By Tanneke Beudeker
I was born Hong Yeon Ja in Anjeong-ri, Pyeongtaek on May 29, 1971. Or at least, that’s what my adoption papers say. My mother was Korean and my father African American. In February 1972 I was brought to Korean Social Service and released for adoption. On May 5, 1972 I arrived in the Netherlands. I was raised by Dutch parents, and I live a happy life, but being adopted and not knowing where I’m from makes me also feel that I’m not really a part of my life. Growing up as a young child in the northern parts of the Netherlands felt fine. Summers lasted forever, there was the exhilarating expectation of whatever the day would bring and what treasures you would find, and life was one big, great and beautiful adventure. I was a playful and happy kid enjoying life in a way that only kids can.
I grew up in the countryside, building sheds and riding fake horses with my younger sister. Farms, farm animals, fields of corn and potatoes, and the distinct smell of the farmland surrounded me. Dried hay in the summer is still, for me, the smell of home. My whole life, I knew I was adopted but I felt as Dutch as can be and wasn’t aware of my color or being different. I was simply my parent’s child and happy about it. I never felt any different, and that was also the message my parents gave us: everybody is the same. In my childish naivety, I was convinced that others had that same conviction.
Christian elementary school taught me otherwise. The message there was: Everybody is different. And when the majority thinks you’re even more different, you’re no longer part of the herd. All I had ever really wanted was to be part of a herd. Any kind of herd was fine by me. I remember going to church on Sundays, alone on my little red bike. My parents did not go to church, but I did it to fit in. I tried to do all that was required of me but was never accepted. I remember how the whole class would turn against me for whatever reason they thought was valid, leaving me to sit alone in the classroom while they all rehearsed for the play at the weekly closing of school. I had one friend, and even she had a part in the play. She secretly wrote me a note that said: “I can rule too” with a sad face drawn next to it.
I kept wondering why. I could not understand why they treated me that way. Weren’t we all the same and supposed to treat each other likewise? I beat my brains out wondering “why” and “what.” What had I done wrong? I examined myself to try to find something I could do differently. Or better. Or less. Or more. It didn’t cross my mind for a split second that maybe the problem was them. I changed behavior like a chameleon changing colors, doing my best to foresee what was expected from me and adapting to just that.
I can still feel the utter sadness and devastation after one of my classmates told me I was no sheep in God’s herd and did not belong here. It was as if everything shifted in that moment. I could feel it moving somewhere in my being, and know now that something did radically change in me—something that could not be easily reversed. I gave up that day. I accepted that I wasn’t part of the herd and probably would never be part of any kind of herd, ever. At school I moved in the shadows, sometimes brave enough to step into the light only to find myself immediately surrounded by classmates who would bash me down physically or mentally. Sometimes they would even pretend that I could be part of the herd and treat me like one of them for a whole day only to happily take that away from me the next day. I really did not know how to fight back. I accepted it. I took their truth to be the truth.
So as a kid under ten, I started adapting, accommodating, and assimilating, trying to become someone who would fit in and who would be accepted into the herd. It never worked. I felt less. I felt lonely. I felt I was not worth anyone’s while. I felt I did not fit in. I felt it was all my fault. I felt like I did not have the right to be. I vanished. I would come back from school and ride my imaginary horse (and later a real one) to places where I was appreciated and accepted, where I was a superhero. My parents tried to support me by talking to the teacher, and they did what most parents would do: they kept telling me sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me. But they did, words broke my heart.
M y parents were usually busy taking care of the property around the house. For me, as a child, it felt like a gigantic place—an adventure. When playing hide and seek, you could just disappear. They grew a large amount of fruits and vegetables. What couldn’t be eaten during the summer was frozen for the winter. Our basement was full of jars, cans, and pots filled with jam, pickles, and sauerkraut. As kids we could just walk into the garden and take all the strawberries we could eat. My mother grew a flower garden filled with all kinds of special flowers and plants. We had sheep, chickens, and goats. Bees for honey. There were two dogs and always a cat or two.
