ADOPTEE THEMES IN K-DRAMAS AND FILMS - NOV. 2024
Adoptee Themes in K-Dramas, Documentaries, and Films
By Sharon Stern
This month in the newsletter we are focusing on the stories of Korean adoptees. Both K-dramas and Korean films frequently touch this subject, but often in very different ways.
Korean history has a centuries old cultural tradition of the importance of bloodline and family ties. This sets up a cultural conflict around the subject of adoption. The historical dramas (사극) and films help explain at length how bloodline holds the nation together and gives it foundation. The ancient story of a poor person in a lower class discovering that they are somehow related to or part of a monarchy has brought us some of the best known and longest lasting stories in history, in all languages of the world. The concept is not unique to Korea - it is seen in the entire world. The second son/daughter or twin that must be killed or is rescued and sent away so that the one and only chosen can become king. These stories permeate global cultural history. But the realities and truth of the life-long trauma of family separation are often glossed over in these epic tales.
There are a number of modern K-dramas that have used the adoption, international adoption and orphans as a storyline. Unfortunately, many of the dramas follow unrealistic tropes, like an adoptee returning to Korea speaking perfect Korean and fully understanding the nuances of Korean culture. We know very well that doesn’t happen. The dramas almost never show the cultural conflict that surrounds returning adoptees when they are not fully accepted by Koreans as Korean or that they are not easily connected to a long history of family. The taboo subject of biracial Koreans, who made up the majority of the first wave of adoptees after the Korean war, is never dealt with head on. The adoptee characters are typically either the hero or a villain, with not much in-between. If the adoption takes place within Korea, the characters are constantly reminded of how lucky they are to exist at all.
There are K-dramas that include adoptee characters/themes, but miss many of the subtleties and realities adoptees face. Many of the K-dramas below are excellent dramas and are fun, exciting and fulfilling to watch. But they don’t always take on their adoption themes in a complete or realistic manner. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t worth watching, though. We can criticize themes that are not well handled while enjoying the overall experience. What the dramas do often get right, however, is that family is not always defined by blood relation, but based on those that love and support you.
Adoptee Themes in Documentaries & Films
Fortunately, here is a deep pool of documentary and fiction filmmakers that have given us some very moving stories about Korean adoptees. Just like the stories we are sharing from people in our own community this month, some stories have happy endings, some do not and some stories are not yet complete. I am including a couple of films here that are not currently available for streaming so that you know about them. Even if the entire film is not available, there are extended interviews with the filmmakers that are themselves interesting and informative.
If you have not seen the recent PBS/AP Frontline documentary called South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning, you can view it here. It is a powerful, though difficult to watch, documentary about the truths behind Korea’s adoption “industry”.
Below are details about both documentaries and fictional films focused on Korean adoptions.
Forget Me Not (2019)
Forget Me Not is a documentary that follows three pregnant, unmarried women at the institution called "Aeshuwon" on the island of Jeju. The institution, which is isolated in the beautiful countryside of Jeju, is run by founder Mrs. Im and her staff. The film follows the three women and their process towards the difficult and painful decision - whether to keep the baby or give it away for adoption. That decision is strongly influenced by a huge pressure from the outside world. Typically, the disgrace of the family, the reluctance of the boyfriend and the disdain of Korean society towards the women's situation and the unborn child, have a huge impact on the women's final decision. However, at Aeshuwon the strong-willed Mrs Im supports the women and their fight for independence. But in the end the choice will always be the women's own and the consequences will be up to the single individual to handle. Forget Me Not is an emotional journey of three unwed women's life at Aeshuwon and how they make the decision that will change their lives forever.
Filmmaker Sun Hee Engelstoft, is an adoptee herself, which adds personal and deep connections into the storytelling of the film.
Read about how Sun Hee Englestoft came to make this specific film in an interview here
See a YouTube KBS World interview with Sun Hee Englestoft telling her own story here
Rent to watch on Prime Video
Approved for Adoption (2012)
This is a French-Belgian, animated movie by comic-book artist Jung about his return to Seoul for the first time since he was abandoned at the age of 5.
From the Fandango page description:
This remarkable animated documentary traces the unconventional upbringing of the filmmaker Jung Henin, one of thousands of Korean children adopted by Western families after the end of the Korean War. The filmmaker tells his story using his own animation intercut with snippets of super-8 family footage and archival film. The result is an animated memoir like no other: clear-eyed and unflinching, humorous and wry, and above all, inspiring in the capacity of the human heart.
