« South Korea is my country. It's in my blood. »

Having arrived in France at the age of four and a half, Lisa Boghos discovered the lies surrounding her adoption during a recent trip to her native South Korea. At 53, she tells her story and those of 16 other French women adopted from Korea in her photographic exhibition "Projet Année Un".

Interview by Léa Baron 20/05/2026

In 2022, Lisa Boghos returned to South Korea for the second time. There, she reunited with her mother and sisters, whom she hadn't seen since her adoption in France in 1978. That year, she had left her native country at the age of four and a half, accompanied by her younger sister, who was barely two years old. This reunion was a profound experience, even a trauma, in many ways.

Lisa discovered unsettling truths about her adoption, about the woman she thought was her "soul sister," and about her family history. "I had to pick myself up," she recounts. "And picking myself up meant putting together this exhibition, Project Year One - 일년 프로젝트."

Supported by her association, K-women Projects, she shares her story and those of sixteen other French women of Korean descent, adopted in France, in this Parisian exhibition. Behind these international adoptions sometimes lie illegal practices, lies, and family tragedies. Lisa Boghos shares her story for Hansori.

Hansori: You arrived in France at the age of four and a half. What memories do you have of your life before your adoption and of that arrival?

Lisa Boghos: For a very long time, I thought they were just dreams. Like many adopted children, I think we distance ourselves from the memories. Memory fades so we can move forward.

I had retained a few fragments of Korea: tall buildings, a family with sisters, and that man with the wooden leg. I only discovered four years ago that he was my father…

But I mostly remember the car ride from the airport to Lyon, where my adoptive parents lived. They had given me a doll, and during the entire trip, I tore off all the buttons in a fit of anger. I also remember my father looking at me in the rearview mirror, and me glaring at him.

At the time, I didn't speak French. When the flight attendant said to me on the tarmac, "These are your new parents," I think I completely shut down.

My little sister and I were extremely close. I was so wary that I even forbade my French mother from taking care of her. I was the one who fed her and bathed her. I was put in school very quickly because they said I needed to adapt fast, but I would run away from school. There was never any adjustment period.

Did your adoptive parents talk about Korea and your adoption?

They always told us we were adopted, and that we had been asked to take us both in because we had bonded at the orphanage, like soul sisters… But there was a great deal of discretion surrounding it all. We talked very little about Korea, very little about our origins.

Very quickly, I felt an absolute desire to integrate. You are constantly reminded that you are different, that you don't look like your parents. And above all, you are told repeatedly: "You are lucky to have been adopted."

It's very paradoxical, because in reality you are living through a tragedy, but you are asked to be grateful for a situation you didn't choose.

How would you describe your childhood in this French family?

It was a complicated childhood. My adoptive father was a very strict person, always trying to control me. There was a lot of humiliation, psychological and physical abuse. My mother, for her part, remained very withdrawn. She never defended us.

Fortunately, our maternal grandmother was a significant presence. She spoiled us rotten and provided us with a sense of stability.

My little sister and I were very close. We protected each other. Our relationship became complicated in adulthood. She didn't understand why I was always so conciliatory with our adoptive parents. Perhaps to keep the peace. But mostly because, this abandonment created in me a need to preserve this family unit, even if it was only a semblance of one.

You still retained a curiosity about your native country, South Korea?

Yes. Unlike my younger sister, who completely rejected her origins, I always felt a void. Even as a young girl, I wanted to find my Korean family.

But life took over. I got married, had a son, and worked in communications and event planning. For a long time, I put that question aside.

Then, I took my first tourist trip to Korea with my husband 18 years ago. It was a very emotionally powerful trip. When I arrived there, I immediately loved the country. I felt at home without being at home. I thought I might be able to go back to the orphanage I had been in, but I forgot my file when I left…

The real turning point came much later, during your second trip to Korea with your sister?

Yes. In 2022, I went back to Korea with my little sister. It was the first time she'd agreed to go. But the trip was very difficult for us.

