They all seek their birth mothers. The park where adoptees leave tags of hope
More than 900 tags at South Korea’s Omma Poom Park form a quiet monument to years of mass child-parent separations in the country
Dozens of Korean adoptees from North America and Europe gather to leave their names on a wall at a former US military base, hoping that, after decades, a birth mother might still be looking for them.
They fasten ceramic nametags onto mesh that covers a cobblestone wall at Omma Poom Park – meaning “mother’s embrace” – in Paju, South Korea.
More than 900 tags, suspended like unsent letters, form a quiet monument to years of mass child-parent separations that have created what is likely the world’s largest diaspora of adoptees.
“There are so many tiles that hang, and yet that is merely a small fraction of us that exist,” says Nicole Rieth, who was adopted to the US state of Michigan in January 1989 when she was four months old.
“As far as connecting with my birth mother, it’s not about gleaning specific information from her or even necessarily seeking a relationship. I’ve just always wanted to know who I looked like, because I’ve never had that before.”
Each nametag, hand-painted by an artist, carries the adoptee’s name, birth year and birthplace. Colours mark the decade of adoption; most are red and sky blue, for the 1970s and 1980s, when foreign adoptions peaked. White is for adoptees who died without reunions.