#11 Interview with Stephanie Boss

Guest: Stephanie Boss
Interviewer: Chris
Recording Date: March 11, 2008
Length: 53 minutes

Stephanie Boss is a 28 year-old half-Korean/half-German from Frankfurt, Germany. Her parents met in Berlin as her mother was working as one of the hundreds of Gastarbeiter (guest worker) nurses who came to Germany during a nursing shortage in the 1970’s. Stephanie grew up in Bad Homburg, a small town outside of Frankfurt, one of few not fully white Germans. In this interview Stephanie discusses the difficulties of learning Korean, dating and socializing in Seoul’s international community, and teaching both German and English at public and private institutions.

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#10 Interview with Daniel Eysseric

Guest: Daniel Eysseric
Interviewer: Nari
Recording Date: January 16, 2008
Length: 59 minutes

During this episode, Daniel Eysseric, a 34-year-old Korean French adoptee, speaks openly about his opinions on Korean society and the place of Korean adoptees. From his rare position of working in a Korean company, he shares his thoughts on how Korea could positively utilize adoptees more effectively for the purpose of boosting their economic endeavors. Daniel also speaks candidly about his relationship with his Korean step-son, his Korean in-laws, and his ultimate decision to end contact with his birth family after their initial reunion.

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#9 Interview with Soe Ja Kim Hoogendam

Guest: Soe Ja Kim Hoogendam
Interviewer: Nari
Recording Date: January 21, 2008
Length: 52 minutes

Soe Ja Kim Hoogendam was adopted to the Netherlands when she was 3 months old. After graduating in Medieval Studies, she came to Korea on a Korea Foundation scholarship for 2005-2006. During that time, she studied at Yonsei University, found her birth family and a Korean fiance. After returning to the Netherlands for half a year, she arrived in Korea again in June 2007. In this interview, Soe Ja shares her experiences living with her fiance and his family. She provides a unique perspective as an adoptee who has found herself fully immersed in Korean daily life and speaks eloquently about having to let go of control of her own wedding, while struggling to keep parts of her identity intact.

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#8 Interview with Niki Perkins

Guest: Niki Perkins
Interviewer: Nari
Recording Date: January 12, 2008
Length: 55 minutes

Niki Perkins is a Korean American adoptee who now lives in Gwangju. Despite her plans to return to the States in the spring and her strong connections to people from her home in Nashville, Tennessee, Niki has plans to earn a Masters Degree and eventually come back to live in Korea again in the future. In this episode, Niki thoughtfully processes her choices in friends, her relationships with Korean people, and her place as a foreigner-but-not in Korean society.

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#7 Interview with Bill Packard

Guest: Bill Packard
Interviewer: Chris
Recording Date: January 10, 2008
Length: 55 minutes

Bill Packard is a half-Korean American from Toledo, Ohio. Bill came to Korea after college and some work experience in America and first moved to Suncheon where he spent about two years teaching English. After a quick move back to America to see if things worked there, he moved back to Korea, this time to Seoul, where he’s roughly been for the past three years working in the publishing industry. In this interview Bill discusses growing up slightly ethnically isolated yet well-integrated, as well as the surprising normalcy of growing up with two parents of different ethnicities before his move to Korea.

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#6 Interview with Thomas DeBenedittis

Guest: Thomas DeBenedittis
Interviewer: Nari
Recording Date: January 8, 2008
Length: 59 minutes

Thomas DeBenedittis has been living in Korea since April 2006. He lived in Gwangju for over one year and recently moved to Seoul. In this episode, Thomas fearlessly discusses intense issues surrounding international adoption, including his feelings on attachment disorder in adoptees, learning to trust after being abandoned, and the role that violence has played in his decision not to go on Korean television in order to find his birth family.

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#5 Interview with Kelli Donigan

Guest: Kelli Donigan
Interviewer: Nari
Recording Date: December 14, 2007
Length: 60 minutes

Kelli Donigan is 33 years old and was adopted to Michigan at the age of 6 months. In this episode she opens up about her experiences growing up in an all-white community, coming back to Korea in her 20’s, and her subsequent work for returning adoptees. Kelli contributes a unique perspective as she has lived in Korea for over 10 years. Listen for her detailed description of Korea’s transition from “beepies” to “handphones.” Above, she is pictured between two Korean friends.

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#4 Interview with Joo Kim

Guest: Joo Kim
Interviewer: Chris
Recording Date: December 11, 2007
Length: 52 minutes

Joo Kim is a 24 year-old Korean American from Palisades Park, New Jersey. Although he’d only been living in Korea for 7 months at the time of the interview, we thought it would be interesting to hear from someone of his perspective: Joo is the first male, first fluent Korean-speaker and first member of the US Army to be interviewed by Canaries in the Motherland. In this interview we discuss his family’s move to America, initially to a white suburb and eventually to a high-density Korean neighborhood, obtaining US citizenship at the age of 21, and almost haphazardly entering the US military to come to Korea.

Oh yeah, Joo and Chris also went to college together. Above, Joo is pictured with a muskrat on his head.

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#3 Interview with Jessica Conte

Guest: Jessica Conte
Interviewer: Chris
Recording Date: November 15, 2007
Length: 52 minutes

Jessica Conte is a half-Korean, half-Italian American mostly from Seattle, Washington, although she also grew up partly on Yongsan Garrison, a military base in central Seoul, and in Alabama. In this interview we discuss Jessica’s experiences growing up in an eclectic mix of American enclaves, her time studying abroad in Mexico learning Spanish and her move to Korea with her younger brother. Jessica sheds some light on her experiences being interpreted ethnically in three countries, learning Korean without going to school, the support she’s received from Korean friends, and Koreans’ reactions to her ethnicity, her teaching and her tattoos. At the time of the interview, Jessica had been living in Korea for a little over a year.

Above, Jessica is pictured with her brother, Matt … in what appears to be an alley … in Insa-dong.

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Be forewarned: during a few minutes of part three of the interview the sound system in the cafe was going crazy. Either the speakers were broken or the CD was skipping, but the coming and going and popping of the background noise is pretty annoying.

#2 Interview with Corina

Guest: Corina
Interviewer: Chris
Recording Date: November 14, 2007
Length: 56 minutes

Corina is a Korean adoptee from a small village of about 500 in southern Germany. Corina moved to Korea with the intention of staying for a few years, but that sojourn slowly became a 10-year stay. In this interview she shares with us some of her experiences growing up in what is technically categorized as a “village” in Germany — where she was the only non-ethnic German — the culture shock of moving to Korea with no knowledge of Korean and only limited English, as well as her experiences living and working in Korea as a German with an “Asian face.” Above is a still shot from a short video of Corina dancing at her token salsa club in Hongdae, where she also teaches dancing lessons (click to watch video).

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