They had a distinct way of living, my parents. They were very committed to their way of life and had a close group of friends who shared much of the same ideals. Anything different from their way was often ridiculed, such as me going out to bars and clubs at a certain age. They lived as much as possible off the land. They went through a macro-biotic phase and an organic one. We ate our own farm-raised meat as there were rooster chicks in the nest each year, and later sheep that my father slaughtered himself. We had no central heating, only a wood stove in the living room that you had to light if you were the first one home. I remember when my mom was working as a florist, we had to do this a few times a week. It always took a while for the heat to spread. Every now and then I would sneak a prune out of a large pot of prune brandy to get warm. They had no idea up until a few years ago!
My parents once participated in a demonstration against nuclear energy. They also took part in a project with their friends where they tried to live like people in the stone age did. We dressed in rabbit and goat skins, lived in self-made sheds, cooked over an open fire, ate out of clay bowls, chopped wood with axes made out of flints. After preparing for this for several years, we actually did it for a few weeks and it was filmed. For me this was broadcast by the educational channel at elementary school, which reinforced the view the kids had of me as different, and only outcast me socially even more.
My father worked full-time as an operating manager in a factory. My mother was the one raising my sister and me most of the time. I was the brave and socially desirable one trying to act wise and calm. That became the behavior I was rewarded for and what I tried to be: wise and calm, as the oldest child should be. But mostly I felt far from calm. Mostly it gave me a very uncomfortable and restless feeling because I didn’t always feel calm and certainly not wise. But I did want the confirmation of doing something good, so I worked hard to ensure that my parents could continue complimenting me, and that there was at least one place where I could do good. When my sister went on about how absolutely crazy it was to dress in rabbit skins and live in a forest like people in the stone age, I inwardly agreed with her completely, but was afraid to say so when our parents got mad and told her not to say that. We had to respect their way of living, because they insisted that everybody had a right to do or say whatever they wanted and live however they wanted. I remember thinking though that it apparently wasn’t my right to think differently from them.
Puberty in my case wasn’t too challenging for my parents because I tried to always do right by everybody. I went through a slightly New Age-meets-The Cure phase characterized by black clothes and a messy hairdo. I was a little rebellious and did my share of ignoring my parents and staying out late. But I never really questioned what they said, and when I did question something, I was too afraid to actually go against it. When my parents told me not to mind my sister when she was angry, I didn’t. When they told me I was good with people, I believed it to be true. When they told me to accept them as they were, I did. I felt trapped in this armor of civility. I still feel this way sometimes in certain situations, when I dress up in this armor but really want to do something different and am too afraid to. Despite all of this, I felt very much at home in and around our farmhouse, and when I look back, I feel I had a very happy time there. This was my place and I was deeply connected to it.
H igh school gave me a chance to start over and move to the top of the food chain for a while. I made friends and was accepted. It was a relatively easy time compared to elementary school. My parents saw me open up and bloom in high school. Meanwhile I was still totally bewildered as to why others liked me at all, but I gained some very close friends, especially one girl. We went through puberty together. I often stayed over at her parents’ place and felt very welcome there. I was like their fifth daughter. We are still close friends and continue to share our ups and downs. We cry together and laugh loudly together. I had a very strong fear of groups and tended to go around them rather than straight through. I always expected to be verbally or physically attacked. I tried to hide in the shadows, hoping no one would discover me, and was jealous of those who did show themselves. But I kept dreaming of the day I would rise up and step into the light. Then I would show them all! But the fear was always bigger, and so I kept disappointing myself for not doing it. That hurt my self-confidence. I still am very self-critical, only sometimes believing or accepting the compliments others give me.
My parents divorced when I was nineteen years old. My dad sold our house a few years later because he couldn’t manage it all by himself. After that, I felt I could never go home again. I felt homeless. I still drive by the house and wonder who those people are, living in my house . . . When I stop by in the summer, I take off my shoes, walk around barefoot in the grass, and feel at home again for a moment. But then I feel the deep sorrow of losing my home and a painful longing for a home. It seems that the sky is always brighter there, the grass greener and the trees most definitely, bigger. I met the people who live there now. They transformed the place into a bed and breakfast. I was amazed to see how everything had changed. By now they’re used to sometimes seeing me around.
