Adoptee Hub hosts first homeland tour | By Martha Vickery (Summer 2025)
A first-of-its-kind retreat in Korea happening in October is by and for Korean adoptees and designed to give cultural and emotional guidance to participants, particularly those who are new to Korean culture.
The Adoptee Hub Heart and Seoul Connection tour will take place October 9 through 16, and will be based in Sejong City, in central South Korea.
AdopteeHub’s founder and president Ami Nafzger said the tour will include nine adults – eight women and one man. The participants are coincidentally all Minnesota residents. There will also be three staff – Nafzger, a translator and one AdopteeHub volunteer staff member.
A collaboration of non-profits and government
Sejong City, in Chungcheong province, about 62 miles south of Seoul, has been developed since 2008 as a second government center in South Korea. These days, many governmental functions are located there, although the National Assembly and many other national agencies have remained in Seoul.
The office of Mayor Minho Choi of Sejong City has been promoting the city’s positive attributes, and has chosen several employees to act as staff to the AdopteeHub group to lead tours of both ancient and modern sights in the area. One of the week’s activities will be to have dinner with the mayor, Nafzger added.
A South Korean non-profit organization, Diaspora Hub, has its headquarters nearby and works with a language institute, Nafzger explained. Diaspora Hub will supply instructors to teach daily Korean language learning portion of the program.
Eight days of language, culture, reflection and entertainment too
Nafzger, also a Korean adoptee, has worked with other Korean adoptees in Korea and the U.S. since the mid-‘90s. When designing the tour with others from Adoptee Hub, she had some ideas of what a combination retreat and tour for Korean adoptees should look like.
Concerning language learning, Nafzger said the objective of the eight-day class will be to read words in Korean, and to recognize some key words and phrases, enough to acquire some survival-level language to use while traveling. Learning even eight daily lessons in basic language “is huge” in helping participants develop some confidence and cultural competency, she said.
The group will also do other cultural activities, such as trying on hanboks (Korean traditional dress) and learning the formal traditional bow; preparing Korean traditional foods; attending a performance of Nanta, a long-running show that combines Korean drumming and humor; staying overnight at a Buddhist temple; and an (as-yet-undetermined) K-pop activity of some kind. Nafzger said she is still waiting for the mayor’s office to send their proposed itinerary.
Wellness activities will include an introduction to the Korean martial art of taekwondo and a visit to a Korean spa. As part of the emotional wellness component, each participant will keep a daily journal as a way to reflect and internalize their experiences.
Writing down thoughts and experiences preserves how one feels on that day, she said. “If you can talk about it, it’s even better to write it down,” she said. “Later on, you may read it and think ‘Oh, did I write that?’ So it’s really good to write down things about your feelings. I don’t think people do that enough.”
The genesis – AdopteeHub’s self-care workshop
Nafzger explained that the idea of this kind of Korea tour – introducing Korean culture and language tour that centers emotional health of the participants – began with participants in the AdopteeHub annual Self-Care Workshop. The one-day workshop for Korean adoptees has been a popular annual event four years in a row (with the fifth annual workshop happening September 27 at the University of Minnesota, see calendar listing here). It offers Korean cultural and language classes, discussions, wellness teaching and a Korean lunch in a fun-day long workshop
At last year’s workshop, Nafzger said, some participants talked about taking the workshop to Korea to add cultural observation, guided travel and sightseeing to the mix of self-care activities that are the heart of the annual workshop.
A greater purpose, for an affordable price
Inventing a self-care retreat and tour in Korea introduced some completely new variables, including the financing. Planning the tour from the ground up, Nafzger said she definitely “knew I did not want it to be expensive. I wanted to have enough so that each person would not have to pay a whole lot of money, because they already have to pay for their flight.”
About half of the money Adoptee Hub put toward the tour came from a silent auction event held in February, she said, and the rest came from money Adoptee Hub had saved from small donations. From a per-person cost of around $1,200, Adoptee Hub was able to pay for two-thirds of the cost, and charge each participant just $400. “It will kind of deplete us, but that’s what we are doing and we know it will change lives,” she said.
When applications rolled in
After getting the funding set up, Nafzger and her team starting accepting applications. They really did not know who would apply, she said. AdopteeHub board members interviewed the 18 applicants, looking for people who had had no experience or limited experience being in Korea, and who would be ready to help one another through what could be an emotional journey, Nafzger explained.
Among the qualified applicants, half or more have never been to Korea since being adopted and their familiarity with Korean culture is limited, Nafzger said. “And maybe three others have been to Korea, and one has not been there but has met her [birth} mom and dad on line.” The applicants tended to be in their mid-30s to 40s, she said, so the final group was chosen from applicants in that age range.
There were outliers – an applicant who was only about 22, another older applicant who had met her whole birth family and learned to speak Korean almost fluently. There were applicants from many different states, and even one from Sweden. In the end, all of the final group members came from Minnesota – another thing that just happened, she said.
The interviewers evaluated the applicants based on who they felt would get the most from the guidance built into the tour. Nafzger said they fell into two groups – there were some who they perceived needed the trip for emotional reasons, even if they had had some experience with Korea before; and there were those who needed it because they are beginners in Korean culture.
Applicants also had to be on board with staying in (single occupancy) dormitory rooms at Sejong University and doing most activities as a group. Everyone had to participate in the Korean language class and be willing to do the journaling and personal reflection that is an important component of the trip.
The personal interviews were to make sure “their character and personality was about being there for each other. …It’s very important for each person to feel comfortable in their motherland, and we do that with a support system.”
“The people were very emotional when we did the interviews,” Nafzger added, “which was interesting. They are very excited and it’s something they really need and want.”
Another fall project as Hope Registry gets results
Nafzger said her schedule for September and October just got busier because she will be going to St. Michael, Minnesota the weekend before she goes to Korea for a family reunion of a Minnesota adoptee and her Korean birth parents. An Adoptee Hub birth search portal participant has found Korean birth family through the portal service and will be meeting them that weekend. Nafzger is invited to the reunion.
One of Adoptee Hub’s main missions is to reunite Korean adoptees with their birth families through its custom-built confidential birth search portal, the Hope Registry, which, after many years of planning, was officially launched in January (see story at this link). It allows Korean birth families searching for a (now-adult child) they once placed for adoption to unite with adoptees interested in finding their birth families. Both parties must register and be open to being contacted by a professional researcher with the Registry once a good match is found.
Since the Hope Registry launched in January, about 130 adoptees in the U.S. and other countries have registered, Nafzger said, and 13 birth families in Korea have registered so far. Of those 13, three families successfully found the now-adult child they placed for adoption. The other two adoptees matched with their Korean families were adopted to Norway, she said, and they have had only online conversations so far.
The family in St. Michael is the first one to be reunited and to meet in person. The fact that the adoptee is local is coincidental. Nafzger said she was happy to be invited to meet the family and will bring a translator for them. “We will go on a boat ride with them the next day, and do whatever else they have planned,” she said.
What’s different about this tour?
With such a large population of Korean adoptees well into adulthood, a lot of Korea homeland tours have been developed. “A lot of times, when you go on a tour, you don’t have a support system,” Nafzger said. You connect with one or two people, and that’s it. They drop you off at the end of the day. You don’t talk about anything.”
Adoptee Hub will offer a different kind of tour in its emphasis on both emotional and cultural insight. Like other activities created by and for Korean adoptees by Adoptee Hub, the support structure provided by an intimate group of all adoptees is primary, Nafzger said. That element that will make each activity, from sightseeing to Korean lessons, into a more meaningful and healing experience.