Watch on Kanopy, if you have a public library card or a student ID from a university
Rent to watch at Fandango At Home
First Person Plural (2000)
From the Kanopy website:
In 1966, Deann Borshay Liem was adopted by an American family and sent from Korea to her new home in California. There the memory of her birth family was nearly obliterated, until recurring dreams led her to investigate her own past, and she discovered that her Korean mother was very much alive. Bravely uniting her biological and adoptive families, Borshay Liem embarks on a heartfelt journey in this acclaimed film that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Extended interview with Deann Borshay here
Watch on Kanopy, if you have a library card or a student ID from a university
Resilience (2009)
Myoung-ja, who has sent her son Brent (Sung-wook) abroad to be adopted, meets him after 30 years and spends a special time with him. They meet for the first time on national TV, then part ways and meet repeatedly, trying to become a family again. Unfortunately, they are faced with problems that so many families with adopted children experience, such as the language barrier and the cultural gap. Myoung-ja takes part in a movement against international adoptions and tries to build a firm base for her life as she takes care of children born to single mothers. The process of becoming a mother and son unfolds dramatically through interviews and observations that take place over an extended period of time.
Extremely unfortunately, this film is no longer available online. It looks like a really good one too. However, you can read a good interview with the filmmaker (herself an adoptee) here
In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee (2010)
This film was made by the same Emmy winning filmmaker as First Person Plural listed above and a continuation of Deann Borshay’s personal story.
From the PBS POV website:
Her passport said she was Cha Jung Hee. She knew she was not. So began a 40-year deception for a Korean adoptee who came to the United States in 1966. Told to keep her true identity secret from her new American family, the 8-year-old girl quickly forgot she had ever been anyone else. But why had her identity been switched? And who was the real Cha Jung Hee? In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee is the search to find the answers, as acclaimed filmmaker Deann Borshay returns to her native Korea to find her "double," the mysterious girl whose place she took in America.
Watch on Kanopy, if you have a public library card or a student ID from a university
Unfortunately, this PBS POV documentary is also no longer available to view on the POV website.
See an interview about the film with Deann Borshay here
By May be found at the following website: http://www.movieposterdb.com/poster/21288cc7 MoviePosterDB.com], Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48675196
Twinsters (2015)
From the Twinstersmovie website:
In February 2013, Anaïs Bordier, a French fashion student living in London, stumbled upon a YouTube video featuring Samantha Futerman, an actress in Los Angeles, and was struck by their uncanny resemblance. After discovering they were born on the same day in Busan, Korea and both put up for adoption, Anaïs reached out to Samantha via Facebook. In Twinsters, we follow Samantha and Anaïs’ journey into sisterhood, witnessing everything from their first meeting, to their first trip back to Korea where their separation took place.
Rent to watch on Prime Video
Rent to watch on Apple TV
Rent to watch on YouTube
Found in Korea (2019)
An adopted woman, on her first return to Korea searching for her birth family and her roots, sheds light on the social stigmas surrounding adoption in Korea's present-day society.
This film isn’t currently available for streaming, but extended interviews with the filmmaker are.
See and extended interview with filmmaker Nam Holtz here
See the Q&A session with Nam Holtz at CUNY after a screening of the film for 2019 KAFFNY here
Geographies of Kinship (2019)
From the MU Films website:
In this powerful tale about the rise of Korea’s global adoption program, four adult adoptees return to their country of birth and recover the personal histories that were lost when they were adopted. Raised in foreign families, each sets out on a journey to reconnect with their roots, mapping the geographies of kinship that bind them to a homeland they never knew. Along the way there are discoveries and dead ends, as well as mysteries that will never be unraveled.
Ultimately what emerges is a deepened sense of self and belonging, as well as a sense of purpose, as Geographies of Kinship’s four protagonists question the policies and practices that led South Korea to become the largest “sending country” in the world—with 200,000 children adopted out to North America, Europe and Australia. Emboldened by their own experiences and what they have learned, these courageous characters become advocates for birth family and adoptee rights, support for single mothers, and historical reckoning.
The broader history of transnational adoption since the Korean War provides the backdrop to our stories. For over half a century, the Korean adoption experience and subsequent Diaspora have transformed not only how adoption is practiced worldwide, but also how kinship, identity and race are perceived and contested. As the forerunner for international adoptions from China, Russia, Guatemala, Ethiopia and other countries, the Korean model challenges us to reflect on universal questions of identity, assimilation, kinship and belonging. Geographies of Kinship explores these themes by listening closely to those who have lived the experience most intimately-adoptees-while relaying a compelling history of epic scope.
