Former Street Child Refugee Re-visits Japanese Rescuers
At the end of October, O.C., one of our former North Korean foster children, came to visit us again after 20 years! We met at a Korean restaurant in Tokyo, where we held a party to celebrate the wonderful surprise reunion.
O.C. was once a Kkot-jebi (street child) who, at the age of ten, escaped into China. Over the years, LFNKR has rescued a number of Kkot-jebi and placed them under the protection of our foster parent program. Most of them resettled in South Korea, but O.C. chose to resettle in England.
O.C. currently works for an Asian food store in England, which sells a variety of foods, ingredients, and sundries for Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and other cuisines. He says that they have many British customers because various Korean ingredients have become very popular in Europe in recent years.
He lives with his cat near the workplace. Recently, he took a three-week vacation and visited his friends in South Korea, then visited Tokyo to see us. He is very active in the store where he works now because he speaks English, Korean, and Chinese.
In the future, he wants to run his own store like the one where he is currently employed.
We asked him, “Since you have come all the way to Tokyo, are there any famous sightseeing places you would like to visit?” He replied, “I am not here for sightseeing, but to see my “family,” so there is nowhere in particular I want to go. “I want to come back to Japan to see you all again next year!” he said, then added, “I will visit Japan again next year!