Korean Passport
My Korean Passport is the culmination of all the other documents that came before it. The document that allowed me to travel out of Korea on a one-way ticket to Australia.
My Korean passport was issued when I was 15 weeks old.
There is an Australian visa stamp issued by the Australian Embassy in Seoul. The visa was issued on the 26th of June when I was 20 weeks old. This was just a few days before I left Korea with my adoptive mother on the 30th of June.
Interestingly, the passport shows my original Korean Resident Number 주민등록번호.
I’ve asked some other Eastern adoptees to check the Korean Resident Number in their passports and we all have the same 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th digits in the second sequence of our numbers (주민등록번호 뒷자리) - 0373 - This indicates that we were all registered and processed in the same local government office, somewhere in Seoul.
Korean Passport Photo and Information Page
Australian Visa Stamp
Departure Stamp 30 June 1984
Korean Passport Cover
I’ve recently learned that passports were uncommon for “normal” people in Korea up until 1989. They were generally only issued to diplomats, business people, students and those permanently migrating out of Korea. Korea had been under the governance of successive authoritarian governments whose priority was keeping currency within Korean borders and limiting exposure of Korean citizens to communist thought.