This TIFU Was a Real Fuckup
For the uninitiated, TIFU is an acronym for Today I Fucked Up where redditors post stories about… how they fucked up today. Pretty self-explanatory. Usually they’re stories about how they ran into a pole or jerked off onto their son’s homework. Nothing too life shattering. Then came this which could possibly one of the Top 10 Greatest Fuckups of All Time. Just read the story.
Well, I suppose this f**k up has happened today, and has been happening everyday for the past seventeen years.
About seventeen years ago my wife and I adopted a baby from an Asian American family. While we knew very little details, basically what happened with them is that we learned they were too young for children. I made very little inquiries as (they seemed embarrassed/I didn’t want to pry). I was just excited to have a son and couldn’t have cared less about the parent’s history, besides their current and future well being. So as long as they were healthy and willing to gift me with their child, I really did not go too much into their histories. This was my major f**k up. My wife and I choose to adopt this baby because we felt for the parents and anyone that has been through the adoption process knows that it is much easier to get a non-white baby than it is to get a white one (which is fucked up IMO) and we wanted one NOW and didn’t want to be on a wait list.
Anyway we adopt this beautiful, loving, affectionate and incredible baby. It’s truly love at first sight for all of us. Around about eight months we start to feel a little bit of guilt about not raising him in his on ethnic culture and given that we live in an area with a major Chinese population, it would be very easy to introduce him to his roots. So for the next seventeen years we do everything we can to honor his ethnicity. We send him to Chinese language courses and by five he’s fluent in Mandarin and English, he gets an “adopted” by a Chinese aunt and uncle (they taught him cultural things and celebrate certain holidays and take him for dim sum every couple of weeks). We’ve been taking him to China every two years since he was eight. We weren’t trying to force him to take up his culture as an “other” in our family, but we didn’t want to rob him of it or completely whitewash him either. We try and be PC as possible and we thought we were doing the right thing.
He’s the best thing that has ever happened to me and my wife. There is not a day were I don’t just look at him and smile warmly. I love him.
Anyway we are filling out his college apps/financial aid applications and doing that whole thing. I go to my home office and go through some files and find his old adoption records. I’m not really paying much attention to them and then his biological parents surnames pop out and basically punch me in the face. His parent’s last names were PARK AND KIM. F**K. F**K. F**K.
For those of you that do not know, those are Korean last names. My son is not Chinese. Not even a little bit.
He’s Korean.
I suppose I just assumed it because we live in an area on the west coast where there are a lot of Chinese immigrants and Chinese-Americans have been living for generations and generations. I don’t always assume every Asian is Chinese, but I did assume this for my son. Now I have a seventeen year old Korean son that thinks he’s Chinese. Now that I look at him, he looks INCREDIBLY Korean in comparassion to all of the photos of Korean men that I have just googled. Very square jaw, less hooded eyes, very broad build. None of this ever crossed my mind. I’ve dedicated nearly two decades to helping my son be close to roots that aren’t even his. I realize that I’ve just been fucking up. I feel like a complete asshole to the nth degree. I’m that dumb liberal white dickhead. F**k.
I have yet to disclose this to my son or wife.
I honestly don’t even know if I will.
TL;DR: Assumed my son was Chinese and I’ve spent his whole life playing homage to his roots, he’s Korean.
“Hey, son. You know the racial identity we foisted on you and immersed you in for 17 years? Turns out it was the wrong one. Oops.” Thanks, dad!
Note: Header image of Kang Ye Bin has nothing to do with the post. She’s just really hot.
this just made my day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc_-l5zpTWE
why is there a picture of some woman at the top?? it’s completely unrelated to the content of the article. also, you can see her underwear.
click bait
It worked.
Worked on me too. Story was dumb. I wanted to see hot chic.
work on me too…
Yep.
Yep
RIGHT!? I was wondering the same thing too.
I was totally waiting for the, oh shoot my son is actually a girl, didn’t notice it on the birth certificate…
Its casue shes a korean model. He is korean, its the implied race f**k up.
kang ye bin is Korean. so.. in a way, kind of relevant.
Because you can’t mention Asians without the fetishization of Asian women, apparently. Even though they’re talking about an adopted Korean boy. Makes sense.
ans = “…you can see her underwear.”
He posted a note at the bottom:
Note: Header image of Kang Ye Bin has nothing to do with the post. She’s just really hot.
Did you not read the article? “Note: Header image of Kang Ye Bin has nothing to do with the post. She’s just really hot.”
author edited the article after the comment was made.