Available on Vimeo and you can use a free trial to see it
PBS America Reframed website about the film
Watch a long pre-broadcast interview with Amercia Reframed director, Deann Borshay and African-American/mixed race adoptees here
The Return (2018)
This film is fiction, but based on blended true stories, including that of the filmmaker
From the IMDb synopsis:
Two Danish-Korean adoptees return for the first time to the country they were once born in. Confronted with the spirit of their Motherland and the personal stories of the fellow adoptees they meet in the city of Seoul, Karoline and Thomas are hurled into an emotionally disorienting journey that forces both of them to question and face their own destiny and identity. Operating in a hybrid field The Return is partially based on director Malene Choi's personal experience as well as stories shared by adoptees that Malene encountered in Seoul while shooting the film.
Watch on Tubi
Blue Bayou (2021)
This is another fictional film that debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021. It deals with the stateless issue of Korean adoptees prior to 2000 (see Move to Heaven in the KDrama section below). EDITOR’S NOTE: It was surrounded by protests when it debuted because the story of Adam Crasper, a stateless adoptee who was deported in 2016, is used, but he was never consulted, included or compensated, adding trauma to his already traumatic life. The adoptee community called for the movie to be boycotted.
Synopsis: As a Korean-American man raised in the Louisiana bayou works hard to make a life for his family, he must confront the ghosts of his past as he discovers that he could be deported from the only country he has ever called home.
Watch on USA
Rent to watch on Prime Video
Rent to watch on YouTube
The Drop Box (2015)
This documentary tells the story of Pastor Lee Jong Rak who began the baby drop box in Seoul, where mother’s who cannot or do not want to care for their newborns can leave their child. The drop box is monitored 24 X 7. The US allows this practice in hospitals. In Korea, nothing like this had existed before this pastor created it. The church runs an orphanage for the abandoned children. There are some controversies/criticisms about the drop box and the pastor, but there are also controversies/criticisms about the laws and attitudes that lead to child abandonment and the stigma of single mothers in South Korea.
Watch on YouTube
Broker (2022)
In a fictional story about a baby left at the drop box (see the film above), this film explores questions of why a single mother would abandon her baby, what would bring people to buying and selling babies, but also what defines a family. It’s not about international adoptees, but it does focus on adoption and abandonment and is a really good and heartwarming film with known stars.
Starring Sang Kang Ho, Gang Dong Won, Bae Doona, Lee Ji Eun
Watch on Hulu
Rent to watch on Prime Video
Rent to watch on YouTube
Return to Seoul (2022)
This fictitious movie was written and directed by French-Cambodian filmmaker Davy Chou. It tells the story about a South Korean adoptee adopted to France who ends up in South Korea because of a cancelled flight to Tokyo. The people she meets in Seoul encourage her to look for her birth parents and a complicated story unfolds. Chou based the story on a friend’s history with additional input from other people’s stories. This is a fictional tale, so the main character is maybe a bit wilder than your average person, but the film does explore the same issues of belonging and wanting to understand one’s origins that the documentaries do.
Rent to watch on Prime Video
Rent to watch on Fandango At Home
Interviews with the director and inspirational person behind the film in the NY Times
Article about what Return to Seoul and Broker get right/wrong about Korean adoptions
Side by Side Project
The last piece I will mention is a collection of short films by the Side by Side Project. There are 100 stories of Korean adoptees that can be viewed and listened to here
The Project’s film that includes eleven stories can be viewed on Kanopy. These eleven stories are also available individually in longer format on the website linked above. These eleven stories show a lot of diversity of experiences by Korean adoptees.
On a very last note, there are many videos on YouTube that show stories of South Korean adoptees that have not been made into documentaries. If you search for “South Korean adoption” a long list of videos shows up.
Adoptee Themes in K-Dramas
I’m Sorry, I Love You
2004, melodrama, romance (Viki) The drama depicts a Korean adoptee to Australia who is abandoned by his Australian family and ends up on the streets as a scam artist. He ends up being shot and with a bullet in his brain, only has a year to live. This motivates him to return to Korea to find his birth family. His birth mother is a famous actress with another son. She had been told that he died at birth. When she finds out that he is dying and his heart could save her other son, she not subtly wants him to agree to donate his hear. He ends up sacrificing himself so that her “real” son can live. Though some of the story line is a very improbable (that’s the melodrama part as well as the script not being brilliantly written), this drama does a pretty good job at showing language issues encountered by adoptees returning to Korea as well as dealing with the subject of unwed mothers being pressured to put their children up for adoption.
