In 2016, Maree Kinder, now 33, originally named Chang Ma Ree, quit her job in London and moved with her husband, Steve, to Seoul, to live for six months to search for her Korean mother. But disappointment and grief with her search had her turning to Korean beauty products as a way to numb the pain and connect to Korean culture. Now, her business, Beauty and Seoul, a Korean skincare retailer based in the UK, is celebrating its fourth year of success. Kinder shares her insights on Korea, her identity and what else she's learned along the way.
Jessye Hale, 23, was adopted from Korea as a child and grew up in Wisconsin. Today, she finds herself back in her native country working as a cancer researcher. She also found her biological parents and has been learning how to navigate these new relationships.
Allie De Lacy, 25, was adopted from China to the UK at the age of two. Now married to a woman and living in Edinburgh, DeLacy talks about her experiences growing up in near racial isolation and the racism she has experienced and still does today, even more so in the past year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Listen as De Lacy shares how by researching her past, she discovered she knew even less than she had thought.
Robert (Calabretta) Lee, 35, was adopted from South Korea to an abusive home in the U.S. He survived a difficult childhood, first in Michigan and later in central New York, by moving out at age 16 and found hope from key friendships along the way and exposure to a nearby Korean church community in Ithaca, NY. His story takes some surprising turns, including at one point being told by Holt Korea his file contained nothing to reuniting with his family and discovering the shocking revelation that he had been trafficked.