Kim Young-jin
Staff reporter
They say one must know the past to understand the present.
But for Pernille Andersen, a Korean adoptee who grew up and resides in Denmark, abiding by the old adage is not a simple matter.
Due to her early circumstances, she isn’t clear on her exact date of birth. And there are discrepancies over the date she was found, abandoned and wrapped in a blue coverlet on a street in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, sometime around August 1972.
For Andersen, a musician and teacher now visiting Korea for the second time, the inconsistencies have made her mission to locate her birthparents difficult. But this time around, she plans to employ a different tact: her music.
Andersen, a vibrant spirit with a contagious smile, is one of the some 200,000 Korean adoptees sent abroad since the Korean War (1950-53). Many return on homecoming trips to connect with their culture, work or even resettle in Korea.
For her, the objective is clear: to try to connect with her birth family. And if she can’t do so through the various agencies that facilitate such reunions, she hopes her music will somehow find its way to their window.
“I want to find them in a respectful way, whether it is through the agencies or through the music,” she told The Korea Times during an interview at KoRoot, a Seoul-based organization that provides housing and resources to adoptees who return to Korea.
“I thought if they heard my music or story, they might recognize me. I know it sounds a bit naive, but I thought maybe they have the same relationship with music as I do.”
The idea took shape in the spring when Andersen contacted Holt International Children’s Services, the U.S.-based international adoption agency, to see whether it had updated information on her adoption.
The last time she had checked, on her first trip here in 1997, she was told the orphanage that cared for her after she was found had burned down, and all her information lost.