I had a difficult relationship with my mother around the time of the divorce. Although I told her I wasn’t mad and that she should do what was good for her, I couldn’t help feeling angry and abandoned. But I shut it all down. The divorce took place quickly, and in that same summer, my mother fell in love with a refugee and remarried. She even asked me if I would be willing to marry him so that he could stay in the Netherlands. Only for five years, of course, so he could get a Dutch passport. I remember actually considering it, even after telling my mom no. I felt doubtful and indecisive. On the one hand, her proposal was absurd, but on the other, I still felt compelled to do as I was told and to put others first. So I seriously considered it . . . but I was mad. For a long time I had been saying things like all foreigners should go back to their own country, which sounded very peculiar coming from a person of color such as myself. But for me, my color had no value whatsoever. I felt Dutch and white.
T o deal with my parents’ divorce I moved in with my boyfriend at the time for all the wrong reasons. That couldn’t last and it didn’t. In relationships I always chose others who were very sure of themselves and who made me feel less important than they were—the type who could easily manipulate me into accommodating and adapting to their needs. And I would let them. They ran the gamut, from abusive relationships to partners who just didn’t know any better. It would always start out with me being generous, flexible, and thinking of the other first, and them on the receiving end, taking as much generosity and space as they could get. And then the moment would come when I would run out of generosity and into a personal boundary where I had to fight like hell to get something back but didn’t. Instead I would be met with anger, as I turned out to not be the person they thought I was and because they were not getting what they had come to expect. Even when they had the flexibility and ability to actually meet the needs of another person, I was unable to put myself first but always put others first.
This eventually led to a painful divorce after years of struggle, depression, and doubt. After all, how could I give up the home and safety I had built for myself which finally made me feel validated? How could I give up my roots? How could I not give my own child a home with two parents? How could I only think about myself? How could I ever leave my own herd? I endured for as long as I possibly could. But when you feel so invisible, and when no one steps up to meet your needs once in a while, there comes this breaking point where you either give up on yourself and life, or you grab on to the slightest part of yourself that is left and start fighting like hell to save what’s left and start over, painful as that is. And that is what I did and am still doing today. I am doing my best to rebuild myself, and to discover and get rid of old patterns in search of the person inside of me who was always trying to be heard, to get a voice, and to finally get out into the light. Me. This person wants a lot out of life but the other is too scared to go and get it on her own. She is someone who doesn’t find herself attractive or special, is ashamed to show herself, and takes compliments as a mistake the other must have made. She is someone who can’t imagine anyone liking her at all and doesn’t even bother making contact, or really doesn’t believe others when they say they do. She is someone who isn’t even sure she is supposed to be here at all, and so always lets others go first. She tries always to be correct and to do the right thing even when others don’t. The confident side of me has daily struggles with this scared and insecure person. They play a serious game of hide and seek. But the confident side of me is getting stronger every day. And that feels good.
At work I feel confident in what I do. I’ve been doing this job for sixteen years now. I work with children who are mentally challenged and experience behavioral problems in a 24/7 setting. I love creating a place for them to feel at home, to discover who they are and what they are good at, and to set goals for themselves and develop their skills. I love being able to create a place where they can be a part of something. Before this job I never lasted more than a year or two at the same place—my interest would run out and I would want to do something else. It worked, too. It felt nice to move on regularly and to take on new challenges, but it also ensured that I never committed to anything. But this job touched something in me. It appealed to my need to feel at home, and I could give the kids what I myself needed. But on the other hand, I easily ignored my boundaries and learned the hard way from a massive burnout that being aware of my own boundaries and guarding them is essential to taking care of both myself and others. My insecurity shows in my contacts with colleagues and my tendency to feel easily excluded. Still. Even the slightest thing can trigger that old, familiar feeling of not being part of the herd. I am also afraid to assert my place at work by saying that I’m good at what I do. Because then I’m at risk of being seen. So I’m humble about it, but am very good at what I do.
