“Mother Alive!!!”
Vernon Newman said he almost fell on the floor when he opened an e-mail and saw this message.
A schoolteacher turned computer programmer, the 49-year-old Exe-ter Township resident said he had been told about a year ago that his mother probably was dead.
Happily adopted by an American family more than 40 years ago, Newman said he started thinking a few years ago about his village in South Korea and the mother who gave him up for adoption so he could have a better life in America.
Newman said he first became homesick in 1999 during a sermon about adoption at his church, the Reading-Kenhorst Boulevard Sev-enth-day Adventist Church.
“It sort of stirred something inside me,” Newman said. “I started to wonder about my mother.
“The feeling grew and eventually I began to feel I had to get back and at least touch the soil that had given me birth.”
Newman said he discussed his longings with his American family, and they agreed he should go back to South Korea.
So, in September 2000, Newman flew to South Korea to search for his mother and the village where he was born.
Despite the help of a South Korean friend he had met on the Inter-net, Kim Kyung Sook, Newman could not find his village or any sign of his mother.
He did, however, learn his birth name was Yun Yun Bong.
Over the years, he said, he had forgotten his native language, his for-mer address and even his mother’s name.
The search continued, and on Dec. 22 he was told his mother was alive and she had never moved, hoping her son would someday find his way home.
“She thinks one day you will hunt for her,” Sook wrote in broken English.
“That’s why she never moved (from) that house,” Sook wrote. “She has been living (in) that house since you left Korea.”
The voice of Yun Yun Bong’s teacher droned as the 8-year-old’s mind drifted through an open classroom window into the sunny countryside.
From his desk he could see the mountain that guarded and fed water to the rice patties of his village, Kosan-ri, on the outskirts of Uijongbu, South Korea.
In his daydream, America lay somewhere beyond the mountain — a gentle breeze away.
The recurring dream — a wish really — abruptly ended when some-one rapped on the schoolhouse window.
“Hey, do you want to go to America?" asked his friend, Oh Dae Il, try-ing frantically to get his attention.
Ohdale, as Yun Bong calls him, was 11 and determined to go to Amer-ica.
Sons of American GIs and South Korean mothers, the two boys were among a growing number of Amerasian children in postwar Korea who were neglected, abused and even murdered in Uijongbu.
“We both had always considered America our real home,” Yun Bong said.
Yun Bong stood up and immediately attracted his teacher’s attention.
“What is it, Yun Bong?” the teacher asked.
“I am going to America,” Yun Bong replied.
The teacher called Yun Bong to the front of the room and told the children in the class to congratulate him and wish him well on his trip.
There was no further inquiry by school officials, Yun Bong said.
Yun Bong, who had been staying with friends because his mother of-ten had to go out of town to find work, said he grabbed the few belong-ings he had.
“I left with Ohdale and we went on the bus to the orphanage in Seoul to be adopted by Americans,” Yun Bong recalled.
Newman said he first began looking for his mother by searching for his village on the Internet. He said he had no solid clues.
“My mother had come to see me at the orphanage to make sure I was OK, and the day before I left for America she gave me a picture of her and put her name and address on the back of it,” Newman said.
However, before the boys were loaded on the plane to America they were given new clothing and their first pair of leather shoes.
“I had slipped her picture into the pocket of my old overalls, and it was gone,” Newman said. “Eventually I forgot her name, my address, everything.”
While searching the Internet, Newman said he met Sook, who offered to help.
When Newman went to South Korea in 2000, she was his guide, but they failed to find the village or his mother.
“I remembered the mountain and the farms all around,” Newman said. “The mountain appeared larger to me, but the fields were all gone. The whole area was developed.”
Unable to find any landmarks, Newman said his only victory came on his last day in South Korea when he found his name and his mother’s name — Yun Soon Ja — on records at the orphanage.
“I thought, at least I found her name,” Newman said.
After Newman left South Korea, Sook continued searching the vil-lages around Uijongbu and eventually contacted an old friend who worked in a municipal office.
They located a village and a woman they thought could be Newman’s mother. They visited the woman and learned she was his mother.
Sook immediately rushed home and e-mailed Newman.
Newman said he continued to correspond with Sook, learning more about his mother and his village.
Sook eventually took her cellular phone to Soon Ja’s house, and the mother and son spoke to each other for the first time in more than 40 years.
“My mother was doing a lot of crying,” Newman recalled.
He said they discussed plans for him to visit his mother by himself at first, then make a return trip with his family.
“I told my mother that I loved her very much and that I missed her,” Newman said.
“She told me that she is 69, and that my birthday is on Jan. 24,” New-man said. “She said her name is Yun Soon Ja.
“And in our village she is known as Yun Bong’s mother.”
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