[KS] Re: Ten Thousand Sorrows

Tue Jun 20 18:42:58 EDT 2000

On an adoption list I am a member of there has been a hot debate about this 
book too. The reactions are diverse, but most of them agree that the 
memories sound insincere. I haven't read the book but I want to share a few 
quotes from other adoptees, which I think are important to other members of 
this list (correct me if I am wrong):
===========
>Even in the simple description of the orphanage and cages didn't make 
>sense....being the scientist...hehe. There were cages lined up all
>around 3 walls. They were stacked 4 high and 4 deep. Then she says there 
>must have been at least 20 cages. Ummmmm...well, mathematically, one 
>single stack 4 high by 4 deep is 16 cages right there. If there were all 
>along three walls, there should have been over 100 cages, not 20. But, I 
>think one cage is one too many. Anyway, you have to overlook the 
>contradictions. It isn't a book that puts a smile on
>your face. But, then again, pain, agony and suffering SELL!
===========
>Having  read it three times, you caught some things I missed in one quick 
>read  (because I found it such a painful and disturbing book).  I've heard 
>through  the Internet Korean adoption community 'grapevine' that Elizabeth 
>Kim is aware of the criticism her book has received from some other Korean 
>adoptees as well as from some adoptive parents.
===========
>When ever you pick up a book and read it, the whole purpose of the 
>exercise of writing a book is to convey a message or multiple messages.
>EK succeeds in this basic mission. The greatest value of this book is, in 
>my opinion, to shine light on Battered Spouse Syndrome. What in one's past 
>leads up to many women remaining in a hellish relationship year after 
>year? What are the components that lead to this behavior? In this respect, 
>I can see why Oprah liked the book because SHE could relate to it from her 
>own experience and this is a value to society.
>
>As soon as she first mentioned her x-husband and introduced him as D. 
>rather than David or Danny, I knew immediately, I thought, "Oh oh..."
>I have a habit of coming to the aid of other adoptees. I would just LOVE 
>to bow into a ring with that ass hole. I don't care HOW sick he is.
>It would help me to feel better... I think.
>
>As for her over zealous fanatical religious parents...they needed to think 
>less about heaven and more about earth. The were characterized as
>"Bible Humpers", people who hump the bible for their own gratification, 
>probably lit up a cigarette after each exhausting masturbation. Religion
>is good. They were psychopastorsfromHell.
>
>But the message about the parents was an excellent illumination to 
>adoptive parents on how to make your adoptive child feel like total shit
>. Any way, I guess by now, you realize that I have some strong feelings on 
>these topics.
>
>There is something called "Writer's Liberty". So if you analyze this book 
>for authenticity, or reality, (meaning everything in the book had
>to be "TRUE to LIFE", I can see where readers would have a BIG problem. 
>Blatantly, she contradicts herself multiple times. She conveys to the 
>reader that she has "NO HISTORY", then goes into a movie script moment by 
>moment story about her mother, prior to meeting the American soldier etc.. 
>Pretty strange huh? Well, face value, you'd say "impossible". But 
>"Writer's Liberty" spackles that nonsense. A story needs to be smooth from 
>beginning to end so she took the liberty to create a complete picture.
===========
>No dates are revealed, only eluded to. i.e. "He told her about the recent 
>armistice that ended the Korean War and divided the country."
>That means she wasn't conceived yet and the date is summer of 53. Her 
>earliest birth date would be summer of 54. She said she was
>"kindergarten age when in the orphanage for a few months. This would bring 
>the date of her adoption, which her parents would certainly know the exact 
>date to 1959 - 1960???
>
>The portion about being put in cages night after night??? hummmm... I 
>doubt that a Christian orphanage in the 60's would do that, especially
>with the monitoring going on. She said the orphanage was over crowded but 
>says there were at least 20 of these cages. Hell, in the over
>crowded orphanage I was in, there were over 100 kids. And that other than 
>a few crying children, the orphanage was quiet. A quiet orphanage?
>Damn....the one I was in, the only time there was quiet was around 3 in 
>the morning when everyone was asleep...other than that, it was
>total chaos and LLLLOOOOUUUUUUUDDDD!!!!
>
>So if you follow this type of reasoning, I can see why some adoptees say, 
>"BullShit". However, you and I were NOT there with her. However
