“Now that I'm 60, I know that life doesn't necessarily get better. I want to tell the child in the photo ‘Even if it's hard, things will get better if you endure,’ but I can’t. Because even if I find my mother and younger brother, I can never get back the 56 years I lost."This is how Simon Hokwerda, 60, a Korean adoptee to the Netherlands, answered when asked what he would say to his younger self.Separated from his mother and younger brother at age 4 and adopted by a Dutch family, he said that when he found out that his ex-girlfriend was pregnant, he couldn't handle it and abandoned her.“Because I’m a wounded person, I lived my life hurting others as well. My child will resent me,” he said. This shows how the trauma of overseas adoption is passed down from one generation to the next.
Simon Hokwerda holds up a photo of himself when he was around 4 years old, taken around the time he was sent to the Netherlands for adoption. His mother worked at the club while raising Simon and his brother on her own. Simon learned when he visited his hometown of Paju, Gyeonggi Province, that her landlord sent him for adoption to the Netherlands in 1970 because his mother had failed to pay the rent and childcare fees on time. (Kim Young-won/Hankyoreh)
