Korean Bodies Outside and Inside the Country

I want to start off with TaeYeon Kim's article about the Neo-Confucian Body in the consumerist society. The reason why I wanted us to read this text might seem a little nebulous, and somewhat still not clear for me either why I thought of this article as soon as we talked about identity in the Korean context.. It is maybe off-topic, but I will try to guide you through the thoughts I had trying to linking it to our broader discussion about identity.

I think that the concept of Neo-Confucian body is something that can be insightful for the purpose of understanding the concept of body, gender, purity of the bloodline and the concept of family IN THE KOREAN CONTEXT and after, in the North American one. Like Kim mentions, Neo-Confucian ideology is somewhat associated to what we call "Koreanness" (102). Here, even though this statement can be problematic, it surely highlights the importance of the concepts this Neo-Confucian ideology embeds and thus, this importance is something we can look at. Kim talks about how the concept of ki as "material link between ancestors and descendants" (99) and how women are regarded as "vessel" for perpetuating the 'family body',the ki of the family, making them "subjectless bodies" (100). The concept of family here is constructed on shared ki. So how this 'Korean' concept ki is perceived if the body itself displaced? The ki can still be passed down, so why are the bodies outside of Korea are seen somewhat as foreign and thus their identity is also seen as somewhat different? What does it say about their 'Koreanness' ? Do the role of the body changes? But most importantly, how is your body part of the identity discourse? and what does it says about your role in the society?I think that we can maybe link Kim's concept of the body and its role to why, in Korea, domestic adoption is not something common or seeing as 'great', like it is mentioned in Palmer's article by the example of the woman and her pillow-belly (161) . I am not saying here that South Korea is still in the stage of Neo-Confucianism, but I do believe those remains are not part of the popular belief.

I actually took a class on Korean Diaspora when I was in Korea, and I remember this professor telling us that most of the migrants (for the Korean-American case) were people from the women lineages who would migrate or the younger sons' lineage would migrate, not having the privilege and obligations of the first son lineage who needs to take care the rituals for the ancestors,; allowing them to some mobility. One other question I would like to raise is on what do we think about the concept of women as mothers? In the case of adoptees, like it is discussed in the Poundpup story, but especially in the case of akaDan, how is the figure of mother discussed? This mother is definitely not simply a simple body where the baby was incubated, there is some value in her body. Moreover, I think it is interesting to think about the relation between the adoptee and the mothers (plural!),

I really enjoyed the article about the empowerment of the adoptees over their identity as a realization, a process . This idea of taking control of their own identity actually implies that someone did have this power instead of them and the article proposes adoption families, adoption agencies and the outsiders' perspectives as potential disempowering forces. There is an interesting paradox that those activists are making: at the same time they are trying to normalize their experiences, they are emphasizing the uniqueness of their discrimination. The adoptee named Amber says "One of the things that I've learned from other adoptees is that my experiences are normal" (143). Within their group of adoptees, their experiences are normal. Tori mentions that, however, the discrimination they are victim of is not the same as being "picked on for wearing glasses" or for having "red hair" (157) - but it is a racial discrimination. Also, it is interesting to see this interest of from the older adoptees to help the younger generation; it is a recent phenomenon in the North American context that they can now actually try to reform the 'adoption industry' and the view about them being lost and unhappy (163).

Also, from the Pop Quiz from eminism.com, I think it is interesting and important how the question of economic aspect of a family is brought. And it is something I did not really think about until now is that you actually 'buy' a baby. There is an economical aspect to adoption, and it is an important criteria for adoptive families. Also, the comment about the how the Holt family adopted 8 Korean kids after the war because they felt bad for them and how they promoted the adoption system with Korea is somewhat a little.. suspect to me. I wonder if there would be something linked to how the American society maybe did not want to the next generation to 'take revenge' against them; and by bringing children, and assimilating them to the American culture and making them Americans, some who got their parents killed by that war (and the imperialist power) would not try to seek revenge.

Notes: I left out some questions I would like to address about akaDan for our next meeting. I will try to do the same for Real Men and address those questions in class instead of on the blog.

Also, I do not now if you guys are aware of the baby-box project in Korea which won a Christian prize, but can help us understand in the Korean context, why are babies abandoned? I leave another video for you to watch if you have time. (Yes, I love YouTube.)