Workshops

Friday, August 7th              

Presenters: Dennis Yoon (KR/NL), Jinseok Park (KO) & Rutger van Ommen (NL)
Moderators: Liselotte Hae-Jin Birkmose (DK) & Mark van Harlingen (NL)
Location: Conference Room 2
Audience: All Attendees

The interest among adoptees to work in Korea is increasing. However, not many foreigners are familiar with the Korean Business Culture. This is why we are pleased to host the first IKAA Business Seminar in collaboration with the Korea Trade Center, Amsterdam and Contact Korea. We hope the Seminar will give the attendees a better understanding of how to do business in Korea and encourage adoptees to use their current education and job experiences to apply for positions in Korea.

Program:
Introduction to Contact Korea by Mr. Park Jinseok (Contact Korea)
Doing Business in Korea by Mr. Rutger van Ommen (Kotra Amsterdam Office)
Business Culture in Korea - Dos and Dons by Mr. Dennis Yoon (Contact Korea/Kotra)
Work Experience in Korea and Cultural Differences by Mr. Dennis Yoon
Q&A

The online job interviews will take place from 12:00-13:00 (Conference Room 3)
Read more here.
Please note that applications have to be submitted to Contact Korea before July 31st.

Presenters: Tobias Hübinette (SE) & Jennifer Kwon Dobbs
Location: Conference Room 1
Audience: All Attendees

This presentation will introduce a study based on interviews with 20 adult adoptees of colour in Sweden regarding their experiences of racialisation, ethnic identifications and relations to their non-white bodies. The interviews indicate that the non-white bodies of the adoptees are constantly made significant in their everyday lives, and the study argues that the experiences of adoptees of colour can be used to understand the contemporary racial formations in Sweden and Europe. This presentation will particularly benefit transnational and transracial adoptees in Europe for them to be able to understand the specific European context of colour blindness, colonial melancholia and racial discrimination. The second presentation is with  focus on race and Korean adoptee searches through film and art. I argue that searching imagines routes through internalized racial landscapes in order to imagine present selves. As this, searching follows many trajectories (not just re-Koreanization or reunion with birth parents) that have yet to be discussed as key to adoptee critical agency.

Make Up Artist: Karin Voorman
Location: Conference Room 1
Audience: Adoptees

Karin Verwaaijen will lead the workshop for all Korean women in the world of skincare and cosmetic. She is especially interested in Asians as she has, for many years, considered adoption from Asia, which is no longer relevant due to her and her partners age.
Karin is a consultant for the Swedish cosmetic house Oriflame since 2006, an international beauty company in 61 countries.
Oriflame has a pro-active animal welfare policy and only “animal friendly” ingredients are used in their cosmetic. The products are not tested on animals and basic of all products stems from plants and organic materials.
Read more at: www.oriflame.com.

Moderators: Charlotte Yong San Gullach (DK)
Location: Conference Room 1
Audience: All Attendees

Screening of the first cut of Jette Hye Jin Mortensens film Adopnation. Including discussion afterwards facilitated by Charlotte Yong San Gullach.

Jette Hye Jin Mortensen currently lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. She has a Master of Fine Arts Candidate, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and is co-founder and member of the Swedish/Danish artgroup ”UFOlab”. Member of YNKB, activistic and educational art forum, tv, festivals, events. Initiator of ”New Songbooks” in collaboration with danish writers and composers. Trained in classical and modern piano and singing. Have worked professionally as a singer and backing singer in many contexts. Is currently directing the feature documentary "Adopnation", supported by The Danish Filminstitute, DOX Connected.

Charlotte Yong San Gullach is the Vice President of Korea Klubben Denmark. With more than 10 years of experience within adoption NGO work, she today is among other responsible for Korea Klubben's lecture team, press work and parental group. She is also the IKAA representative for Korea Klubben Denmark.

Presenter: Kimberly McKee (US)
Location: Conference Room 3

Although much has been written about intercountry adoption, this presentation intends to provide an in-depth account of the endogenous variables that continue to fuel Korea’s engagement in intercountry adoption. The presentation will provide attendees a more nuanced understanding as to why Korea continues its involvement in intercountry adoption. I intend to dispel misconceptions and reductive notions of why intercountry adoption continued for over fifty years.

Kimberly McKee currently works at the Third Wave Foundation in New York City. This fall she will begin her doctoral degree in American Studies at King’s College London. She received her MSC Gender and Social Policy degree from the London School of Economics and a BA International Affairs, Asian Studies from the George Washington University. She previously worked at The Fawcett Society, International Center for Research on Women, and the National Women’s Alliance. Her writings have been seen on Black Information Link and in the anthology Yell-OH Girls! Her interests include locating the position of transracial Asian adoptees in Asian American discourse, and she presented this work at the CUNY Conference of Asian American Women in May 2008.

Presenter: Thomas Tae-Yang Jørgensen (DK)
Location: Conference Room 1
Audience: Male Adoptees Only

Motivation: Some male adoptees have seemingly faced greater challenges on the dating scene than their caucasian male friends. Apparantly this could be because of their Asian looks or because they do not possess the same amount of confidence or calm as their caucasian friends. No matter if the challenges come from the outside or from within it is an interesting topic to discuss and learn more about.

This workshop consists of two phases. In phase one, we will discuss the different challenges male adoptees face on the dating scene. This does not necessarily have to be challenges that are exclusive to male adoptees, but some of the challenges could be exclusive to male adoptees. In phase two we will discuss how we can overcome these challenges, if some of the challenges are beyond our control and which internal and external actions we can take to change our situations. This workshop will not teach pickup lines or quick fixes on how to get a date, but will focus mostly on how, who we are and who we think we are, affect our dating lives.

Aim: We will not strive to reach a common conclusion to the topics we discuss, but the aim of the workshop is to share and educate each other so we might all become a little bit wiser about ourselves and our dating lives. We hope we can inspire each other to make some positive changes in our lives if we see the need to do so.

Restrictions: We invite all male adoptees interested in this topic to participate with an open mind and positive attitude. Anything that is said during the workshop will be kept between the workshop participants. We also invite male adoptees that have never felt they had a problem with dating to participate in order to share their positive experiences.