IT MUST BE A GREAT FUCKING LIFE MAKING MONEY OFF OF PEOPLES ORIGINAL CONTENT ON A DISCUSSION FORUM
I looked up dumbfuck in the dictionary. Below is what i found:
Dumbfuck (n.) Victor
Your dictionary is terrible. Buy a new one.
He could just tell him he’s from Southern China. Then again, two Wongs don’t make a White!
Korea is on the northern part of China
In some Southern Chinese dialects that preserve the word-final consonants, Chinese surnames can be rendered as “Pak”(白) and “Kim”(金).
Uh… people from Southern China are shorter and darker skinned. Thanks for showing us how much you don’t fucking know.
That’s a great generalization! You are just as smart as Nick!
http://jyutleijyutdim.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/e799bee8b68ae6ae98e5adbd-e5bba3e5ba9ce9a6ace9a8ae-e9a6ace4be86e78cb4e8bf91e8a6aa-2.jpg
that says malaysian
Malaysian is very broad, just like American, it can include Chinese/white/black/Indians who live there
The pictures above depict Malays, the indigenous
Um .. I am from Taiwan (my grand parents came from Southern China) and I get pick up by Korean women. They think I am Korean. And there is nothing Korean about me — other than the way I look. And that I happen to like kimchi.
Wong is only used in Hong Kong. Otherwise in mainland China it is Huang.
My last name is Wong and neither parents are from HK. Both are mainland. Yet another generalization…people just get off it already.
shouldnt wong be wang? that looks familiar?
Hilarious!
I got nuthin’.
I fucked a BL Asian chick in highschool. Just thought I’d let you know.
Just got autocorrected, suppose to say blasian.
f**k this publication for using a scantily clad woman to advertise this story. What year are you living in where this is appropriate?
and youre the horny dude expecting to find more pics of her only to be wrong and get angry about it
The year where fetishization of Asian women is somehow not considered racist or sexist.
I’m confused why the image selected is of a seductive looking Asian woman. If the story was about a white boy would they have used a hot white woman?
She has a name dude.
Don’t missing the point…
Who?
its not about a white boy… he is Korean, which is Asian… did you even read?
Did you even read his comment? Irony!
You’re white so you’re a coked-up stripper, right?
I find this story hard to believe. They never paid attention to the names on the adoption papers until the child was ready to enter college? The boy himself never wanted to know anything about his parents? The Chinese aunt and uncle who “taught him cultural things” never noticed the child looked Korean and not Chinese? I guess it is possible, but I have my doubts.
I’m totally with you, Coleslaw. This story is just too implausible to believe.
As a Chinese, I have to admit that it’s really hard for me (and many Chinese people) to differentiate Chinese, Korean and Japanese people by just looking at their faces. No way I can differentiate American born Chinese, Korean and Japanese. I can only tell the differences if they are from their culture backgrounds (like by languages, behaviors kind of things). So I guess it’s not the Chinese aunt and uncle’s fault!
we can tell each other apart and we can tell if someone from the Northern or Southern China…I bet u get pissed when someone says u look like Viet or a Filipino. They exist, and don’t hate.
BTW, not all Chinese look a like. There are some Japanese people that can pass as Southern Chinese or even south east asian. The history of SEA and E. Asia is very complex!
What if you’re from Hong Kong, we have people from Shanghai and all over China. And all those Northern mandarin people have been swarming in in to Guangdong Province to earn a buck hahaha. So it doesn’t really matter anymore.
I’ve found that, as far as East Asians are concerned, the main distinguishing factor is not so much looks as behavior patterns – the way they sit, the way they initiate conversation (or don’t), the way they walk, what they do with their eyes and hands, etc. This gets thrown way, way off when you’re talking 2nd or 3rd gen.
As a Chinese from mainland, I know it’s hard to tell a person who’s from Japan or Korean just from their face. I usually have to check their dressing, like what they wear and how they do make up and they usually have accent. So if there’s no culture behind like that kid, people can’t tell for sure.
I thought that too. If they really cared so much about keeping the kid in touch with his “roots” and it was an open adoption (which it would’ve needed to be if they had the parents’ names) then wouldn’t they have told the kid who his biological parents were?
Click bait. These stories are usually fake.
