Korean adoptee on journey to find birth parents By Jung Min-ho

Zum-lye Incontrera and her daughter Gea Di Lorenzo in Seoul last week / Korea Times photo by Jung Min-ho

Zum-lye Incontrera was two years old when she was adopted from Korea to Italy. More than 40 years later, she has returned to the land of her birth for the first time.

“I felt it was time to find the missing part of myself,” Incontrera, now 45, said in an interview in Seoul last week. “For my whole life I tried to ignore it and convince myself that it wasn’t important. But the question about my roots kept coming back to me.”

“I felt that I needed to find my birth parents, or at least try it, to make a break from the past and move forward.”

She was found abandoned at Busan Station on Aug. 18, 1974. A piece of paper placed next to her said she was born on Oct. 28, 1972, and her name was Kim Zum-lye. Later, she was moved to a center for abandoned children at Boseong in South Jeolla Province. For a while, she was cared for by a foster family before being put up for adoption.

She was eventually adopted by an Italian couple in Trieste and raised with love. She said she was fortunate to have them as new parents and lived a “wonderful life” there.

“But from time to time I felt incomplete, without knowing where I came from,” Incontrera said. “I knew I was Korean. The scars ― one on my right forearm and the other on my right foot ― and my name kept reminding me of the past that I could not remember.”

She said she has no memory of her life in Korea.

“But when I tasted kimchi for the first time in Italy at 14, I strongly felt that it wasn’t the first kimchi I had tasted,” Incontrera said. “I don’t know where I had it from. It could be the center or the foster family’s house, but I’m sure I knew the taste.”

She decided to come to Korea only recently, though she thought about it for her whole life. Her adopted father Carlo De Incontrera, a famous Italian musician, and her two daughters ― Gea Di Lorenzo, 23, and Maya, 21 ― supported her and encouraged her to find her biological parents.

During their two-week stay here, Incontrera and her first daughter will visit Busan, Boseong and some other areas. They hope the trip will help her recall her early childhood.

“I have no resentment toward my birth parents,” she said. “If I ever get a chance to talk to them, I’d like to say ‘thank you.’ Thank you for giving me a life.”

Source:.koreatimes.co.kr