The missing piece (part 2): Beginning the struggle to find my birth parents

Winter view over Glommerstrask / Courtesy of Cecilia Edstrom

By Johannes Lindgren (Kang Min-ho)

I ran as fast as I possibly could, and my back was carrying a small sports bag from which my skates and helmet were hanging. The air that I exhaled turned into white steam the very moment it left my mouth and blended into the ice-cold air. The temperature was around minus 25 degrees Celsius, making my cheeks go ruby red, but I was so eager to get to the ice hockey rink and play hockey that I didn't notice the cold. I looked up at the sparkling sky and all I could feel was excitement and pure joy in a way that only a child could.

That was a typical winter day for me when I was around 10, growing up in the small village Glommerstask with a population of 500 people, not far from the Arctic Circle, way up in the north of Sweden. It was an enormous distance from the neon lights and city nightlife of Seoul, South Korea, my country of birth.

My first trip back to Korea was mind-blowing even though I had decided to only scratch the surface of my heritage. I tried the food, experienced some of the country's culture and met some very kind people that became friends for life. But the closest I got to my personal origins was a visit to the adoption center where I was left as a baby.

But after I came back to Sweden and processed my amazing adventure, I felt that the adoption center was not close enough. Now with answers to some of the questions I had before the trip ― a thousand new ones had appeared. What was beyond the doors of the adoption center? Could I dig deeper into my past? What would I find out? These questions resulted in my second trip to Korea. This time I was determined to find anything that could help me piece together the story of my past. The only clues I had so far were my adoption papers and 2 photos of me as a baby, together with my foster parents on a street somewhere in Seoul.

My parents back in Sweden knew nothing more about my past than what was mentioned in the adoption papers. Back in 1981 they picked me up at the airport in Stockholm. Apparently, I had travelled across the world all alone, only with a flight attendant looking after me. So my parents were also very curious and supportive in my search to learn about my past. They wanted to see all the pictures and hear all the stories of what we had experienced on our first trip. I was always trying to tell them things in a way not to hurt them by any means. What I was really doing was trying to find my roots; not some replacement for my adoptive parents who gave me all the love in the world.

Once again, I started writing emails to the adoption center to tell them that I was coming back to Korea. I knew that they had found my birth father and I was hoping they could contact him to tell him that I was coming.

My children and I look out the window at a hotel in Seoul.

This time around the flight wasn't as easy as the first time back in 2012. I had my children with me ― the 1-year-old and 4-year-old made it a challenging 10-hour flight via Beijing. I could not help thinking about that flight attendant that had looked after me on my journey to Sweden as a 1-year-old. The exciting and almost electrifying feeling when we were approaching Incheon International Airport was still the same as the first time.

The adoption center got back to me with at least one piece of good news: they had the address of my foster mother, the woman who had cared for me during my first year of life before I was adopted.

I knew from the first trip that the street addresses were impossible for a Swede to figure out. The numbers did not follow any logical order but thankfully, my hotel had helped me to hire an amazing private driver who was running up and down the streets, asking people for directions. After a long search, we finally found ourselves on the same street as in one of the pictures I had saved from my childhood. Our first goal of the trip was reached but I still hesitated. Would I dare knock on the door? Would my foster mother even remember me? Would she be uncomfortable as a result of my visit?

My fears were uncalled for because I was given the most heartwarming reunion I could have hoped for. My foster mother was that kind of person that just shines bright with life, although she was crying when she saw me, you could sense her energy. She did indeed remember me, and she had even saved some pictures of me as a 2-year-old in Sweden ― pictures sent by my mother and father in Sweden to the adoption agency in Korea 37 years ago. We stayed for lunch and my foster mother's grandson helped as an interpreter. The visit will be a memory for life. And we still keep in contact via KakaoTalk.

As regards the search for my birth mother, I was told by the adoption agency that women are hard to find once they´re married; they get lost in the system. So here we were, two disconnected persons lost on different sides of the system. My biological father, however, was not lost. He was in connection with the agency and they had new information about him.

To be continued.

Johannes Lindgren is an entrepreneur and adoptee born in Korea now living in Sweden.