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  • Hurry up, Dan.

  • My teeth are very important part of my day.

  • Your teeth are all messed up anyway.

  • Shut your mouth!

  • So Day 1 in Korea, almost lost my phone, almost lost my passport,

  • found both of them, that's where the drama is.

  • And then...got to the hotel, checked into the hotel,

  • got ready, went to Arirang, after Arirang,

  • we hit up this place called OMG Lounge,

  • ended up with this fan.

  • Got this fan last night. You know who you are.

  • And uh, went to bed.

  • Now we're getting ready to go to membership training and

  • check-in for the convention!

  • This is actually a big moment because we're going over to the

  • Lotte Hotel, officially check-in, register,

  • and then we're going to do this thing called membership training,

  • where apparently it's Korean training?

  • Like Korean group bonding,

  • which means there's going to be a lot of drinking probably.

  • So we'll see how that goes.

  • C'mon Jason!

  • I'm not holding your hand, Dan.

  • I need support right now.

  • So we made it!

  • Adoptee's going ham in Korea, man. So many adoptees here.

  • Hi, I'm Jackie.

  • Jackie! Dan.

  • Nice to meet you.

  • So good to see you finally!

  • Thank you so much for setting this all up.

  • Oh my god we're so excited!

  • We've been talking for like a year.

  • Yeah. We're finally meeting in person now.

  • We've been chatting about this for a year.

  • You literally- we got the invite to do it a year ago.

  • If it wasn't because you called me that one day-

  • we had that conversation about it,

  • I probably wouldn't be here. And I wouldn't be doing this conference,

  • I wouldn't be meeting my family on Monday.

  • This is Niko

  • Oh Niko! Nice to finally meet you! How you doing?

  • Oh my god, man. You're from Denmark right?

  • I'm from Denmark.

  • He's the Danish rapper. He's the guy I'm going to be performing with.

  • Yeah, we gotta hang out though. We gotta work on that song too.

  • Yeah, I'm getting a tattoo on Tuesday though.

  • Oh you're getting a tattoo on Tuesday? Can I come with you?

  • I have this one here, this is the one I made

  • when I came back from Korea and

  • I did the birth family search.

  • My father he was very popular with the ladies. So I dunno maybe,

  • it's just the way of working through it, but I felt like...

  • The thing that just popped up, in my head,

  • was that daddy was a player! So I made that.

  • So we're going to Chungnam right now with about looks like 30-40 adoptees.

  • This is kind of like the big event

  • where like everybody gets to know each other.

  • And there will be a lot of drinking, apparently.

  • So we'll see what happens.

  • Being on the bus was really the first time I was surrounded by other adoptees.

  • And it was the first time I really felt like I was in Korea.

  • Everything around me was different,

  • the countryside was different,

  • I definitely felt like I was in Korea for the very first time at that moment.

  • So we're on our way to membership training,

  • and we got a little lost. And so, the bus driver down there

  • is talking to this woman that lives around this area.

  • She's literally drawing out the directions in the sand.

  • Or maybe, maybe she's teaching him how to plant.

  • I don't know, one or the other.

  • We're at a traditional Korean music house.

  • We're about to play some traditional Korean games.

  • Not really too sure that that means.

  • But apparently membership training is a really big part of Korean culture.

  • We'll find out exactly what it is very soon.

  • Have you heard that song before?

  • Every Korean knows this song.

  • Have you heard that song? So you've sung it before?

  • I butchered your anthem, Jason.

  • Our anthem, I guess.

  • We just flew in, we got in last night.

  • So we're very jetlagged.

  • And he's doing a night a drinking of drinking tonight before meeting his birth family for the first time tomorrow.

  • It's the best thing to do probably.

  • Alright, so I finally learned what membership training is.

  • Membership training is when,

  • usually in Korean culture, businessmen bring out people that they work with.

  • They go to a far away place,

  • it's pretty much an excuse for them to drink.

  • But it's very important for Korean culture tho because it puts everyone on the same level

  • and ultimately bonds everyone together.

  • We're playing the Peppero game right now, we're doing amazing.

  • Our team is definitely going to win.

  • We're like an hour away from the meeting with my biological family.

  • I think I thought alot more about

  • what they're going to do when I meet them,

  • less than what I am going to do when we actually meet.

  • I know it's going to be really emotional for them,

  • but I just feel like I'm not going to say anything.

  • I feel like I'm going to be there, and I'm just going to be sitting,

  • just looking at them the entire time.

  • Like I have no idea what I'm going to say when I finally meet them.

  • "Dear Dan, this is a quick message to let you know that

  • the DNA results came to confirm that the parents you are going to meet today

  • are your blood-related birth parents."

  • Wow.

  • "I am glad the results came the way we all expected.

  • I will see you later afternoon. Thank you, sincerely, Mun-Joo Chang"

  • I still want to see the paperwork. That's very very important to me.

  • But I feel like, reading this email, that it's, um, it's just so casual.

  • It's like "oh, and by the way, they're your blood parents."

  • What makes you kinda think that they would scam you? What's the point in scamming you?

  • There's just a lot of information I don't know. And that

  • I feel like they just did the blood test really really quickly.

  • It's too convenient for me to get this e-mail right before we went there.

  • I know, like, if it's true, it's amazing timing.

  • People keep on either, they tweet me or they send me a comment

  • "I hope that you find what you're looking for."

  • I think I understand what they're talking about.

  • I feel like they think that I'm like,

  • missing this huge piece of me, in my life.

  • And ultimately, I guess I am. This should technically

  • like reconnect me with everything that I've been missing.

  • This is the one missing puzzle piece from my life so far,

  • not knowing where I came from.

  • I'm not denying the importance of what's happening here,

  • but part of me feels really guilty.

  • Like I'm thinking about it right now.

  • I just met all these adoptees last night, that like,

  • they've done a birth search before. I know it's a very personal thing for them.

  • And they obviously didn't have someone filming them, or like turning this into a...

  • It was just a personal thing for them.

  • It was between them and their family.

  • And I feel like I'm turning this whole thing into a huge like--carnival.

  • I feel like--guilt

  • towards the other adoptees. I feel like they're like,

  • I'm not being respectful towards the process.

  • That's the biggest thing. I feel like I'm disrespecting this whole like

  • big life important moment for me.

  • Oh, my God.

  • We just got to Eastern Social Welfare Society.

  • This is the agency that I came from when I was younger.

  • There's a lot of similarities between me and him, our posture's really the same.

  • There's a lot of other like, little weird internal things.

  • He got laser eye surgery, but I wear glasses and stuff.

  • He had braces when he was younger too, so his teeth are ok now.

  • I think we're fraternal, I don't think we're identical.

Hurry up, Dan.

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