Nevertheless, I always only commit to something ninety-five percent, never one-hundred percent. My house is never completely tidy. I’m indecisive, but I also live a happy life. Somehow there is still a part of me, this little child, and I can see her sitting on a bench alone, waiting for her mom to come and get her and tell her she is so terribly sorry it took her so long to find her. Waiting for her to tell me that she wants to take me home, her long lost child. And therein lies an immense pain because, even though I long for her, I cannot go with her. It is a strange predicament. I want to be found and to go home, but then again I don’t because what is there to go home to? I feel ashamed that I don’t know this home and its language, and that I therefore feel uncomfortable around others who learned the language and the culture.
It works the other way around too, because I cannot really commit to my life here and now either. I feel as if I don’t belong and am still waiting to go home. All that was when I was born is gone. I long for something that is long gone. I had to put off a lot to become what I thought I was expected to be, to blend in, only to find out that I never totally do blend in, that I fit in nowhere. Or at least, that is how it feels for me. Some might argue that I was never expected to just blend in, but children typically have the desire to fit in with the group. Even children who are not adopted. But adopted children feel it most acutely because they were already given away once. To secure your place, you must adjust to your environment, to the people around you, to the society that surrounds you. The country you live in and the culture that you are taught becomes your own. While I am not Korean because I did not grow up there, it is still in my DNA, in my heart, and most of all, in my soul.
I try to hide it sometimes. This distant, lingering feeling of movement that is an essential part of me, but has nothing to do with what is offered by the world I live in. That makes me feel that things don’t add up. For a long time I didn’t let it surface at all because it made me feel incomplete. It’s a complicated feeling. It almost always finds a way out in whatever form, more or less. In my case, more, but not necessarily only in a negative way. What is mine already and what is mine to discover is up to me, an adventurous journey for the taking, but I find it difficult in a world that has its own definition of what is normal or successful, of cultural heritage. Or is that only in my mind? I feel like I have to discover my own culture, which would be a mix of Korean, American, African, and Dutch. For the Dutch I look too colored, for the colored I look too pale, for the Asian I look too African, and for the African too white. So I should feel free to take whatever fits best from each culture and merge them all into me. A kind of “culture-(s)hopping,” I guess. It makes me pretty damn unique.
I discovered Korean food. Eating Korean for me is on a sensory level like coming home. Meeting up with other adoptees and sharing stories makes me feels very much at ease.
There is a saying in the Netherlands: “Be normal. That’s crazy enough.” So how does that relate to me creating a unique self out of a combination of three cultures? Some people say that it seems like fun to have the privilege to make your own you. I feel it is too easy for them to say that, being the majority in their own country with roots everywhere and knowing where they come from. I never chose to be this unique. I never chose to stand out in the crowd. I never chose to grow up in a white European country as a half Korean, half African American. I never chose to leave my mother and country. I just wanted to fit in. So for now, I feel stuck between abandoning my heritage and color and being part of the white herd, or embracing all of the cultural DNA inside of me, acknowledging and embracing my color, and creating my own herd. This also means going out and finding people that could join my herd—trusting them enough to join it and to let it become our herd. Not doing everything alone anymore.
The writer Jane Trenka describes this feeling of being two people amazingly well in a letter she wrote to herself. She was born in Korea and was adopted to the U.S.
Dear Jane,
You are a brave young woman, keeping me alive. I am like a parasite; I exist only because you do. If you had not been born, I would have died.
People do not see me, although we share a heart, a face, a mind, and a body. You have the benefit of being the twin who is seen. Me—I must hide behind you.
Take care of me. Take care of this body because, you know, it is really mine. That face you see—mine. The hands you use to eat and work—those too are mine. You are living a borrowed life. Don’t forget.
—Kyong-Ah
(The Language of Blood by Jane Jeong Trenka, 121)
Tanneke Beudeker was adopted from South Korea in May 1972 and sent to the Netherlands. She is half Korean and half African American. She works as a social worker to children with special needs and is a single mother to her twelve-year-old son. Tanne recently found her biological family in the U.S., which has helped her to merge the different parts of her heritage.