好英语网“我的母亲是谁？”：一名美国韩裔被领养者的寻根之旅
SEOUL, South Korea — On Nov. 18, 1983, a little girl in a red silk coat was found crying in a parking lot of a market in Goesan, in central South Korea. The girl was clever enough to tell officials that she was 2 years old and that her name was Kang Mee-sook, according to her adoption papers.
韩国首尔——1983年11月18日，有人在韩国中部槐山郡一个市场的停车场里发现一个身穿红色丝绸外套的小女孩在大声哭泣。据领养文件记载，这个女孩足够聪明，能告诉警察她两岁，叫康美淑（Kang Mei-sook，音）。
Ten months later, the girl was flown to Michigan, one of the 7,900 children South Korea shipped out in 1984 for overseas adoption, mostly to the United States.
10个月后，这个女孩被带上飞机到了美国密歇根州。她是1984年海外领养的7900名韩国儿童之一，其中大多数领养者是美国人。
Today, that girl, renamed Kara Bos, an American citizen and mother of two, wants some answers. Armed with DNA test results, she is asking a South Korean court to rule that an 85-year-old man in Seoul is her biological father as part of her quest to meet him and ask why she was abandoned and who her mother was.
如今，这个女孩已改名为卡拉·鲍斯(Kara Bos)，她是美国公民，也是两个孩子的母亲，她想要一些问题的答案。在DNA鉴定结果的帮助下，她正在请求韩国一家法院判定首尔的一名85岁男子是自己的亲生父亲。这是她寻求与生父见面努力的一部分，她想问生父为什么将她抛弃，她的生母是谁。
1984年9月25日，鲍斯第一次与养父母和其他家庭成员见面。
Hers is the first paternity lawsuit filed in South Korea by an overseas adoptee. A ruling in the case by the Seoul Family Court, scheduled for June 12, could set an important precedent worldwide for adoptees who are taken from their home countries, especially for the thousands of Korean adoptees abroad who have recently started returning to their birth country in search of their biological parents.
此案是韩国法院受理的首例被领养到海外的人提起的亲子诉讼。首尔家庭法院预定在6月12日对此案做出裁决，这可能会为那些从出生国领养到海外的人，尤其是成千上万的韩裔被领养者提供一个重要的全球判例，他们最近开始回到出生国寻找亲生父母。
“He was and still is the only link to my mother, which was the purpose of my search,” said Ms. Bos, speaking from Amsterdam, where she has been living with her Dutch husband since 2009. “Only by filing this lawsuit could I prove he was my father and then possibly get the meeting I’d been trying to achieve for over a year.”
“他过去是，现在仍然是我与生母之间的仅有联系，这是我寻找的目的，”鲍斯自阿姆斯特丹说，自2009年起，她与荷兰籍丈夫一直住在阿姆斯特丹。“只有通过提起诉讼，我才能证明他是我的生父，然后才有可能实现我一年多来一直想做的事情：与他见面。”
South Korea had never imagined lawsuits like Ms. Bos’s when it shipped out thousands of babies and toddlers annually in the 1970s and ’80s, earning the country the dubious distinction as the world’s top “baby exporter.” Hundreds of South Korean babies are still sent abroad each year. In total, more than 167,000 South Korean babies have been sent overseas for adoption since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
在20世纪七八十年代，韩国每年将数千名婴幼儿送往海外时，从未料到会有像鲍斯提起的这种诉讼。那时，被海外领养的儿童之多，为韩国赢得了一个不太好的名声——世界最大的“婴儿出口国”。现在每年仍有数百名韩国婴儿被送往海外。自1953年朝鲜战争停战以来，总共有逾16.7万名韩国婴儿被送往海外领养。
In recent years, many of those children, now grown-ups, have returned to their birth country, including some who have been deported from the United States because their adoptive parents failed to get them American citizenship.
近年来，这些已经长大成人的孩子中，有不少已回到自己的出生国，其中包括一些被美国驱逐出境的人，因为养父母没有给他们办理成为美国公民的手续。
They campaigned for more domestic adoptions in South Korea and better protection for single mothers, many of whom face pressure to give up their babies because of deep social prejudices against out-of-wedlock children.
他们发起了争取让更多韩国儿童在本国被领养，以及让单身母亲得到更多保护的运动。由于韩国社会对非婚生儿童有根深蒂固的偏见，许多单身母亲面临放弃婴儿的压力。
But the adoptees’ search for their roots here has never been easy. It can be stymied by poorly kept or falsified adoption papers and the fear of scandal and shame that keeps biological parents from acknowledging that they once had out-of-wedlock babies who were given away for adoption.
