Everyone in my life knows me as Luke, but for the first six months of my life I was Choi, Jeong Hyuk.
My adoption records state that my name means Truth and Glory.
Earlier this year I travelled to South Korea, where I was born, for the first time as an adult.
During my first few days in Seoul and then Daegu, the city of my birth, a sense of home would hit me in waves, affecting all of my senses. It was the taste of the food, the colour palette of winter — even the smell of open sewer vents early in the morning was strangely comforting.
I experienced it while sitting on the subway too, which was unexpected and moving, because I haven't had a sense of home for a long time.
In addition to growing up as a South Korean adoptee in Australia in the 1980s and 90s, my childhood home in lutruwita/Tasmania was completely destroyed by fire in 2005.
By my second week in Korea, this feeling of home was constant. I mentioned this to someone I met in a museum and their response was one of the most profound parts of the trip.
"Of course," I remember them saying. "Everything in this country has been designed for you by people like you".
A long journey home that started in lockdown
I grew up with little to no interest in connecting with my South Korean heritage, instead wanting as much as possible to be 'Australian'.
Something changed in 2020 and I became curious about my birth family and past. I decided to reach out to a high-school friend, who is also an adoptee from South Korea, and asked for her advice on how I might find out more.
The search for my biological parents took years and involved DNA databases and petitions from the Tasmanian government to the adoption agency in Seoul on my behalf.
In mid-2022, the agency contacted my biological mother, who is now married. She denied being pregnant or having a baby and requested no further contact.
South Korea is quite conservative in comparison to Australia, and the assumption is her now-husband would be unaware she had a child before meeting him. Therefore, her only course of action would be denial.
I remember the day the woman from the Tasmanian government called with this news. I was at work and she asked if there was somewhere quiet I could go.
Unconsciously, I asked if it was good news, and quickly learnt it was the opposite.
I was acutely upset about my birth mother's response, with rejection and abandonment being such an inherent trigger.
When I mentioned this to a mental health professional weeks later, she shared something I initially dismissed.
"You've got closure on this now, Luke," she said.
"You've found the mother and now you can go and forge your own identity".
Following my own footsteps
Towards the end of my trip to Korea, I visited the adoption agency where my adoptive parents collected me in 1985.
As the elevator opened on the fourth floor I was greeted by two toddlers running around my legs.
A staff member gave me a tour of the building, explaining how much has changed within the building, with only the foyer remaining in its original state.
As we chatted at the building's entrance I couldn't take my eyes off the steps, consumed by the thought of my adoptive parents walking down them and onto the streets of Seoul with me in their arms.
With little information about my life before coming to Australia, the adoption agency is the only place in South Korea that I know I've been before.
My trip was coming to an end and the same friend who helped me begin the search for my family, organised a meeting with Professor Lee, Keun-Su, a former police officer who now locates missing people and works to reunite families.
With the assistance of a translator, Professor Lee said he might be able to find more information about my biological parents.
After our brief meeting, I was preparing to start my long journey home when Professor Lee invited me to join him on a radio show where he was due to do an interview.
It was last minute but I work in the media, so agreed. I was also purposefully being very spontaneous on this trip.
A message for my biological parents
The radio host and Professor Lee explained that they would ask me to introduce myself and explain what I was doing in South Korea. After this, they continued the program in Korean as I sat silently in the studio.
While I don't understand or speak Korean, I do know my biological parents' names, so it was a surprise to hear Professor Lee say their names and the province my records say they come from.
I realised he was doing a national call-out live on air for my birth parents.
Before I made this trip, many people asked if I was going to be looking for my family. It was never on my agenda because I already had closure.
It wasn't until the end of my time in Korea that I realised what the whole trip had been about: I was following Choi, Jeong Hyuk's footsteps — my own.
Back in the radio studio, Professor Lee pushed his phone towards my microphone, using a translation app to ask, "what would you like to say to your parents?"
"I would like to tell them I have had a good life in Australia and to thank them very much for letting me be adopted. That I am well. That I am healthy and that I understand."
Luke Bowden is a visual journalist with ABC News based in nipaluna/Hobart.