Point is, I was adopted, and like many adopted kids, I often wonder where I came from.
Here's what I know:
I was born in Seoul, South Korea, to an unmarried 22 year old woman and 26 year old man. For the first six months of my life, I was under the guardianship of what I can only imagine was a very loving, caring foster family who were totally not in it for the money or any other reason besides Love. Why else would anyone voluntarily open their home to an uncontrollable pooping vomit machine? DO NOT CORRECT ME ON THIS. Then, after these very kind people had enough of the Vomitron 88™, they put her -- me -- on a plane to the United States of America, where I was collected by my new, real parents. My life as a mail order child had finally begun!
Growing up white was fine, except for the part where I wasn't actually white. This led to being bullied a lot, which in turn led to my initial curiosity of why I had been put up for adoption. It was during these formative years that I firmly decided that Birth Mama had definitely been a ninja. I'm talking League of Assassins shit. That's why she couldn't keep me. How could she? The League is made up of the hardest motherfuckers in the world, and it is most certainly not a place for children (cf. The Dark Knight Rises: Talia Al Ghul). To this day, you cannot convince me otherwise. Sure, we can sit down and talk about the unfair stigma placed on single mothers in Korea and how that resulted in extremely limited options for pregnant women. Perhaps you and I will go on to form an alliance to combat all sorts of social injustices, and that would be amazing. It still wouldn't change the (almost certain) fact that my birth mother was a ninja.
This conclusion also had its tactical advantages during those bullying years. I thought that if Birth Mama was actually Ninja Mama, maybe there were some special ninja skills hidden in my genetic makeup, and all I had to do was unlock them. I tested this theory out on the playground when some jackass snotbag asked why my eyes looked so funny before deciding that it would be a good idea to "speak Chinese" to me, by which I mean say "Ching chang ling long!" a lot. Needless to say, this didn't end well for anyone.
Before I go any further, I should mention that my parents are good people and I love them dearly. This post isn't meant to criticize them for adopting me or to disrespect them in any way. They did the best they could, and like, I turned out fucking GREAT!
But they weren't ninjas.
They're actually the opposite of ninjas. Just last week, my mother once again proved that she has absolutely no ability to be stealthy:
But I digress.
The other thing that got into my head at an early age was Disney. More specifically, Disney princesses. Most specifically, WHAT IF MY BIRTH FATHER WAS A PRINCE?! If I could find him, then maybe I could reclaim my rightful place as heir to the throne! The release of The Princess Diaries only served to reinforce this idea. Of course, ten year old me had no concept of the politics of royal births, let alone births out of wedlock, so my new dream of secretly being Korean royalty seemed totally attainable.
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| Side note: While writing this, I did some research, and there is in fact a Korean emperor who would've been the right age in the late 80s to have been my birth father. Go figure. |
Eventually I grew up and realized that Disney princesses are a load of bullshit. I also realized that it doesn't really matter where I came from, cause it's not going to change where I'm going. I do still catch myself wondering about it from time to time. These days, however, I tend to take delight in the unknown. For all I know, Ninja Mama might not be my birth mother. She might have been the genetic origin for a batch of clones. I could be a fucking clone. How cool would that be? There could be more of me out there, waiting to be discovered. And then? Then we'll take over the world, just like we were destined to do.
