In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

>> 151 9 Management of Feelings A man ran away after his wife’s death, leaving his two daughters alone without resources. They were subsequently sent to an orphanage. To the now fifty-year-old daughter, the hostess says: “Hmm. . . . It must have been difficult for your father after your mother’s death.” —KBS, Ach’im madang, August 13, 2003 “Transnational adoptees’ common point is that they don’t know the faces of the people they are searching for, but they all grew up in good conditions and feel no resentment at all.” —Host, KBS, Ach’im madang, July 9, 2003 Created after the 1983 telethon and produced since 1997, Ach’im madang, with its emphasis on meetings between estranged relatives, may in a minority of cases lead to sustained relationships, but only under certain circumstances. The marital and financial situation of birth parents must be taken into account if one hopes to understand the future of the relationships the meetings seem to restore. Thus, the question is no longer Why did people separate after meeting? but Why do birth parents decide to meet their offspring even when they know they will not be able to sustain that relationship? One may surmise parents’ will to meet again with their children was stronger than social conventions, or that they did not realize that these ties were not sustainable. But, here, I suggest that there is another type of explanation to their seemingly irrational actions. Helping separated relatives to find one another and to meet properly is considered a crucial sector of social welfare in South Korea. Hosts’ and Moderator’s Other Role As elsewhere, the different stages of life have been marked in Korea by rites of passage that guide the individual on a standardized journey, providing a sense of norms.1 Along with graduation from the summer school, the 152 > 153 televised meetings and rituals.4 The words of the hosts and the professor at Ach’im madang did not ensure the reconstitution of families. They mostly joked around and made meaningless chatter. The professor’s comments often seemed useless and without apparent relation to the unfolding action. In other words, they lightened the mood. One day the professor was absent— he had taken a vacation, explained the host—and was not replaced.5 The following week, the host was absent but was replaced by another, younger host.6 The host was crucial for the process of the show, and he needed to be replaced by a colleague when he went away, whereas the professor’s presence was based on his prestige: he was irreplaceable. The usual association of the hosts and the professor confirms the necessity of a third party—or moderator —to facilitate, mediate, and preside over the somewhat uneasy family meetings. The meetings were less about the reconstitution of families than the reconciliation between two parties who, once, were only one. So if reconciliation is the main purpose of the meetings, resuming relationships is only optional. Shriving Parents As we have seen, separation stories on Ach’im madang, no matter how incomplete, are generally seen to be about family separation rooted in the events of the now near-mythical Korean War. Thus, they normalize the practice of separation. The hosts of the program as well as the participants always emphasize the role of the war in family separation and the role of postwar poverty in the adults’ decision to “send away” children. In their narratives, the war is interpreted as the beginning of all familial disarray: “Because of the war . . . ” or “After the war . . . ” But other factors were relevant when explaining separations. As mentioned earlier, the modes of separation were many; most implied a thoughtful decision precipitated by dire situations, but a few suggested a lack of consideration on the parents’ part of what might happen to the children they abandoned. Participants who were able to meet their relatives onstage often heard versions of the separation story from them. The birth family always provided vague justifications to make parents look less culpable. Upon meeting onstage, a thirty-six-year-old participant was hugging her newly found relatives. While they were crying and tightly embraced, the screen displayed the following text: “Meeting after thirty-one years of separation.” The participant ’s older sister, thirty-eight, said that thirty-one years ago they had all gone to the market with their father. She was carrying on her back her little brother, who also came to the studio. The participant was...

Share