Mother 마더
2018, drama, suspense (Viki) This drama was a remake of a Japanese drama of the same title from 2010. The story is intense and the first chapter could be triggering for those that have suffered abuse. It follows the story of a temporary school teacher, Kang Soo Jin (Lee Bo Young), who had been abandoned at an orphanage by her mother, and discovers that a young student is being abused at home. When she finds the child literally in a trash bag in front of her house, she makes a split-second decision and takes the child and runs away. With no papers for the child, it is difficult for them to find a place to exist. On the run and eventually also pursued by the police. Just as they are about to escape on a boat to China, the police catch up with them. The girl’s birth mother is put on trial for abuse and found guilty. But the teacher is also put on trial for kidnapping and part of the sentence is that she can have no contact with the girl. The girl is sent to an orphanage. In the end, they are able to reunite and Kang Soo Jin adopts the girl.
Her Private Life 그녀의 사생활
2019, rom-com (Viki, Netflix) This rom-com’s male lead character, Ryan Gold (Kim Jae Wook), is an adoptee who has come back to Korea from the US. He is a rich art director, well educated, handsome (of course) and mysteriously completely fluent in Korean. Because his mother is Korean-American we are supposed to assume that she taught him flawless Korean growing up.
Chief of Staff 보좌관
2019, political drama (Netflix) This political drama, starring big names Lee Jung Jae and Shin Min A, is about politicians and their staff trying to maintain their positions and move up the political ladder. In one episode, the lawmakers try to get a bill passed to increase support for poor, single mothers so that they could raise their children and not give them up for adoption.
Pinocchio 피노키오
2014, family, rom-com, rom-dram (Viki) The male lead in this drama is a child, Ha-myung (Lee Jong Suk), whose family is upended when his father dies in a suspicious explosion and his mother commits suicide because of the shame surrounding the scandal that caused the father’s death. Ha-myung jumps off a cliff but is rescued by an elderly man with memory loss who mistakes him as his real son who had actually died 30 years earlier. Ha-myung goes along with the deception, takes on a new name and is officially adopted by the elderly man. The drama slowly reveals the truth of Ha-myung’s real life, as he searches for his real older brother and forms a relationship with the daughter of a reporter who blamed his father for the explosion that caused his death.
Kill Me, Heal Me 킬미, 힐미
2015, Medical drama, rom-com, suspense (Viki) This drama features a character (Park Seo Joon) who, unlike many portrayals in dramas, knows that she was adopted. Over the course of the entire drama, her past is slowly revealed and it is obvious that every adult she dealt with failed her in some way. The main theme of the drama is about a man with dissociative identity disorder and his process of discovering the reasons for it and how to heal.
Ireland (also called Aillaendeu) 아일랜드
2004, rom-dram (Prime Video) This drama features a woman adopted to an Irish family. Her family is killed when her brother gets involved in the IRA and she escapes to Korea to find her birth family. She meets her brother by saving him from an accident, but they part, not knowing they are related, and falls in love with him, which adds another tragic twist to this story.
Coffee Prince 커피프린스 1호점
2007, rom-dram, rom-com (Viki) This was an extremely popular series and the first drama that many drama fans saw that hooked them into the genre. Apart from the intolerably stupid first episode, this is an excellent drama whose main theme deals with gay attraction, since the main character (Gong Yoo) is attracted to someone he believes is a young man, but is a tomboy woman disguising as a man (Yoon Eun Hye). The adoption theme comes in that the Gong Yoo character believes that he was result of an affair of his father, but the truth is that he is adopted. It is treated as a taboo subject and the character doesn’t find out that he is adopted until he is 29 years old. The family makes him work very hard to “prove himself”. Adoption is not the primary theme, but it’s pain and taboo is touched on.
The Doctors (also called Doctor Crush) 닥터스
2016, medical, rom-dram (Kocowa) This is an ensemble drama, but one of the main cast members, Hong Ji Hong (Kim Rae Won) is a man who lost his parents at a young age and was adopted at an older age by a wealthy doctor. Despite being a brilliant doctor, he isn’t seen as a successor for his father because he isn’t a blood son.
