A True Korean Mystery

There is a true mystery unravelling in our house. I call it the "Mystery of Imposter Charlie."

Remember way back a few months ago when I posted "Will the Real Jin-yeong Please Stand Up?"? Yeah, ok, fine, you probably don't remember it because you didn't read it. Well, scroll back and read it. In that post, I commented that the picture below, which was only the second picture we had ever received of Charlie (and the 2nd of only 3 sets of pictures total that we saw of Charlie prior to actually meeting him), looked nothing like the first pictures we saw of him.

Then at the end of the post, I wrote something cheesy like "once I meet him and see the intricacies of his face, I will recognize both this baby and the other pictures in his face..." Blah blah blah. So now that I have met Charlie in real life, I have to say that I in no way recognize this baby in his face.

Which leads me to wonder...is the picture above just a weird angle or odd lighting such that it looks nothing like Charlie? Oooooor, in a more dramatically woven theory, is this not Charlie at all?? An online friend said she saw a group picture at Holt of a bunch of kids and their foster mothers. She said she distinctly recognized our foster mother (this friend is the one who blurred the foster mother's face in the picture above, so I could post it without compromising foster mom's identity), but the foster mother was holding "Imposter Charlie" in the picture!!

In the picture above, the stuff on the table in front of "Charlie" is the contents of the care package that we sent. And, in the 3rd photo we received of Charlie, he is wearing one of the outfits we sent. In the 3rd picture, he looks once again just like the first pictures. So, yes, I realize that the most likely explanation is that the picture above is just a weird photo such that it looks nothing like Charlie. However, it REALLY looks NOTHING like Charlie. Different hair, different eyes, different mouth.

I am not suggesting anything like "we got the wrong baby." The Charlie we have is clearly the same baby in our referral photos, and also clearly the same baby as in the most recent pictures we received of him. No, I am more amused by this "mystery" than anything else.

A true mystery...