admin2023-01-31T16:15:21+00:00
Joeri (Kim Wan Suk) Kraaijestein, 15-07-1974, The Netherlands
My full name is Joeri Kim Wan Suk Kraaijestein, and my name gives away that I am originally from South Korea. When I was two years old, my birth father left my birth mother with her two young children. Poor as she was, she could not take care of us and left us at an orphanage. I became a Dutch citizen when my birth sister and I were adopted in 1976 by our (Dutch) parents.
My adoption was never a topic for me. It was for my sister, though. When she went to South Korea to meet our birth mother (our birth father had passed away already) for the first time, I was not ready to join her. Perhaps it was not on my mind because I didn’t know what to do with it. Still, as time passed, my sister told me that our birth mother’s dying wish was to meet me one day. It made me reconsider, and I realized it was a small effort for me to fulfill her lifetime dream, so the idea grew to meet my birth mother for the “first” time.
In 2005, it was time for me to...