>life has affected EK, she is at liberty to convert any past memory the way 
>she wants.
>
>The interesting thing for me was, not knit picking the thing but to 
>understand the message. It is not only about an orphan, but a half and
>half orphan. And THAT, I do know about. For them, life in Korea Sucked. 
>And at different times, life in America sucked. Being half and half
>means you fall in-between the bottomless social crack in the floor. Some 
>of her psychology paralleled my own, so I could relate.
>
>It is not a happy book. It is just the opposite. I hope EK makes a million 
>bucks and laughs all the way to the bank. This is the only
>book that I know of written by a half and half. That is why it's a value 
>to me. I pray she succeeds. I pray that she "surfaces" into "the
>community".
>
>Her grandfather and uncle who killed her mother and mutilated her get 
>the,"I'm really fucking stupid" award. With the mother out of the way,
>they could have cashed in by continuing their original plan. Instead, they 
>take the valuable merchandise and mutilate it and throw it away
>into an orphanage."...brilliant....really God Damn brilliant....
===========
>My take on the book is that it started out strong, with vivid descriptions 
>of her memories which seemed a little rich and crisp for such a young 
>child. Perhaps the basics were accurate with finer details such as meal 
>preparation, feeding, play time and worship rituals embellished for the
>reader.  Although in Tom's book, he has vivid memories of his life on the 
>streets and he was a little guy of four.  Okay.  But as the book goes on, 
>it seems (to me) to lose its drive and begins to feel like a listing of 
>every bad thing that happened to her, without 'context' somehow.  Oh sure, 
>I can see where it's all connected psychologically.  But it just starts to 
>feel like someone who is writing about her hard life, from one thing, to 
>the next, and the next.  Suddenly her daughter is writing...then I am 
>reading about how she tells her daughter, as a child, that she might kill 
>herself, but don't worry, honey, I won't do it until you are older...what? 
>hello? She writes about laying such an enormous burden on a child who, for 
>eight years, was left tense, holding her breath, fearful that her mother 
>would commit suicide.  This bothers me because it's so unstable, 
>obviously, and that's sad, but here she is, writing about this now when 
>she's presumbably beyond it, but doesn't comment on the past with any 
>wisdom or insight.   She has many important and difficult issues which she 
>tells us about, and after she is finished relating them to us, the reader, 
>she doesn't connect back to anything.  Not to Korean culture, not to 
>adoption, the war, the briefest mention of her parents' eventual softening 
>of their rigidity, and her mental health issues, which she seemed to think 
>of as being 'saved' by her daughter.  Not a word or a thought about what 
>this has done to her daughter!  Who can go through life with a mother who 
>tells you, as a child no less, that I might kill myself, but not now, 
>honey, I won't do it until you can handle it....whew.  Hearing about all 
>this, and her ongoing problems, just felt more like a 'list of her life' 
>instead of something that attempted to more deeply examine the journey of 
>this life of a Korean war orphan.
>
>
>Although perhaps the reaction I had should be taken into consideration - - 
>perhaps this really IS how she lives her life - on the surface, treading
>water, lacking insight, needy...
>
>I don't know.  It just did not connect on a literary level for the reasons 
>I tried to explain.  I don't know if it will come across in my post.  I am not
>opposed to people publishing memoirs, and even making money from 
>them.  The only buzz I've heard on the book is from the online adoption 
>community and not in the general public.  I've read many, many other books 
>on adoption from all perspectives, Korea/Korean culture both fiction and 
>non-fiction, and Elizabeth Kim's book started out strong and got weaker 
>and more shallow as it lurched toward completion.
===========
At 05:35 AM 6/21/00, you wrote:
>I've just been skimming through the latest issue of the Korean Quarterly
>(Summer 2000, Minnesota) and there are two book reviews written by Korean
>American adoptees of Elizabeth Kim's book. Thought some of the readers of
>this listserv might be interested to read:
>Korean life and society." -- Susan Soon Keum Cox, Korean Quarterly Summer
>2000

-----------------------------
Henny  (Lee Hae Kang)

Feel free to visit
http://www.henny-savenije.demon.nl
and feel the thrill of Hamel discovering Korea (1653-1666)
In Korean
http://www.henny-savenije.demon.nl/indexk2.htm


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%