Informing Associated Press (AP) reporter Tong-hyung Kim of my KSS K-Number research in Seoul, S. Korea in June 2021.
Filmed independently (and NOT by the press) by Sun Hee Engelstoft, whose unbelievably moving film “Forget Me Not” she had released in Korea just days before she began to film my story.
Sun Hee Engelstoft generously gifted this footage — as well as footage of my 2021 meeting at KSS — to me after we completed filming in 2021. Some of the footage of my 2021 meeting at KSS was used in the 2022 SBS documentary about my case.
(The very basic editing of the video linked above is my own).
My eternal thanks to Sun Hee for being a world class friend and filmmaker.
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I first met with Associated Press (AP) reporter Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea, in June 2021. I had initially contacted him in January 2021 to ask him to write a story about systemic switching, to which he readily agreed.
For some additional context for the video:
In 2018, I had visited KSS in Seoul for the first time, after which I realized that I was switched and did not have my real adoption file. I returned to KSS in 2019, and in the process of searching for my real file in KSS’ file room, accidentally found what I would not realize for a year was my likely deceased twin sister’s switch file. For over a year, until September 11th, 2020, I believed that “Baby A” — the girl whose photo was in what turned out to be my likely twin sister’s switch file — was me. When I first was informed by a Dysmorphologist — who had forensically compared the photo of “Baby A” (which I had found at KSS) to a baby photo of the real me — on September 11th, 2020 that “Baby A” was NOT me, I realized for the first time that I might have had a twin sister. However, I did not have hard proof that “Baby A” was my twin, apart from my uncanny resemblance to the photo of “Baby A” — which is coincidentally when I first came to learn about two hypotheses involving KSS K-Numbers from a fellow KSS Adoptee, who prefers to remain anonymous. One of these hypotheses concerning K-Numbers related to siblings (I proved this hypothesis to be FALSE) but the other hypothesis related to first digit encoding in KSS K-Numbers, which I proved to be TRUE. I was trapped in the U.S. during COVID at this time, but desperate to return to KSS in Seoul to find out the truth about my and my likely twin sister’s REAL identities. During this time when I was trapped in the U.S. and unable to return to Korea, I asked every KSS Adoptee I knew for their K-Number data — all in a desperate effort to try to find more evidence that I might have been a twin. While I DISPROVED through my intensive KSS K-Number research between 2020-2021 that a K-Number had 4 or 5 digits had ANY meaning with respect to one having had an orphan sibling at KSS, I PROVED that KSS K-Numbers were encoded in the first digit for the Partner Western Adoption Agencies of KSS, and also decoded these KSS K-Numbers in full. In addition, I knew by 2021 that KSS K-Numbers REPEATED in the 1970s, and that KSS was assigning encoded K-Numbers to children at the ORPHANAGE level — at least at Nam Kwang Orphanage in Busan.
(Please note that I had the KSS Adoptee’s community’s blessing in going to the press and to the TRC with my KSS K-Number research. I have never shared the data that I have collected publicly without significant redactions, since I have never wanted to compromise anyone’s privacy).
In June 2021, I visited KSS along with several others whom I had invited, including AP’s Tong-hyung Kim. Since I knew my likely twin Baby A’s K-Number, I wanted to try to find MY real K-Number through hers. It was this meeting of mine at KSS which Tong-hyung would later acknowledge, in the 2024 AP article about the award he won for writing about my story, as having “birthed (his) years-long obsession with reporting on adoption fraud out of Korea.”
This meeting at KSS was also filmed, and would have made incredible evidence for TRC 2, had I not been pushed out of the movement so that others could be the only “activists” in the media, and attempt to take FALSE credit for my work.
Unfortunately, my original research would prove FAR too tempting for a supposed Korean Adoptee “Rights” Group and a NON-Adoptee DoKAD (then) supporter of theirs, who tried — and whose affiliates continue to try — to claim FALSE credit for my research into KSS K-Numbers.
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Meanwhile, long BEFORE plagiarists attempted to take FALSE credit for my work on January 1st, 2023, I had already been filmed by my friend in June 2021 in Seoul, talking with Associated Press (AP) reporter Tong-hyung Kim, who would much later in 2024 credit me for my work in an article he finally wrote about my case.
My four years of correspondence with Tong-hyung would ultimately result in the 2024 FRONTLINE/AP articles, interactive, and documentary, South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning. While Tong-hyung wrote a significant story about my case, and my case was featured in an important interactive, my story was ultimately cut from the documentary, in which I received ZERO credit — despite Director Lora Moftah privately informing me that FRONTLINE was “amazed” at my investigation and that my “handprints were all over the documentary.”
(Please note that I had little interest in Holt — that was the journalists’ decision and not mine to focus so heavily on this adoption agency. My interest has always been in my Korean Adoption Agency, KSS).
In February 2022 — months AFTER this filmed meeting with Tong-hyung, which makes it crystal clear that I had decoded KSS’s K-Numbers by the time of this meeting in June 2021 — I unfortunately shared my KSS K-Number research with a NON-Adoptee DoKAD (who is the son of two KSS Adoptees). This DoKAD was later given FALSE credit for my work by DKRG on January 1, 2023. DKRG subsequently pushed me out of the TRC 2 movement in order to be the only Korean Adoptee activists in the press. It took this DoKAD over one year to finally confess that he had NO role in decoding KSS K-Numbers. Egregiously, after being given false credit for my work, this barely out-of-college DoKAD informed me that I had NO evidence for decoding KSS K-Numbers. Well, here is the evidence — which has always existed since 2021 — before I even unfortunately met this DoKAD, and told him about my work in what was meant to be confidence. This is in addition to all of the OTHER evidence which this DoKAD has known about for years. Most people cannot imagine the unbelievable amount of time, energy, and money I have had to waste defending my OWN research, which was based on my very personal investigation of my and my twin’s separate switch cases.
I really have NOT needed this on top of trying to figure out my own and my deceased twin sister’s separate switch cases for nearly a decade.
Tragically and egregiously this desire for false credit for my work by others has resulted in the likely PERMANENT LOSS of KSS’ Death Books, which are records of children who died at KSS — almost certainly including my twin sister. I saw these records at KSS in 2019. However, no one knows where they are now, because the ONE KSS Adoptee who knew about them — ME — was pushed out of the TRC movement so that others could be the only “activists” in the press, and could attempt to take false credit for my work. Consequently I may NEVER know what happened to my presumed deceased twin sister. And hundreds or thousands of other switched Adoptees may never know what happened to the “Child A’s” in their respective switch cases — all “thanks” to the plagiaristic tendencies of those who falsely purport to be defenders of Korean Adoptee “Rights” and “records preservation”. It’s hard to PRESERVE RECORDS when supposed “activists” are so busy making sure through their plagiarism attempts that IRREPLACEABLE RECORDS are PERMANENTLY LOST.
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Due to continued attempts to plagiarize my original KSS K-Number research, which I conducted as a major part of my investigation into my deceased twin sister's switch case, I have decided to finally make a portion of the footage filmed in Korea in 2021 publicly available.