Damn white people…this is BS. NO WAY. Unless they adopted him in a back alley somewhere, isnt there very detailed paperwork on adoption? The poster even said eh MET THE BIRTH PARENTS. So that means it was done on the up and up. Through some agency, lawyers the whole thing…paperwork drawn up etc. THERE IS NO WAY the part where you state your ethnicity was overlooked. WTF? This is stupid…and agreed on the semi sexy Asian girl to click bait this ridiculous story.
17 years ago white people here were way more narrow minded and ignorant about different cultures. I remember most people I was growing up with were too scared to consume curry and sushi and probably not paying close attention to be able to discern between East Asian names. “Park” and “Kim” would not have screamed Korean — back then — but that’s obviously changed now, considering how much more mainstream and normalized minority/fobby pop culture has become in the west. So um, I still see the situation as plausible.
Wouldn’t the part asking them to state their ethnicity simply be a box for “Asian” or at most “East Asian”? I agree it’s a dubious story but I’ve never filled out a form that asked me to specify if I was Korean or Chinese.
The heck!… I need to do some soul searching….
*Seoul searching. FTFY.
haha, you’re right!
I’m adopted as well, & this is THE funniest adoption story I have ever read.
Also, there are closed adoptions. I have friends that are Korean twins who were adopted, & it also happened that the agency/home lost all their past information – they don’t even know their actual date of birth! Since they were “gifts” of love, Christmas ended up being a fitting birthday date for them.
Anything can be possible within the adoption world. Kooky s**t goes on there.
The “gifts” of love… awesome =]
The parents just randomly picked a date for their birthday on all their official documentation?
Damn, that girl is HOT.
Hehe, still a better parent than most. Kudos for being such a stand-up, awesome, human-being that this would actually bother him that much, despite all the details =]…
Anyone else think that girl at the top looks like an Asian Jennifer Love Hewitt??
Anyone of any ethnicity will look pretty much the same if they have similar plastic surgeons.
There are many Korean people living in China as well. Just treat him as a Korean person in China.
How NOT to do content marketing: 1) Base the majority of the site’s content on the ripped intellectual property of other people. 2) Use a lead image that has nothing to do with the story except getting it more clicks. Hope you enjoyed your 15 seconds of content fame, Victor Chang. You just lost the credibility of a very large audience. Please stick to website design: content isn’t your strong suit if you have to stoop this low.
u can’t really tell them apart. to be honest, koreans were from the chinese community…but I guess it’s history stuff
Yes, let’s objectify women by using them solely for eye candy for the cover photo of an article which has exactly 0% to do with them. For an article that is really just copied and pasted from a discussion forum. “Author”, your life must be so difficult.
Its ok. You were so sweet you did your best. Think of it this way, koreans japs etc all originated from china anyways …..
You mean Koreans, Japanese and Chinese people all originated from an empire that had nothing to do with modern-day China.
This must be the /facepalm of the year. I think your son probably still enjoys thinking he is Chinese. I suggest your burn those birth records NOW.
The adopted Chinese aunt and uncle certainly would have known this Korean boy is not Chinese. I call BS
Why the hell would they have known? I look as stereotypically Northern Chinese as I possibly could (which doesn’t look ANYTHING like stereotypical Koreans) but Chinese people still believe me when I say I’m Korean. (I lie about it when I’m in China because I don’t like people asking me why I don’t speak Chinese.) Asians only THINK they can tell the difference.
I think it’s a suspicious story too but this is a stupid reason to call bs.
Just as he called himself, “I’m that dumb liberal white dickhead”. There is no reason you had to do that. He was born in America, he is an American. Raise him as an American and teach him American values. How many parents do you know who adopted a kid of German roots go to the pains this dumbstruck went to teach their kid Germany language and culture. Very few I’m sure. This is also one of the racists things Ive ever heard. Just because he looks Chinese you think he needs to learn Chinese language and culture. Your so libreal… Read more »
I thought it was excessive, but how many adopted German kids do you know spend their entire lives being asked “but you’re German….why are you from an American family?” They don’t, because people can’t tell they’re adopted unless they ask. Asians who are adopted into white families will ALWAYS be asked why they have a non-Asian last name, why they don’t speak an Asian language, etc. They’ll always have an easier time making friends with other Asian kids than white kids because kids are racist little fuckers too. At least if he gets a bit of exposure to Asian culture,… Read more »
Personally, I don’t see the big deal. The kid got loving parents from what would have been dead beat parents (I assume). They did the right thing of giving him away since they weren’t ready for a kid. I can understand the craziness of revealing it to him though.