DNA檢測幫助他們在韓國尋找親生父母

SEOUL, South Korea — Five years ago, Sun Mi Stapel, a claims handler at a Dutch insurance company, began searching for her South Korean birth family.

韓國首爾——五年前，在一家荷蘭保險公司任核保員的善美·施塔珀爾(Sun Mi Stapel)開始尋找在韓國的親生父母。

Stapel first turned to the Dutch adoption agency that had placed her with her adoptive parents in Krommenie, the Netherlands, where she grew up. Then she tried Korea Social Service, which had handled the Korean side of her adoption. Last year, she finally obtained her adoption files, but they were missing vital information.

施塔珀爾首先去找了一家荷蘭領養(yǎng)中介公司，當初她就是通過這家公司被荷蘭克羅默尼的養(yǎng)父母領養(yǎng)的，她在那里長大。然后她又找到了在領養(yǎng)中負責在韓事務的韓國社會服務公司(Korea Social Service)。去年，她終于拿到了領養(yǎng)文件，但是其中丟失了一些關鍵信息。

She traveled to Seoul, appearing on a morning television show with her baby photos and asking viewers to call a hotline with any information. She registered for a national database for missing people. She distributed fliers in the neighborhood around her orphanage in Incheon, where she was born, and visited nursing homes and community centers there in hopes of finding someone who knew her parents.

她來到首爾，拿著自己幼時的照片出現(xiàn)在一個早間電視節(jié)目上，請求觀眾通過熱線電話提供有關信息。她在一個國家失蹤人口數(shù)據(jù)庫做了登記。她到了仁川，在自己當初所在的孤兒院周遭散發(fā)傳單，她就是在那里出生的，她還去了養(yǎng)老院和社區(qū)中心，以期找到認識她父母的人。

No one did.

沒有人了解情況。

So on a recent Tuesday afternoon, Stapel, 46, went to a guesthouse for adoptees in Seoul, where a volunteer rubbed the inside of her cheek with a cotton swab, dropped the swab in a tube and shipped it to a lab in Texas, where her DNA will be analyzed and uploaded to a website that scans submitted samples for genetic matches.

于是，在最近一個周二的下午，46歲的施塔珀爾來到首爾一家面向被領養(yǎng)人的招待所，一名志愿者用棉簽在她口腔內側刮了刮，把棉簽扔進一根細長的保存瓶里，然后寄到德克薩斯的一座實驗室，在那里，她的DNA經(jīng)分析后被上傳到一個網(wǎng)站，和已提交的基因進行比對。

The result could link her to her birth family and fill in some of the blanks of her personal history.

比對結果也許能幫她找到自己的親生父母，填補她的個人歷史中的某些空白。

“I want to know the simple things,” she said. “When is my real date of birth? Who is my father? Who is my mother? Do I have siblings? Do I look like somebody?”

“我想知道的東西很簡單，”她說。“我的真實生日是幾號?我父親是誰?母親是誰?我有兄弟姐妹嗎?我長得像誰?”

Many South Korean adoptees who have the same questions are turning to DNA testing to circumvent what has long been a tortuous and often fruitless process.

許多懷著同樣問題的韓國被領養(yǎng)人選擇了DNA測試，以繞過一個漫長曲折且往往徒勞無獲的過程。

For years, South Korea was the world’s leading baby exporter. Since the 1950s, it has sent about 200,000 children abroad for adoption, including about 150,000 to the United States.

韓國多年來一直是全球最大的嬰兒出口國。自上世紀50年代起，該國共有約20萬名兒童被外國領養(yǎng)，其中約有15萬名前往美國。

Every year adoptees return, looking for information about their past. But South Korean laws block them from obtaining their full birth records without their birth parents’ consent. And government adoption files are often falsified, incomplete or missing, making birth parents impossible to track down.

每年都有被領養(yǎng)者返回韓國，尋找有關自己過往的信息。但因為韓國法律的限制，在沒有獲得親生父母允許的情況下，他們無法獲得自己完整的出生記錄。而政府的領養(yǎng)文件往往有虛假成分、不完整或是丟失了，這讓他們很難找到親生父母。

From 2012-15, fewer than 15 percent of adoptees who asked to reunite with their birth parents were able to do so, according to Korean government figures.

韓國政府統(tǒng)計的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，從2012年至2015年，要求與父母團聚的被領養(yǎng)者中只有不足15%的人做到了這一點。

For many, DNA testing offers a way around the bureaucratic hurdles and flawed records.

對很多人來說，DNA檢測提供了一種繞過官僚障礙和瑕疵文件的辦法。

Stapel was one of a few dozen adoptees who took free DNA tests made available in Seoul this month during the International Korean Adoptee Associations Gathering, which meets every three years.

本月，三年一度的國際韓國被領養(yǎng)人協(xié)會大會(International Korean Adoptee Associations Gathering)舉行期間，幾十名被領養(yǎng)人接受了免費的DNA檢測。施塔珀爾就是其中之一。

Monica Toudahl Knudsen, 33, who grew up in the Jutland peninsula, in Denmark, also took the test. She has been searching for her birth family since 2012.

33歲的莫妮卡·托達爾·克努森(Monica Toudahl Knudsen)也接受了這項檢測。她在丹麥的日德蘭半島長大，自2012年開始就一直在尋找自己的生身父母。

According to her adoption file, her parents were teenage sweethearts who could not afford to raise her. On a previous trip to Seoul, she had visited the site of the midwife clinic where she was born. It now houses a cafe and fried chicken restaurant.

