A black-and-white photograph sits inside the file folder of Irina Park, 37, a fourth-generation Koryoin, who works in trade in Seoul. Koryoin, also known as Koryo-saram, are ethnic Koreans from former Soviet republics. The young man in the photograph, whose records were written in 1937, was also 37 at the time. Nearly nine decades later, Park, now the same age as the man in the photograph, quietly speaks to the 37-year-old Park Kyung-hwan of 1937. Dear Kyung-hwan, It has been several years since I began searching for traces of you, and only now have I finally come face to face with you. When I first unfolded that old black-and-white photograph, your eyes and lips strangely did not seem unfamiliar. I stared at you for a long time, struck by your gentle eyes and full lips, and by how much your handsome face resembled my father’s. The only record we had of you was the three Korean characters that made up your name — Park Kyung-hwan — written on my grandfather’s birth certificate. As an ethnic Korean living in Tajikistan, where fewer than 500 members of our community remain, we always