Korean adoptees create shows about their experiences
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Crystal817
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http://www.twincities.com/entertainment/ci_20701467/korean-adoptees-create-shows-about-their-experiences
They couldn't complete a family tree like the other kids in grade school. They were mistaken for exchange students. They have to leave sections blank on medical history forms during visits to the doctor.
Actors/playwrights Sun Mee Chomet and Katie Hae Leo share many of the situations familiar to foreign adoptees. Each has written about her struggles, joys and conflicts as an adoptee and the searches for their birth families. They will present two one-woman shows about their adoptee stories in "The Origin(s) Project: Memoirs in Motion" at Dreamland Arts theater in St. Paul next week.
Chomet and Leo were adopted from Korea in the 1970s. Now both in their 30s, Chomet was 1 when she left Korea and lived with her adoptive family in Michigan and California. Leo was 10 months old when she was adopted by a family in Indianapolis.
"We have very different stories to tell at this point," says Chomet, who found her mother and relatives in Korea. Leo is still looking.
Chomet talks about her experience in "How to Be a Korean Woman." She searched for her family for about a year and a half, finally agreeing to go on a Korean reality TV show about people looking for their relatives. It was a last resort, she says.
"I didn't think I'd ever stoop to be on a reality TV show," says Chomet, who lives in St. Paul. But it worked. "I did find them, but it really didn't fill a void. If anything, it made me more confused."
In the U.S., Chomet had been raised by a liberal feminist mother, while her birth mother was "as girly as you can get." Her Korean family can't understand why Chomet is single.
Chomet's story is about her conflicts blending the two cultures.
She also has had to deal with "the mythology about when you come home to your Western family" when she learned her birth mother had tried to get her back. Her mother was 19 and returned from work to find that her uncle had sent Chomet to an adoption agency.
Leo, who is based in Rochester, has been to Korea twice, in 1998 and 2007, in her "attempt to fill in the blanks," she says. "It's about what you do and anyhow you make sense of your reality when you don't know where you came from."
Leo's piece, "N/A," comes from the letters she has to fill in on medical records about family history.
There are 10,000 Korean adoptees in Minnesota, Chomet says. The 1970s and '80s were the crest of Korean adoptions begun after the Korean War.
Leo and Chomet are hoping to give back to the adoptee community with their stories, which were written separately. Chomet presented an excerpt of "How to Be a Korean Woman" in November at Pillsbury House. Leo performed "N/A" in November as part of the National Artist Exchange Program and Festival at Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia.
"We both happened to want to write pieces expressing how our feelings have changed regarding adoption," Chomet says.
"We have accepted that telling our stories is fascinating and essential," says Chomet, who hopes to take her one-woman show to a wider audience, maybe even back to Korea or to Europe. Leo will focus on writing, she says.
The two met 15 years ago during a performance for St. Paul-based Mu Performing Arts, back when "adoption was a sweet story," Chomet says.
"It's a bittersweet story now."
They couldn't complete a family tree like the other kids in grade school. They were mistaken for exchange students. They have to leave sections blank on medical history forms during visits to the doctor.
Actors/playwrights Sun Mee Chomet and Katie Hae Leo share many of the situations familiar to foreign adoptees. Each has written about her struggles, joys and conflicts as an adoptee and the searches for their birth families. They will present two one-woman shows about their adoptee stories in "The Origin(s) Project: Memoirs in Motion" at Dreamland Arts theater in St. Paul next week.
Chomet and Leo were adopted from Korea in the 1970s. Now both in their 30s, Chomet was 1 when she left Korea and lived with her adoptive family in Michigan and California. Leo was 10 months old when she was adopted by a family in Indianapolis.
"We have very different stories to tell at this point," says Chomet, who found her mother and relatives in Korea. Leo is still looking.
Chomet talks about her experience in "How to Be a Korean Woman." She searched for her family for about a year and a half, finally agreeing to go on a Korean reality TV show about people looking for their relatives. It was a last resort, she says.
"I didn't think I'd ever stoop to be on a reality TV show," says Chomet, who lives in St. Paul. But it worked. "I did find them, but it really didn't fill a void. If anything, it made me more confused."
In the U.S., Chomet had been raised by a liberal feminist mother, while her birth mother was "as girly as you can get." Her Korean family can't understand why Chomet is single.
Chomet's story is about her conflicts blending the two cultures.
She also has had to deal with "the mythology about when you come home to your Western family" when she learned her birth mother had tried to get her back. Her mother was 19 and returned from work to find that her uncle had sent Chomet to an adoption agency.
Leo, who is based in Rochester, has been to Korea twice, in 1998 and 2007, in her "attempt to fill in the blanks," she says. "It's about what you do and anyhow you make sense of your reality when you don't know where you came from."
Leo's piece, "N/A," comes from the letters she has to fill in on medical records about family history.
There are 10,000 Korean adoptees in Minnesota, Chomet says. The 1970s and '80s were the crest of Korean adoptions begun after the Korean War.
Leo and Chomet are hoping to give back to the adoptee community with their stories, which were written separately. Chomet presented an excerpt of "How to Be a Korean Woman" in November at Pillsbury House. Leo performed "N/A" in November as part of the National Artist Exchange Program and Festival at Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia.
"We both happened to want to write pieces expressing how our feelings have changed regarding adoption," Chomet says.
"We have accepted that telling our stories is fascinating and essential," says Chomet, who hopes to take her one-woman show to a wider audience, maybe even back to Korea or to Europe. Leo will focus on writing, she says.
The two met 15 years ago during a performance for St. Paul-based Mu Performing Arts, back when "adoption was a sweet story," Chomet says.
"It's a bittersweet story now."
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