peaceshannon:

hanguknamja:

peaceshannon:

paradelle:

ecue:

peaceshannon:

hanguknamja:

Fleur Pellerin (birth name: 김종숙), France’s Digital Economy Minister, arrives at Incheon International Airport in South Korea for the first time since her adoption

한국계 입양아 출신인 플뢰르 펠르랭 프랑스 중소기업·혁신·디지털경제장관이 오늘(23일) 오후 인천국제공항을 통해 입국했습니다.

펠르랭 장관의 이번 한국 방문은 입양 이후 처음입니다.

펠르랭 장관은 오는 27일까지 통신과 디지털경제 분야 한국 기업 100여 곳과 송도 스마트시티 등을 방문한 뒤 일본으로 떠날 예정입니다.

1973년 한국에서 태어나 6개월 만에 프랑스에 입양된 펠르랭 장관은 지난해 5월 장관직에 오른 입지전적인 인물입니다.

Koreans, in their sudden admiration for Pellerin, don’t realise just how deliberately cut off from Korea she has been. Although Pellerin politely expresses excitement and interest in returning to Korea, in other interviews, when discussing her past, she makes it very clear that she considers herself 100% French and thus more or less rejects her “Korean” origins. I certainly don’t reproach her for this, but it needs to be made clearer to Koreans anxious to “adopt” her back.

After all she has become a symbol in France of successful assimilation and meritocratic achievement. She has stated several times to the press that she has never experienced any racial discrimination in her adoptive country, even as she casually admits that her classmates in school referred to her as “la Chinoise”, “the Chinese girl”. (As someone who spent much time growing up in Europe, and in France in particular, I can attest to the fact that it is virtually impossible for an Asian to have been raised there and not experienced some degree of repeated racial insult, although I can very much understand why Pellerin, and many other Asians in Europe, particularly adoptees, would feel compelled to deny it.)

The French publication Le nouvel Observateur reveals just how estranged Pellerin actually is from her country of origin. When asked by Korean reporters if she had any interest in seeking her biological mother, she immediately replied, “Certainly not!” At the age of 13, her French parents adopted another girl from Korea who was already 4 years old at the time of the adoption. Pellerin is quoted as saying, “When we were watching the Olympics at home, she was cheering for Korea. Not me.”

Pellerin has learned several foreign languages, including English, German, and Japanese, but doesn’t speak a word of Korean. In the 40 years since her adoption, she never once visited Korea, although she spent a year in nearby Japan on an internship.

When she was appointed to President Hollande’s cabinet, Pellerin was genuinely surprised and touched by the warm reaction of Koreans to the news, and I think that may have put a little crack in the thick stone wall she erected in her mind nearly 40 years ago to block out the country that gave her up, but it’s clear that that wall, will never come down, nor should one expect it to.

i wrote about this on my fb yesterday but i’ll write about it here too. the korean press also had a fucking heyday because when a reporter said korea feels ashamed and guilty for all the children its sent abroad for adoption, pellerin said that korean adoption is not something korea should be ashamed of or feel guilty of, but proud of, as more and more adoptees are becoming successful in their respective adoptive countries. so many papers yesterday with the line, “pellerin says korea should be proud”. whatthemotherfuck. basically the broadscale, sanctified version of, well my one (enter oppressed category) said it was ok. of course, none of these asshats think of the psychological process that one would go through in order to get to that extent of assimilation and denial (she experienced no prejudice??? c’mon, i did a study abroad in paris. i know what it’s like for an asian woman there). let me just make this clear: yes, there are lots of successful adoptees worldwide (there are 200 THOUSAND of us, of course some of us are successful!) but just because SOME of us have grown up well in the difficult circumstances that are inherent in adoption (others have grown up addicted to drugs, sex, alcohol, clinically depressed, in jail for crimes all the way up to homocide, deported, committed suicide), that doesn’t mean there’s ANYTHING korea can feel proud about regarding the fact that in order to avoid building a social welfare system appropriate of the 13th largest economy in the world, it turned (and continues in 2013 to turn) a blind eye to children of unwed mothers which allows them to be SOLD by adoption agencies to western families - no matter how successful we grow up to be, there’s nothing korea should feel proud about in that process. NOTHING!! goddamnit

sigh.. the “개천에서 용” fallacy.

So much internalized Korean self-hate and inferiority complexes in this one article.

well i don’t want to go as far as to say that it’s internalized inferiority or self-hate, but i do want to point out the obvious thing that the korean press don’t want to point out, which is that she is a french diplomat. which means she must be diplomatic - to both france and korea. she’s not going to bash france and talk about how racist it is and she’s not going to bash korea and talk about how they need to stop exporting babies of unwed mothers. but the press is going to take herdiplomatic words as absolving the country for its adoption past and present. really fucking frustrating.

i saw that quote as well, although I think only yonhap ran it in their headline among the major korea media. i agree though, it’s an idiotic thing to trumpet.

i think pellerin had no choice but to deny everything korean about herself. she grew up in the 70s in a very provincial area of france where she (and later, her sister) were the only asians the locals had ever seen in person.

her parents seem like decent people, but their sensitivity to the issues of adoptive identity can be gauged in the names they gave to pellerin and her sister, who was named “jade”. no parisian today would name their daughter “fleur”, which means “flower”. this isn’t quite the same as naming them “lotus flower” and “cherry blossom” but it comes pretty damn close.

oh good god. fleur and jade??? a lot of adoptive parents are “decent” people, that doesnt shield them from the exoticism and racism of the environment that they’ve been raised in, perfectly exemplified by these names. in addition to yonhap - this is basically the associated press of korea - i saw donga ilbo and sbs with the same headlines as well as some other ridiculousness like 같은 한국인이어서 let me assure you that pellerin does not think that…