South Korea adoptees endure emotional searches for their birth families

FILE - Restaurant owner Shin Byung-chul looks from behind a flyer he put up of Kenneth Barthel, who was abandoned in the area as a child and later adopted to Hawaii at 6 years old, at his restaurant in Busan, South Korea, May 17, 2024. FILE - Kenneth Barthel, left, who was adopted to the United States at age 6, and his wife, Napela, comfort each other as they leave the Busan Metropolitan City Child Protection Center in Busan, South Korea, May 17, 2024, after searching for documents related to his birth family.

They began a pilgrimage that thousands before them have done. They boarded long flights to their motherland, South Korea, to undertake an emotional, often frustrating, sometimes devastating search for their birth families.