I was amazed by everything. On the contrary, she felt a certain rejection of Korean culture. In reality, there were many unspoken things between us, many misunderstandings related to our history.

When she went back to France, my husband and son arrived. And that's when I felt a sense of urgency, perhaps because I was approaching fifty. I thought to myself, "If I want to find my biological family, it has to be now."

Something had been holding me back until then: my little sister. We had always been presented as "sisters at heart," and I was afraid she would see my search as a betrayal. She was the one they told had been abandoned in the street.

I then contacted Holt, the Korean agency that handled a large number of international Korean adoptions.

How did the process go?

Very quickly. I sent an email and received a reply the very next day.

Holt told me that one of my older sisters had already tried to find us in 2018, when our biological mother was hospitalized. She kept repeating our names from her hospital bed.

They also told me that my family wanted to see me soon. The first meeting finally took place in Seoul on August 17, 2022.

What happened during that first meeting?

I'm not even sure I remember everything, it was so emotionally intense.

That day, I met my Korean mother and my two older sisters. My father had passed away a long time ago.

When I entered the room, they stared at me, then came over and hugged me. They looked at me, comparing our faces to see if we resembled each other. With my older sister, the resemblance was indeed striking.

And then I learned something that deeply moved me: my little sister, with whom I was adopted, was actually my biological sister, not my "adopted sister" as we had been told throughout our childhood. Which seemed plausible to me because we are very different physically: she is tall with an oblong face; I am short, with a round face.

Our Korean mother told me she was the only one in the family who looked a lot like our father, but we no longer have any photos of him. She cut him out of those pictures and erased him from her life a long time ago.

At that moment, I felt like I had been living a lie for fifty years.

What do you learn about your family history?

My Korean mother tells us that she never chose to abandon us.

Our biological father was very violent and drank heavily. He desperately wanted a son, but he had four daughters. When my little sister was born, he decided on his own to take the two youngest to the orphanage, without telling our mother.

He signed the papers and probably had someone else sign in place of our mother, whose thumbprint, used as a signature, appears larger than my father's on the file.

When my mother realized we were gone, they had a fight. She told me that he hit her very badly, and she ended up in the hospital.

It took her six months to find our orphanage. They told her, "Your daughters have just been adopted in France. It's too late." “Only adoptees can then request to see their biological family again.

How did you experience all these revelations upon your return to France?

When I came back, I was suffering from post-traumatic stress. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t work, I completely collapsed.

But paradoxically, it also allowed me to free myself from many things. I started to distance myself from my adoptive parents and from relationships that had become toxic. And above all, I felt the need to transform this pain into something useful, something positive.

That’s where the idea for the exhibition Project Year One – 일년 프로젝트? – was born.

This exhibition stems from this need for reconstruction and to share what I experienced.

I've been doing portrait photography for several years, and I wanted to give a voice to other adoptees. In associations, we organize many events, but ultimately, we hear very few individual stories.

I also wanted to talk about the role of women: that of my biological mother, who never had a choice, who was erased from our lives, but also that of my adoptive mother, who lived under someone's control.

Through this project, I wanted to defend the rights of women, but also those of children. Because beyond the adoption itself, we were uprooted from our country, our language, our culture, without ever considering the trauma this represented.

Initially, this project was meant to help others. But today, I also understand that it's helping me rebuild myself.

What connection do you have with Korea and with France today?

I feel deeply Korean and French.

I love France because it's where I grew up, where I built my life and my family. And I have very French habits. But I also adore Korea. It's my country, where I was born. I've retained a very Korean way of being and thinking. My country is in my blood.

When I go there, I feel good, even though it's very paradoxical because every trip makes me incredibly anxious. I think the day they put me on that plane as a child was truly heartbreaking. Going back to Korea inevitably reawakens something very deep.

Today, I'd like to be able to spend more time there, relearn the language, and immerse myself in the culture again.

When I think about the end of my life, I think I'd like to be buried there. I think it's linked to this search for roots: returning to where you were born.