Cha Il Sook | The search for my relatives

A little about me

Thank you very much for stopping by. I have been searching for my blood relatives for 3 years. You can help us today and support our search. We are doing everything we can to find relatives in my hometown of Jinhae.

Nowadays I am a music and piano teacher in Switzerland. I had a happy childhood and had nice adoptive parents. Nevertheless, I am looking for my relatives together with my son. We are positively charged for the future and are confident to find our long-awaited relatives in the future.

October 1964 – November 1964

Mysterious birth...

It is October 25, 1964. On this special day, according to my documents, I came into the world. Brought into the world by unknown parents. No memories, nothing left. At the age of only 1 month, I was separated. No memories, nothing left... On November 26, 1964, a police officer of Jinhae-si city was preparing for a normal day. But it was not to be a normal day.

The police officer goes his normal route. But that's when he discovered Cha Il Sook. An unknown baby, but where did it come from? Unfortunately, he will not be able to answer this question until today... From the social welfare center of Jinhae, I finally came to the orphanage Children's Home (Nowadays, the former orphanage is a rehabilitation clinic).

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November 1964 – June 1968

A long wait for freedom...

It was now the 26th of November 1964. I didn't know it at that time, but it would be a long time in the orphanage and there would be a new problem. Days went by, nights passed, but it turned out that not everything was right health-wise. The problem revealed itself: a heart defect, a physical hole in the organic heart, was discovered. Many doctor's appointments passed, but in the end it was not found to be life-threatening.
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3 more years passed...
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1967, actually a quite normal boring year in the orphanage, however it came again not in such a way, as it should come. An anonymous sender, disguised with the name Cha Il Sook submitted a package to the orphanage, addressed to me. So in 1967 I received a dress in a package from a probable relative. A little family spark that year (the dress is the 2nd picture from left to right). The years passed and I was sitting uselessly on the ground for years waiting for my redemption by an adoptive family.

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Childhood in Switzerland

A lovely adoptive family in Switzerland...

December 24, 1968, Jesus' birthday and I arrive with a plane from South Korea in Switzerland. Adopted by a doctor and an interpreter who already have 3 children of their own. From hospital ward to hospital ward I stayed for the first time some months in different quarantines. The culture and the language were completely put out of my mind. Whoever dared to speak a word of Korean was beaten. The Swiss culture was drilled into me. After a few checks because of my heart defect and a few days later I came to my adoptive family at the age of 4. They were very nice to me, I was undernourished for the first years but after a few years I was fine. After my adoption, my adoptive parents adopted 2 more children. One from Vietnam and one from South Korea. So they had a total of 6 children with me. Of it 3 own and 3 adopted. I was the 3rd oldest and the first adopted. Memories of South Korea are missing... Only one dream has remained to me of South Korea: I sit on the floor in my orphanage for days and watch through a broken and shattered window how the sun rises and sets.

I had a beautiful childhood in Switzerland and went to high school in Switzerland, but every now and then I wondered where my roots were and where I came from. Despite all the questions, I finally completed a book apprenticeship and started playing the piano. I moved out of my adoptive family's house and concentrated on piano.

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My happy life in Switzerland

The music and my present life...

Without telling my parents, I graduated in piano and music teacher. I started playing the organ and sometimes substituted for organ players in church. I was teaching music to small children at school and gave piano lessons in my free time. Then came the day when I met my husband. Together with him, we got in 2007 a son, Joschua. Since 2014 I live together with my son in a small village in Switzerland, called Sachseln. I still teach piano and music at schools and my son, currently 15 years old, attends high school in Sarnen.

When my adoptive father passed away in 2022, my son took the opportunity and started looking for my adoptive parents and relatives. He took a lot of initiatives and was very ambitious. I always supported him and also searched. After 2 Korea visits we were on various TV shows, did many DNA tests, were in local newspapers, put up posters in my hometown (my son organized everything in the process and really wanted to find his relatives) but unfortunately there were no results until today. We have received a lot of new information and met many new people. We are very thankful that we have been received so warmly and well in Korea and that we have been helped so much, but we are still waiting for results. So we ask all of you and especially you, who are reading this text, that you support us and help us. We are dependent on help and are very grateful when people help us. You can read more on the button <<Read more now>>.

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