領養(yǎng)文件顯示，她的父母當時是一對十幾歲的情侶，無力撫養(yǎng)她。上一次去首爾時，她曾經(jīng)到訪自己出生的那個助產(chǎn)士診所所在地。如今那里是一間咖啡館和一個炸雞店。

She feels grateful for her life in Denmark, where she is a chef. If she is ever able to meet her birth parents, she said, “I just want to thank them for letting me go.”

她在丹麥做廚師，對自己現(xiàn)在的生活充滿感恩。她說，如果能見到親生父母，“我只想謝謝他們送走了我。”

The DNA testing movement has been largely financed by Thomas Park Clement, a Korean adoptee who now lives in Manhattan and in Bloomington, Indiana. A scientist who founded Mectra Labs, a medical manufacturing company, he has pledged to spend $1 million on DNA kits to give away.

這項DNA檢測活動主要是由托瑪斯·帕克·克萊門特(Thomas Park Clement)資助。他也是一名韓國被領養(yǎng)人，如今在曼哈頓和印第安納州布魯明頓兩地生活。這名科學家是醫(yī)療設備制造公司梅茨特拉實驗室(Mectra Labs)的創(chuàng)立者。他承諾支付100萬美元購買成套DNA檢測服務，用于捐贈。

“I have throughout the years experienced so many of my fellow Korean adoptees’ frustrations with birth relative searches,” he said in a recent interview. “DNA is shortcutting the search process and bringing all parties in direct communication with each other.”

“這些年來，我目睹那么多同為韓國被領養(yǎng)者的人在尋找親生父母方面遭遇挫折，”他在最近接受采訪時說。“DNA提供了一條捷徑，可以縮短尋找的過程，讓各方進行直接的交流。”

He has donated 2,550 kits to Korean adoptees and Korean War veterans in the United States. Some of the veterans are the fathers of the first wave of South Korea’s international adoptees. He has also given 450 test kits to 325Kamra, a volunteer organization started last year, to distribute in South Korea.

他捐獻了2550套DNA檢測服務給韓國被領養(yǎng)人和美國的朝鮮戰(zhàn)爭退伍軍人。這些退伍軍人中，有一些是第一波被跨國領養(yǎng)的韓國人的生身父親。他還捐贈了450套檢測服務給去年成立的志愿者組織325卡姆拉(325Kamra)，讓它針對韓國進行分配。

When testing works, it is remarkably efficient.

DNA檢測起效的時候，效率是非常驚人的。

This month, 325Kamra announced its first match between a Korean birth mother and an American adoptee. Within 48 hours, the adoptee, Kyung Eun Davidson, 33, of Everett, Washington, was speaking to her mother for the first time in 30 years.

本月，325卡姆拉宣布了該機構配對成功的第一對——一名韓國生身母親和一位身在美國的被領養(yǎng)人。不到48小時，生活在華盛頓州埃弗雷特的被領養(yǎng)人、33歲的京銀·戴維森(Kyung Eun Davidson)便和她的母親說上了話，這是30年來的頭一遭。

“It’s been an amazing, crazy and wonderful experience,” Davidson told The Korea Herald.

“那是一種讓人驚奇、有些瘋狂同時也很棒的體驗，”戴維森對《韓國先驅報》(The Korea Herald)講道。

Adoptees are not the only ones placing their hopes in DNA tests.

被領養(yǎng)者并不是唯一將希望寄托在DNA檢測上的人。

Last month, Song Chang-sook, 89, traveled 200 miles from Pusan with his caregiver to take a DNA test in Seoul. Having heard about the testing on a morning television program, he was searching for the three sons he relinquished for adoption more than 40 years ago.

上個月，89歲的宋章肅(Song Chang-sook，音)與他的護理員跋涉200英里，從釜山來到首爾接受DNA檢測。他在一檔早間電視節(jié)目中聽說了這個檢測項目，之前他一直在尋找自己在40多年前送養(yǎng)的三個兒子。

When his wife died of typhoid fever in 1970, his mother-in-law decided that the children should be given up for adoption rather than raised by a single father. He gave up his three sons: Won Ho, born in 1965; Won Young, born in 1967; and Won Hee, born in 1968.

在他的妻子于1970年死于傷寒時，他的岳母堅持認為，三個孩子應該被送出去，而不是由一個單身父親撫養(yǎng)。他放棄了自己的三個兒子：生于1965年的元鎬(Won Ho，音)、1967年的元融(Won Young，音)和1968年的元熙(Won Hee，音)。

Five years later, he returned to the adoption agency, Holt International, asking for their whereabouts. He inquired many more times after that. At one point, someone told him that his sons were living together in France. But Holt was prohibited from disclosing personal information about the three boys. The 2012 adoption law that gives adoptees the right to petition for their birth records offers no such benefit to the parents.

五年后，他返回領養(yǎng)機構霍爾特國際(Holt International)，詢問他們的下落。此后，他又問過很多次。曾經(jīng)有人告訴他，三個兒子一起生活在法國。但霍爾特被禁止泄露三個男孩的個人信息。2012年的領養(yǎng)法允許被領養(yǎng)者申請獲得自己的出生記錄，但沒有賦予送養(yǎng)的父母同樣的權利。

Song thinks about the last time he saw his children, on Nov. 3, 1971. The year before, his oldest son, Won Ho, had been hospitalized for a month with a broken shoulder from a car accident.

宋章肅時常想到自己最后一次見到孩子們的時候，那是1971年11月3日。之前的一年，他的大兒子元鎬曾因在車禍中肩部骨折而住了一個月的院。