A Brand New Life

1975. It’s early autumn, somewhere in a small town in South Korea. Jinhee is 9. She sets off on a journey. She doesn’t know where she is going. But she has to follow. She has to obey. Near by Seoul, her father entrusts her to an orphanage for girls run by Catholic runs in the hope that she will be adopted. Jinhee resists. She cannot believe that this father whom she loves so much has abandoned her. She tries to make him come back. She attempts to run away. In vain, she finally accepts her fate, forced to hope and wait for her possible adoption. Jinhee gets used to life in the orphanage. Sookhee, a girl three years her senior, leads her off in her carefree games and tricks. Then there’s Yeshin, 17. The oldest of the girls there, handicapped by a deformed hip. Fate has brought them together, but for how long and what does it have in store for them? Not everyone will be lucky enough to find a family. Deep down Jinhee doesn’t want to leave and holds onto hope of seeing her father again. Her time at the orphanage will be one of multiple and permanent separations, of barely forged bonds destined to be shattered. Isn’t that a little like experiencing death? And, at the journey’s end, there will be the promise, perhaps of a new life, of a brand new life.