Mr. Sunshine 미스터 션샤인
2018, historical, romance, melodrama (Netflix) Not precisely about adoption, this excellent period drama takes place from the early 1900’s into the Japanese occupation period. The main character, Eugene Choi (Lee Byung Hun) is born a slave and witnesses his father being killed by order of their master and consequently his mother jumping into a well before she can also be killed. He escapes and ends up on the streets of the US, eventually joining the military. In a twist of fate, he is sent back to Korea because of the Shinmiyangyo incident. Throughout the drama, Eugene repeatedly confronts the fact that he doesn’t feel completely American, but struggles to identify as a Korean.
Sweet Home 스위트홈
2020, apocalyptic, horror, action, fantasy (Netflix) This genre is really not my thing and from everything I’ve read, it isn’t even a superior example of the genre, despite having three seasons created. The basic story line is about different kinds of monsters versus humans. One of the main characters (Lee Do Hyun) has an adopted and somewhat egotistical sister (Go Min Si) who believes she is a burden to her brother.
When the Weather is Fine 날씨가 좋으면 찾아가겠어요
2020, rom-dram (Viki) This pretty good rom-dram stars Seo Kang Joon and Park Min Young. Park Min Young’s character is escaping from some bad job and artistic experiences in Seoul (and she is seriously bad at pretending to play the cello, but…) and ends up in a fictional town in Gangwon Province, where she lived in high school. She encounters a guy she went to school with who runs a small bookstore, next to her family’s house. The Seo Kang Joon character is shown to be adopted by a couple in town and is the only one in town sent off into the woods on a mountain behind town when someone or something goes missing. His adoptive parents have to fight with neighbors and townspeople who want him to continue these dangerous rescue missions. They argue that they shouldn’t care, since the boy isn’t their real son…and he basically agrees. He eventually learns the truth about his parents, but this drama shows the importance that communities and culture put on blood ties.
The Penthouse: War in Life 펜트하우스
2020, drama, suspense, revenge, thriller, mystery (Viki) This extremely popular, 3-season, but very dark drama has a number dark story lines with nasty people doing nasty things to each other, people out for themselves, bullying and mothers doing anything to anyone to protect their children. There is a story line arc of child trafficking for adoption abroad. There is a story line of an adopted girl as a bone marrow donor, used to save a family’s son’s life, after which they unadopt her, based on invented stories, and ship her back to Korea. There are additional arcs that question who is truly related to whom by birth. The overall story is complicated, quirky and pretty negative with many twists, but very well done. All of the theme are dealt with in a dark way and that includes adoption.
Chimera 키마이라
2021, crime, thriller (Viki) This drama was surrounded by controversy charging sexual harassment on set before its release and wasn’t released for another two years after the initial launch date. It got pretty low ratings, probably as a result of being preceded by controversy. The story line is about a serial murder case that re-emerges after 35 years. In the first episode, a former FBI agent named Eugene Hathaway (Claudia Kim), is noted for speaking flawless Korean. She doesn’t immediately admit to being adopted, which she was. She does say that she had to work at learning Korean for the first year that she was in Korea, by watching Korean TV and hanging out with Koreans. OK. She worked at it. But then the subject is brushed off and forgotten about.
Move to Heaven 무브 투 헤븐: 나는 유품정리사입니다
2021, drama (Netflix), In episode 9 of this drama – a Korean adoptee to America (Kevin Oh) commits a crime and when it is discovered that his citizenship paperwork was not completed (see more on this true subject in the description of the film Blue Bayou below), he is deported back to Korea. This episode is based on true stories of deported adoptees. The most well-known real Korean stateless deportee, Phillip Clay, committed suicide in Korea. It touches on a subject not often talked about which is the stateless status of a number of Korean adoptees whose parents never correctly registered them in the US as citizens. Those adopted before 2000 do not automatically obtain citizenship just because they were adopted. It is estimated that 18,000 did not have their paperwork completed fully or correctly. Many do not know this until they encounter legal issues that bring the fact to the forefront. To understand more about this subject, you can read this Wikipedia article.
The same episode also features a newscaster (Yoo Sun) whose parents fostered children who were to be adopted overseas. This is a moving drama that features a different story each episode and features a main character who is autistic. The young man and his uncle are charged with cleaning out homes of recently deceased people.
