This is my sona's (Soo-Min) thoughts:(He typed it himself!)

I like Korean school because I learned how to play a Korean games and cooked Korean food.

I met Juhee (Korean history teacher at Korean Heritage School for Adoptees) in November 2004 at the Friendship Luncheon, which was held at Kum Gang Sang Restaurant in Flushing, Queens. She & Dr. Lee were sent by angels!

Since Soo-Min joined our family at 6 months, my husband & older son Brandon made sure to always include the Korean culture into our family. We attended Korean festivals at local parks and learned how to cook Korean foods. As our son got older, I wanted very much for us to learn Korean. I found a Korean church in Garden City Long Island. Pastor Ong was extremely kind and welcomed us into the Korean family. Faithfully, every Sunday we attended Korean classes at the church. Soo-Min cried and was very, very sad. A young college student offered to sit with our son and interpreted Korean into English for him. You see, only Korean was spoken at this school. Soo-Min felt very different. We asked our Korean neighbors if any Korean schools for adoptees were available. We asked the adoption agency. Sadly, none were available to cater to non-Korean speakers. I signed up at Queensboro Community College for Introduction to Korean. I was soooo happy. I thought, finally, we are on our way to learning Korean. Sadly, that class was cancelled. I was the only student to sign up. So, I prayed & ed and Juhee & Dr Lee came into our lives. You cannot imagine how happy we are. Soo-Min tells me: " I fit with the other children. They look like me & don't even speak Korean"

This is a wonderful start for our young son. You see, it is very important for me that my Korean son learns Korean just as our birth son learns Chinese on Sundays.

As for me, I enjoy learning to speak & the Korean history.

This is just the stepping-stone for Soo-Min. When he is older, he will appreciate all the efforts of Dr Lee and our Korean School family. We look forward to the fall term.

As the mother of an eight-year old daughter and a five-year old son adopted from Korea, studying Korean had always been near the top of that vague, ambitious To Do List we all carry around--it sounded like a great idea, but I never quite managed to work out the details. Perhaps I could take a course at night, and the kids could take an afternoon class...but where? Wasn't Kenny too young to be taking a formal language class? Should we hire a young Korean American as a private tutor? We gave the most serious consideration to enrolling the kids in Saturday Korean school in the East Village, but worried that our kids might be the only adoptees, and therefore the only ones who didn't already hear and speak Korean at home, setting them apart from the others...

One day, browsing casually through the AKA (Also Known As) website, I suddenly noticed a brief but intriguing description of KOHSA, offering "Saturday school for adoptive families." Had I finally stumbled upon what we'd been looking for? I left a message for Dr. Lee, Dr. Kim called me back, and by early February of 2006 my children and I were enrolled. It has been an amazing experience--in fact, I had stumbled upon exactly what we'd been looking for.

On Saturdays from 10:00 until 1:00, Maddie and Kenny attend class in one room with five or six other kids, while I attend class in the room next door, with two or three other parents. While the kids practice reading and writing hangul and learn Korean songs and vocabulary (in what sounds to us parents like a spirited, cheerful style) we parents enjoy our own two-hour language class, followed by an hour-long lecture on Korean history and culture.

In all honesty, while I was very eager to have Maddie and Kenny begin taking classes, I was dreading the undertaking myself. I mean, a two hour language class on Saturday morning? And in Korean? I braced myself for the worst, planning to use massive coffee dosing to keep myself awake and alert, and hoping that once Maddie and Kenny were settled in, I could politely bow out without anyone really noticing...

To my great surprise and delight, I find that I love taking this class. Dr. Kim is an expert teacher--her twenty-plus years of experience in the field are obvious. Her class is fast-paced, lively, and often humorous, and I find myself thoroughly absorbed and engrossed for the entire two hours. No doubt, tackling a new language at the age of 45 is ambitious, but it is also deeply satisfying. I haven't worked or puzzled or thought this hard in a long time, and I am convinced the effort will go a long way toward preserving my brain elasticity. Because I began the class two semesters after the other parents, Dr. Kim generously offered to meet with me for two two-hour private sessions. This was extremely helpful, and is a testament to Dr. Kim's dedication and kindness. I also must add that the hour-long lecture on history and culture given each week by a young Korean American man named Kim Chee Yung is very interesting and informative. Chee Yung also talks about contemporary issues--we've discussed recent Korean movies, the Korean pop star Rain (Bi), and Korean sports, and Chee Yung's perspective and insights are fascinating.

But what I love most about our experience at KOHSA is the effect it has had on our kids. From the moment Maddie and Kenny walked into that classroom, they seemed to feel an immediate sense of ease, of belonging, of pride. We have made every effort to attend all the Korean cultural events in the city, to eat Korean food, to forge friendships with Korean Americans. But it is the experience of attending KOHSA that seems to have afforded Maddie and Kenny the ability to claim, for the first time, their identity as Korean American adoptees. Seeing their own experience mirrored in the faces of the other kids, and being encouraged to celebrate that unique identity, makes sense to them. They feel comfortable, excited, and proud. There are no intrusive questions to answer, no feeling of Otherness. They belong. For our family, this experience has been invaluable.

Would it be as wonderful an experience for our kids if I weren't also taking the class? Probably. But this is an opportunity I wouldn't want to miss. When our family visits Korea in the future, I'd love to be able to actually communicate with people--I know good Korean is not likely for me, (unless of course I quit my job and become a full-time student) but I would be thrilled to even be able to get by. And we hope that one day our kids will be fully fluent in Korean. In the meantime, we are enjoying singing lively rounds of "A B C D E F G" mixed in with "Ga Na Da Ra Ma Ba Sa" ...as we drive uptown to Korean school.