aka DAN Documentary Reflection by a Chinese Adoptee

In 2014, South Korean adoptee and famous YouTube Rapper, Dan Matthews (aka DAN), made a free seven-part series on YouTube of his trip to Korea to meet his birthfamily. Each part is about ten minutes long and well-made, so it is very easy to watch the entire thing in one sitting. The first episode has garnered nearly one million views.

What struck me most about the documentary was that Dan worked on the documentary himself with his friends, giving him complete control over his own narrative. Unlike some documentaries which are directed by people unfamiliar with adoption, or who want to regurgitate the same canned tropes over and over, Dan's story rang true. I felt that Dan "kept it real," both by being honest with himself and with the audience. In the media, adoptee stories usually follow a particular story-arc, shying away from painful emotions, and gravitating towards a fairytale explosion of cheesy inspirational lines about "destiny, luck, fate, life is a journey, everything happens for a reason, I wouldn't change a thing..." You won't find that in this doc.

Unlike in Chinese adoptions, as far as I am aware, some South Korean adoptees have varying access to records of varying reliability. Dan is shown filling out an application to begin the birthparent search, something that is non-existent in Chinese adoptions. While not all South Korean adoptees have the birthparents on record, and some records may have outdated or untrue data as shown in the NBC seven-part series "aka Seoul" (Dan was a part of making this too, hence the name), some Korean adoptees unlike 99.99% of Chinese adoptees have direct leads to their birthparents. This was the case for Dan as he was able to find his birthfamily including his identical twin brother and sister all within the time span of less than a year (3 months!).

I was so happy for Dan because I know how much he wanted to know his birthfamily. As much as I want to meet my own birthparents, I do actually have to rely on luck because my chances of knowing them are very slim. In case you didn't know, China is a very populated country. That's an understatement. My supposed town of origin alone is about 60.000 people. People can die or move away, many but not all orphanage records were forged (complications of the One Child Policy), and there is an incentive for local police as well as orphanage workers to prevent your birthfamily searches from being successful. Letters or tokens from birthparents placed with the baby are mostly always thrown away to prevent glitches in the international adoption process. There can be no ties to birthparents for a baby to be adopted, so even if the birthparents leave a note with their name and birthdate, these are thrown away. 

Popular documentaries like Meet Me On the Bridge portray a rare scenario where the Chinese birthparents left a letter that made it to the adoptive parents. It creates a false sense of what the vast majority (99.99%) of Chinese adoptees actually go through in the minds of the public. Forgery of finding documents/orphanage records happens to cover up the truth with the single story about the "finding spot," which can range anywhere from parents letting their friends take the baby to the orphanage to police confiscations of the baby to doctors have deals with orphanages to deliver the baby at birth into the international adoption program. (Read more here.) With my handful of lies from my forged finding documents, I have no real way of even making a connection with the very little false information that I know. All I can do is sit and hope for a DNA match. I know some Korean adoptees are in the same boat. Not all of us can have a miracle. 

I felt that Dan was very open about his feelings about meeting his birthparents. They didn't film the first meeting because the birthfamily was uncomfortable and I respect that decision. Dan also has a moment where he's wondering if he's just making a circus out of the whole thing. Reuniting with your birthparents is almost a sacred meeting, yet the media often exploits adoptees' raw emotions for clicks and views. There's just something about it that everyone else finds so voyeuristically compelling. Of course, if Dan's birthparents didn't mind, then I for sure would have watched because I'm curious as hell too, but I absolutely support their decision to keep that moment private 100%. 

The other thing about Dan's story is that he has an identical twin who grew up in Korea. While many people understand how important it is to place siblings together even in foster care, many times this is not an option. For one reason or another, twins and siblings are often separated in the adoption process because the end goal of those in the international adoption industry is to increase the number of adoptions. Splitting up groups of babies into single packages makes them more adoptable or something. My parents were lied to and were told that twins were never separated, yet we know for a fact they were. In South Korea, the two girls from Twinsters were separated in the process and they asked the workers if this happened often or if there was a reason. The orphanage workers evaded the question. My own parents had an application form that asked if they would be open to adopting twins and my parents said "yes." This gave them hope that twins weren't being separated, but yes, they were. Whether the twin, identical or not, grows up as an adoptee (Twinsters) or in the biological family (aka Dan documentary), is something that interests many people. I hope people are able to understand Dan's strength and openness without turning his life into one big freak-show trope about TWINS SEPARATED AT BIRTH. 

I've often wondered if I've had a sibling or two because honestly, it's called The One Child Policy for a reason. (They obviously kept one child!) Though, when Chinese adoptees do find their birthparents, they often discover two or three other siblings (sometimes three girls!) who grew up with the biological family. (The One Child Policy is often considered a misnomer for all the "exceptions.") I wonder about this a lot. Do I have a sibling or a twin? Do they live in the USA or elsewhere? One of my main reasons for doing a DNA test was to put myself on the map for any of my siblings. I wish that I had all the answers, but I just don't. 

Overall, I'd give the documentary 10/10. It was extremely well-done, interesting, and honest. As an adoptee, I am especially sensitive to when adoptees aren't respectfully portrayed and I really appreciated that Dan and friends took this into their own hands to properly take charge of their own narratives. The documentary has been around for a while and I've heard about it many times, but I only watched it recently. Good job, Dan! Thank you for putting yourself and this piece of work out there.