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JoongAng Daily
Trail of crumbs leads writer to Korea
June 02, 2008
Waiting for her mother for three days in an Incheon market, a 3-year-old girl felt a piercing hunger. Her mother’s promise to “come back soon” was never kept, and the little girl was taken to an orphanage in November 1973. Later, she was adopted to New Orleans, Louisiana in the United States, where her new parents gave her the name Kim.
Life after adoption for Kim Sunee was a world away from the hunger she experienced in the market, but that acute sense of hunger remained in her heart. This hunger, in both a mental and physical sense, become her life obsession. So it was no surprise for her to choose a profession involving food, as she wanted to “find a way back home through food.” Nowadays, Sunee, 37, is a noted food columnist and editor of the food section of the U.S. lifestyle magazine, Cottage Living.
Earlier this year, she published a memoir that includes recipes which she titled “Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love and the Search for Home.” She got the title from the Grimm fairy tale, “Hansel and Gretel,” about a brother and sister who drop pieces of bread to find their way back home after learning of their father and stepmother’s intention to forsake them.
Her book, featured in a full-page spread in the New York Times, was translated into her birth mother’s language this month. To celebrate the release of the Korean-language version of her book, published under the title, “Recipes of a 30-year-old,” Sunee visited Seoul with another important agenda ? to follow her own trail of crumbs.

The New York Times
To Adopt, Please Press Hold
By MIREYA NAVARRO
Published: June 5, 2008
FAMILY MATTERS James Carlos Casserly, along with his parents, Julie and John.
In 2005, when they set out to adopt a Guatemalan baby boy, the couple faced the usual jitters, not to mention mounds of paperwork. But none of that stress, the couple said, compares with what they are going through now.
For the first adoption, “It was a matter of when,” said Mrs. Casserly, 37. “This time, it is a matter of ‘if.’ ”

Information, Danish newspaper
Lørdag 24. maj 2008 (2008.5.24)
MED ANDRE ØJNE
Red en voksen, køb en spæd kineser
Den lave fertilitetsrate i de vestlige lande er i dag den primære grund til, at nogle vælger at adoptere. Det danske adoptionsselskab AC Børnehjælp kunne i virkeligheden lige så godt hedde AC Voksenhjælp, siger Maja Lee Langvad, der selv er adopteret - og i øvrigt lesbisk
22. maj 2008
Af: KRISTINA NYA GLAFFEY

Joongang Daily
May 22, 2008
Korean fertility rate among lowest
South Korea has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, according to a report released by the World Health Organization yesterday.
As of 2006, the total fertility rate, or the average number of babies that a woman gives birth to during her lifetime, was 1.2, continuing a steady decline from 1.6 in 1990 and 1.4 in 2000, according to the World Health Statistics 2008.
South Korea, along with Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine, had the lowest rate among 193 countries surveyed.
The countries with the second-lowest fertility rate of 1.3 were Japan, Singapore, Andorra, Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Romania, Russia, San Marino and Slovenia. Germany, Georgia, Italy, Maldives, Malta and Switzerland had a fertility rate of 1.4.

The Korea Herald
2008.5.21
1 out of 10 children in poverty: report
A new report showed that almost one out of 10 Korean children under age 18 lived in absolute or relative poverty in 2006.
The research conducted by Kim Mee-sook, research fellow of the child welfare team at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, said a total of 545,000 children lived in absolute poverty and 915,925 remained in relative poverty in 2006.
The absolute poverty rate of families with children nationwide showed a slight decrease from 8.8 percent in 1999 to 6.7 percent in 2000 and to 4.4 percent in 2002. In 2006, it stood at 4.8 percent.
Absolute poverty measures the number of people living below the poverty threshold or those who are unable to afford certain basic goods and services.

Digital Chosunilbo
2008.5.22
S.Korea's Birthrate Still Lowest in the World
South Korea ranks at the bottom among 193 countries with a fertility rate of 1.2 children born to a woman over her lifetime. But the country ranks 23rd in average life expectancy, at 79 years.
According to WHO statistics for 2008 released Tuesday, South Korea had the lowest birthrate alongside the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Ukraine at 1.2 as of 2006.
Other countries with a low birthrate are Japan, Singapore, Russia and Hungary (1.3) and Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Austria (1.4). Some advanced countries, however, enjoy a relatively higher birthrate. Among them are the U.S. with 2.1, France with 1.9, and the U.K., Sweden and Finland with 1.8.
The country with the highest birthrate is Niger (7.3), followed by Afghanistan (7.2). North Korea's birthrate is 1.9, down from 2 in 2000.

The Korea Times
05-21-2008
Korea’s Birthrate at World’s Lowest
By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
Korea's birthrate stands at the lowest level in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The organization's annual health statistics for 2008 showed Wednesday that the birth rate, or the number of babies a woman gives birth to during her lifetime, was 1.2 for Korea as of 2006.

The Korea Times
05-16-2008 17:49

Disabled Orphans Neglected in Adoption
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
The percentage of Koreans adopting orphans is rising, but so-called minority adoptions of disabled children are very low on their priorities.

The Hankyoreh
Video Link:
http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/society_general/286222.html
“입양 아이 태운 비행기는 이제 그만!”
박수진 피디
» 5일 서울 한강시민공원에서 국외입양인연대(ASK・Adoptee Solidarity Korea)는 ‘입양 없는 하루’에 동참할 것을 시민들에게 호소하기 위해 비행기 조형물을 만들어 100원짜리 동전으로 모서리를 이어 붙이고 있다.
지난 5일 서울 합정동 한강시민공원 망원 유수지 부근. 어린이날을 맞아 가족 단위 나들이객들로 북적거렸다. 공원 한쪽 바닥에는 파란색 비행기 조형물이 서쪽 하늘을 향해 날아가고 있었다. 비행기 조형물의 모서리는 100원짜리 동전 2000개가 끊어질 듯 이어지고 있었다.

JoongAng Daily
May 7, 2008
The many adaptations of an adoptee
With Children's Day falling this past Monday and Parent's Day tomorrow, I thought it would be a good time to take another look at the adoption issue from the perspective of an adoptee.
David Keebok Warren was eight when he and his older brother were adopted from Seoul to Pittsfield, Massachusetts by a family gracious enough to adopt them together. The brothers quickly became Americanized. "Growing up, I was so encapsulated in white suburbia, I kept away from the Asian kids," Warren said. "Looking back, I kick myself for that. I was like, "I don't want to be like you crazy Asian kids, smelling like kimchi!"
His family didn't really address the adoption issue. "My parents treated me like we were their kids — that we just came out a little more yellow."
This led Warren to bottle up the identity questions adoptees often deal with. He recalls the first time he faced the fact. "A girlfriend called me one day and flat out asked me if I was adopted," Warren said. "I was frozen by her question. Up until that point, I thought I was this white, hunky-dory kid growing up in the suburbs."