Squid Game 오징어 게임
2021, survival, thriller, horror (Netflix) There is an adoption element to one character in this drama. From the Teen Vogue article (linked below): “The North Korean defector, Sae-byeok (played by Jung Ho-yeon), asks Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) to care for her younger brother – who is waiting for her in a child welfare center – if she dies. He eventually keeps his promise, sort of. Gi-hun shows up at the home of an elderly family friend with the boy, and a suitcase filled with his prize money. He asks her to raise the orphan and she happily agrees. This scene is meant to convey a sense of optimism in a pessimistic series. But it opens up questions about the morality of his actions. Even if Gi-hun had legally adopted the boy (which isn’t likely), giving him away to someone else – no matter how well-intended – isn’t legal.”
Vincenzo 빈센조
2021, crime drama, dark comedy, romance (Netflix) This super popular series starring Song Joong Ki as Vincenzo Cassano features a character adopted to an Italian family. When the family dies, the Song Joong Ki character joins the mafia and is adopted by the head of an Italian crime family. When the mob boss passes away, his son tries to kill Vincenzo, because his father favored his adopted son over him. Vincenzo flees to Korea where he wants to recuperate gold stashed in a building by his business partner, but he has to take possession of the building to do so. He finds his birth mother in Korea way too easily. He speaks Korean way too perfectly for someone who did not grow up with Koreans. He mysteriously knows about Korean legal concepts. Even though the adoption trope is not well handled, this is still a good drama.
You Are My Spring 너는 나의 봄
2021, thriller, mystery, dram-com, rom-com (Netflix) This is a story about childhood trauma that permeates lives through adulthood and mental health care that should be for everyone, not just the severely mentally ill. There are a lot of long and sometimes confusing flashbacks and there are a lot of thriller, cliff-hanger twists. This drama includes the story of twins who are sent to an orphanage. One stays in Korea and the other is adopted to a wealthy family in the US. Unfortunately, the orphanage isn’t exactly that, but a cult that is fronting a child trafficking ring. Another set of brothers at the facility, one hidden away, fed a lot so that he can be an organ donor to his brother, who is dying. When the adoptee twin returns to Korea, he speaks Korean perfectly, of course. The female lead also has a close friend that is Korean American and shows many characteristics that are more American than Korean. The cult and the separation of siblings is used mostly to create mystery and plot twists, although the trauma of separation from family is definitely explored.
Business Proposal 사내맞선
2022, rom-com (Netflix) In this prototypical rom-com, the second male lead character is an orphan. He is the secretary of a chaebol son and his best friend from growing up. When he falls for another chaebol daughter, who was supposed to be the fiance of the chaebol son, he hides his background out of shame. The chaebol daughter, after facing conflict with her orphaned boyfriend, ends up visiting the orphanage where he grew up and finds out the truth about his past. She accepts him and his past. This is not the main story line, but is a nice portrayal of someone brought up in a rich family, within which family and blood lines are everything, not caring that there are no living family blood lines to trace in her boyfriend’s past.
Thirty-Nine 서른, 아홉
2022, rom-dram (Netflix) This is a super-star drama, featuring Son Ye Jin, Jeon Mi Do and Kim Ji Hyun, amongst others. It is a really good drama with several very serious story lines that happens to also contain an orphan story line. The Son Ye Jin character started her life in an orphanage and then was adopted. She is a successful dermatologist and regularly volunteers at the orphanage. There is no huge drama introduced surrounding her adoption - it’s a happy and pretty much normal story. It’s a much better portrayal of adoption than many dramas show. At the end of the drama, she ends up adopting a child that she has seen at the orphanage every time she visits.
A Virtuous Business 정숙한 세일즈
2024, comedy, drama (Netflix) This new drama features an adoptee (Yeon Woo Jin) who grew up as an adoptee in America, attended a prestigious school and is a detective who has returned to Korea. The overall storyline is about a group of four women in the 1990’s, in a rural town (where everybody knows everybody and has an opinion about everybody), who end up selling lingerie and sex toys door-to-door, when the subject of even talking about sex is very much taboo. The drama deals realistically with the adoption theme and backstory and adds a second character (one of the door-to-door sales women) who grew up in America and whose behavior and language is often more touchy-feely and casual than the Koreans expect.
Spoiler alert: Don’t read on if you haven’t seen the drama and plan to. The adoption theme plays out that our detective suspects he was kidnapped and illegally sold as an orphan, but it turns out he was put up for adoption by a single mother who had to give him up because of an accident and medical bills for the child that she couldn’t afford.
To read more on the subject of how K-dramas depict adoptees, there are some excellent articles:
Kocowa Blog in 2019
Teen Vogue in 2021
Jae-Ha Kim in 2021
Generations Home in 2023