但是，被收养者在韩国寻根从来都不是件容易的事情。阻碍他们的包括保存不完善或伪造的收养文件，以及亲生父母因为害怕丑闻和耻辱，不愿承认他们曾有过送给别人抚养的非婚生婴儿。
Local privacy laws let adoptees gain information they need to reach their biological parents, like their addresses and telephone numbers, only when the parents agree.
韩国的隐私法允许被领养者获得与亲生父母取得联系所需的信息，比如地址和电话号码，但前提是亲生父母同意。
“We have just as much right as our parents to know the truth about our past, especially as we are adults now,” Ms. Bos said.
“我们与亲生父母一样，有权了解自己的过去，尤其我们现在已经是成年人了，”鲍斯说。
The paternity lawsuit Ms. Bos filed “will be an important precedent not only for Korean adoptees abroad but also for international adoptees from other countries,” said Simone Eun Mi, a Korean adoptee who campaigns for the rights of adoptees to connect with their birth parents. “Korean adoptees are the oldest inter-country adoptees, and our accomplishments and our failures can be set as an example by adoptee communities worldwide.”
鲍斯提起的亲子诉讼“不仅对被海外收养的韩裔，而且对其他国家的跨国领养者来说，都将是一个重要的判例”，为被领养者争取与亲生父母联系权利的韩裔被领养者西蒙尼·殷·米(Simone Eun Mi)说。“韩裔被领养者在被跨国收养的人中年龄最大，我们的成功与失败能成为世界各地的被领养社群的榜样。”
Ms. Bos was adopted by Russell and Mariann Bedell in Sheridan, Mich., in 1984. It was not until she had her own daughter five years ago that she began thinking about the excruciating pain her Korean mother must have gone through in abandoning her, and realized how badly she wanted to reconnect with her mother.
密歇根州谢里丹市的拉塞尔和玛丽安·比德尔(Russell and Mariann Bedell)于1984年领养了鲍斯。直到五年前，鲍斯有了自己的女儿后，才开始思考自己的韩国生母在抛弃自己时一定经历过的痛苦，并意识到自己多么想与生母重新建立联系。
“Two years of intensively taking care of my daughter, who was a very demanding baby in every sense of the word, brought me to the realization of what kind of bond is created in this time,” she said.
“花大精力照顾我女儿（她确确实实是个难以满足的婴儿）的两年时间让我意识到，这段时间里建立起来的是什么样的纽带，”她说。
She traveled to South Korea in 2017, and visited the market where she had been abandoned in 1983, distributing leaflets in the neighborhood seeking information from anyone who might remember her. Her story has since appeared in the South Korean media, but her search went nowhere.
2017年，鲍斯去了韩国，去了她1983年被遗弃的那个市场，她在附近社区里散发传单，向可能还记得她的人寻求信息。她的故事出现在韩国媒体上，但还是毫无结果。
Then came an unexpected breakthrough.
后来，出现了一个意外的收获。
In 2016, Ms. Bos uploaded her DNA data onto MyHeritage, an online genealogy platform. In January last year, after hearing about two long-lost sisters who had found each other through MyHeritage, she checked back into her account and learned that she had a match: a 22-year-old South Korean student at Oxford University.
鲍斯曾在2016年将自己的DNA数据上传到在线家谱平台MyHeritage上。去年1月，在听说两名失散多年的姐妹通过MyHeritage找到了彼此之后，鲍斯再次登录自己的账号查看，发现找到了一个匹配者：一名在牛津大学读书的22岁的韩国学生。
When she tracked him down, he introduced Ms. Bos to one of his cousins. By then, it became apparent that the two were Ms. Bos’s nephew and niece, and that their mothers, who were in their 50s, shared the same father as Ms. Bos.
鲍斯设法与这名学生取得了联系，他介绍鲍斯与他的一个表姐妹联系。事情到了这个时候已经很明显，这两人与鲍斯是姨甥关系，两人各自的母亲都已50多岁，她们与鲍斯有同一个父亲。
Then, she hit the wall again.
然后，她再次碰壁。
The two Koreans cut communications with Ms. Bos, as their mothers, Ms. Bos’s assumed half sisters, blocked her from contacting their father, who was identified in the South Korean court only by his last name, Oh.
