Jung Min-ho has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2012, mostly covering social and political issues. He currently belongs to the Politics & City Desk where he covers topics such as health, labor and human rights. Prior to joining the team, he was responsible for covering North Korea and sports. His article about a biosecurity breach of Middle East respiratory syndrome won him an award from the Korea Science Journalists Association in 2016. He is also the co-author of the book, "Medical Pioneers of Korea" (2019). He served as the head of the international relations committee at the Journalists Association of Korea from 2021 to 2023.
Korean adoptee looking for birth mother
Johannes Lindgren (Kang Min-ho) with his Korean foster mother Lee Chang-soon in 1981 / Courtesy of Lindgren
By Jung Min-ho
A reunion with his foster mother in Seoul after 36 years / Courtesy of Lindgren
By Jung Min-ho
It took more than three decades for Johannes Lindgren to decide to return to Korea, the land of his birth, after a Swedish couple adopted him when he was barely a year old.
After his disappointing first trip here in 2012, Lindgren (whose Korean name is Kang Min-ho), now 37, is visiting the country again with his wife and children to find his biological parents.
“My biggest fear is to die without meeting my birth parents,” Lindgren told The Korea Times in Seoul, Tuesday. “I'm not angry at them. No hard feelings. I just want to meet them.”
That dream almost came true in 2012, when the Korea Adoption Services found the address of his father. But the father rejected the agency's offer to meet him, citing personal reasons.
“I was very disappointed and sad when I was told about his decision,” Lindgren said. “I'm still hoping he will change his mind.”
According to his adoption documents, Lindgren was born out of wedlock in Daegu on Nov. 26, 1980. At the time, his father and mother Yoon Jung-ok were only 21.
His father took care of him for the first two months before putting him up for adoption. A foster family in Seoul later took charge of him and cared for him for about nine months until Nov. 5, 1981, when a couple in Glommerstrask, a small town in northern Sweden, adopted him.
“My father did try to live with me at first. The first two months must have meant something for him. I still think he may change his mind,” Lindgren said.
He said he had a lovely childhood in Sweden, where he grew up with a brother who was also adopted from Korea. “But the question about my roots never left me,” he said. “When my first son was born in 2000, I knew I had to find my birth parents.”
When Lindgren arrived in Korea for the first time in 2012, it felt like home “in a weird kind of way,” he said. He immediately fell in love with many things about the country _ the streets, food and people. It would have been perfect if he and his father had met.
Fortunately, during this second trip, he was able to meet Lee Chang-soon, the foster mother who cared for him as a baby before his adoption. Lee, now 85, still lives in the same area.
“She told me I have not changed a bit and my second daughter looks just like me,” Lindgren said. “It was such a great time. I was so happy to see her again.”
“I really hope I will be able to have such moment with my birth parents, too.”