Director Ma Min-ji, who lost her mother to COVID-19, redefines the concept of family after discovering adoption in her belongings.

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Jeong Rae-won = The time of mourning goes in an unexpected direction for director Ma Min-ji, who lost his mother suddenly due to COVID-19.

Film director Ma Min-ji's second essay, 'There are special family relationships,' is a book about the process of director Ma re-examining the meaning of blood ties and family after discovering the secret about his birth in his mother's belongings.

To Director Ma, the only daughter, her mother was warmer and closer to her than anyone else. Director Ma, who was solely responsible for taking care of his mother in place of his father, who had completely withdrawn from supporting his family, bursts into tears countless times as he watches his mother's condition rapidly deteriorate.

When her mother loses consciousness after nearly five months of fighting the disease, Director Ma stands by her side and repeats the words, “It’s okay to go in peace,” “Thank you,” and “I love you.”

Director Ma decides to remember the difficult life of nursing as a date alone with his mother.

After letting go of the person he was closest to, Director Ma discovers a note in his mother's belongings that suggests he was adopted.

As he confirms his adoption after following up on clues, including DNA testing, and visiting an adoption agency, he begins to look at the concepts of blood ties and family differently than before. In particular, it raises questions about the relationship itself, which is called a ‘normal family’.

He later found out that the people he believed to be his biological parents all his life were not related by blood, and later, as he experienced care and solidarity from relationships outside of blood, such as lovers and friends, he reconsidered the meaning of family.

Director Ma reflects, “My family disappeared, came together, dispersed, and then reassembled” (p. 258).

After losing his father and his cat Pingpong, whom he raised after his mother, Director Ma writes a will while also looking back on his relationships with people around him who are not related by blood.

During the holidays, people who would spend the holidays alone, such as single-person households, single-parent families, self-reliant young people, and adoptees at home or abroad, gather together to make pancakes and share food.

After sending his family away one after another and learning the secret about his birth, the scope of his family has become wider than before.

Director Ma said in the author's remarks, "If I can imagine the various forms of family as much as I become disquieted, I am willing to continue my story with extreme transparency."

Family is also something that Director Ma has consistently looked into through camera and writing. In his first feature-length documentary, 'Bubble Family,' he illuminated the desires of Korean society through his family's history of pursuing urban development and real estate in the 1980s, and the same family story was also told in the autobiographical essay 'My Strange and Ordinary Real Estate Family.'

The second feature-length film, ‘Landing Practice,’ released this month, recorded the process of survivors and allies of sexual violence victims returning to their daily lives, and is preparing the next film, ‘Our Meeting Was Not a Coincidence’ (working title).

Publisher Cl. Page 280.