这两名韩国人切断了与鲍斯的联系，因为他们各自的母亲，也就是鲍斯假定的同父异母的姐姐们，不让鲍斯与她们的父亲联系。韩国法院给出的鲍斯父亲身份只有他的姓——吴(Oh)。
Ms. Bos could not get Mr. Oh’s address. When she went to the home of one of her assumed half sisters, even pleading on her knees to let her meet their father, the family called security.
鲍斯无法得到吴先生的地址。当鲍斯来到自己假定的其中一位同父异母姐姐的家，她甚至跪着恳求，让她见见她们的父亲时，对方叫来了保安。
On Nov. 18, exactly 36 years after she was abandoned, Ms. Bos filed her paternity lawsuit.
去年11月18日，也就是被遗弃整整36年后，鲍斯向法院提起了亲子诉讼。
The filing of the lawsuit allowed her to legally get Mr. Oh’s address, and in March, she rang the bell at his expensive apartment in Seoul. His wife answered the door. In rudimentary Korean, Ms. Bos told the woman why she was there. After a while, Mr. Oh stepped out.
提起诉讼让她能合法地获得吴先生的地址。今年3月，鲍斯按响了吴先生在首尔的昂贵公寓的门铃。他的妻子开了门。鲍斯用简单的韩语告诉那名女子她来这里的原因。过了一会儿，吴先生走到了门口。
“I then confronted him and asked, ‘Do you know my face?’ and asked if he knew my name, Kang Mee-sook,” she said.
“然后我质问他，‘你认得出我的脸吗？’并问他是否知道我的名字，康美淑，”鲍斯说。
The man was stoic, but “didn’t reply and just waved me away,” she said.
该男子一副坦然的样子，但“没有回答，只是挥手让我走开”，她说。
With that, the door was closed.
然后就把门关上了。
When she visited again, one of the half sisters came to the door and told her that she was trespassing and that she was not family.
当鲍斯再次来这个公寓时，她其中一个同父异母的姐姐来到门口告诉她，这是非法闯入，她跟她家没关系。
But Ms. Bos convinced the court to order Mr. Oh to take a DNA test. The result came in April: It found a 99.9981 percent probability that Mr. Oh and Ms. Bos were father and daughter.
但鲍斯说服了法院下令吴先生接受DNA亲子鉴定。结果已在今年4月出来了：鉴定表明，吴先生和鲍斯是父女的概率为99.9981%。
Mr. Oh could not be reached for comment. He did not have a lawyer, nor did his family represent itself during court hearings, including one held on Friday.
记者无法联系到吴先生置评。他没有聘请律师，也没有家人在法院开庭时代表自己，包括上周五的庭审。
If Ms. Bos wins her lawsuit next week, her assumed half sisters can no longer stop her from meeting her father. But the man still cannot be forced to meet her, said her lawyer, Yang Jeong-eun.
如果鲍斯下周胜诉的话，她假定的同父异母姐姐们就不能再阻止她与生父见面。但鲍斯的律师杨贞恩（Yang Jeong-eun，音）说，仍不能强迫吴先生与鲍斯见面。
Ms. Bos said her lawsuit would still have been worth it because it highlighted the pain and rejection Korean adoptees faced in their birth country when searching for their roots.
鲍斯说，尽管如此，她的诉讼仍值得，因为此案突显了韩裔被领养者在自己出生国寻根时所面临的痛苦和拒绝。
“Even if my father is now 85 and even because he is 85, he too should still be held accountable and provide answers to why I was abandoned and who my mother is,” she said.
“就算我父亲现在已经85岁了，正因为他已经85岁了，他仍应该对我被遗弃负责，并回答为什么要遗弃我，我的母亲是谁，”鲍斯说。
Ms. Bos has also considered the possibility that her birth mother might also want to keep their past a secret.
鲍斯也考虑过生母可能也不想让人知道过去的可能性。
“But to be honest, as I feel it’s a fundamental right for us as abandoned children to know our pasts, this too has to be done,” she said. “More and more of us are coming back for answers, and Korean society needs to change and allow this shame to be turned into reconciliation and forgiveness.”
“但说实话，我觉得了解自己的过去是我们这些被遗弃的孩子的基本权利，我们必须这么做，”她说。“我们当中越来越多的人回来寻找答案，韩国社会需要改变，需要将这种羞耻变成和解与宽恕。”