A Story of a True Second Chance An Adoptees Life Journey
[Applause]
have you ever had a second chance
was it just luck did you work hard for
it
whatever the matter is today i’m here to
tell you
a story of a true second chance
13 years ago i moved from kansas city
missouri
to seoul south korea no i wasn’t born in
kansas city i’m a korean american
adoptee
i’m from korea when i was four years old
i was adopted into a great loving family
but i had this impeccable memory so
impeccable that i can remember the vivid
the raw emotions of a child
it’s almost like a polaroid picture of
my five senses
into a memory and let me tell you
i wouldn’t recommend any child to
remember what i remembered
but today i’m so grateful that i do
when i was four years old i remember
being abandoned being abused
being out on the street fighting other
street kids
because that was my life in korea my
life
consisted of being abandoned being hurt
then finally my korean father made the
ultimate decisions
that day and i was abandoned into the
orphanage
in that orphanage i remember cleaning
toilets all day
i remember hardly having any food i was
just malnourished
i was unhappy at the beginning and end
of every day i would just scream for my
mom and dad
where are you
during that time in my life
i hated the world i hated myself
i hated my korean parents i hated
everything
but one day some inspector gadget
looking guy
comes to the orphanage he’s actually my
american family lawyer
he comes to pick me up off i go with him
on the plane i’m just kicking screaming
biting because i get an ear infection
i get off the plane i’m landed in the
u.s of a
and from there my lawyer hands me to my
american mom and dad
i’m just so scared fighting for survival
kicking screaming
but then i look down and i see somebody
who looks like me
it’s actually my older brother who’s a
korean american adoptee as well
so i have a moment of silence he puts
out his hand and some candy
but then survival mode kicks in i kick
him in his face and he goes take him
back take him back to korea
pretty funny moment later in that car
we go in the car and i sit in my mom’s
lap
as i’m sitting in my mom’s lap i’m still
kicking and screaming but
she shows me a photo album i’m just
transfixed
right now the first picture i see is a
house
the second picture i see is
my american mom and dad smiling
with my older brother then lastly
is a bed do you know what i did
i slept do you know why i slept that day
i didn’t kick and scream anymore because
i knew exactly what i wanted i knew
exactly what was given to me
a second chance family
but remember new family equals
new responsibilities so what did i do
from here on out
i learned how to embrace the hate
i lived it i learned it but eventually i
respected it
i took everybody’s negative emotions and
all the negativity
and to propel myself to be happy
i took all the negativity to propel
myself to reach
my goals
growing up i took all the racial slurs
the racism
the bigotry being called face
being spit on as fuel to my fire
to be joyful because i
understood those people who did it to me
i understood that hate
embrace the hate in order to understand
true joy
so what did i do from here love yourself
because if you love yourself good things
will come
you do it the opposite it doesn’t happen
that way
simple math you blame other people you
point the finger
and negative emotions will bring you
down not raise you up
and my american dad taught me two very
important phrases it’s very common in
the midwest
son life isn’t fair so get over it
son nothing good comes easy
so true that taught me accountability
right away and i knew about that because
i’m accountable for my own life
my own feelings because when i was in
that orphanage i knew about what life
wasn’t fair
i knew that already embraced it
but as i grew up focusing on myself to
be happy
to be a constructive force of nature i
forgot about my identity
i forgot about those polaroid picture
moments i only focused myself on to be
happy
my nickname in high school was called
chino
i lacked my korean identity and it was
my fault
accountability remember
it’s ironic my nickname was chino my
american name is eric mcdaniel
and my korean name is idair how
confusing is that for somebody
losing their identity but
i did it
then i only focused on two things
i focused on my first love i fell in
love with baseball
at the time just like any kid in america
they focus and they fell and fall in
love with their sports
then i focus on academics because i’m
not going to be that poor little kid
in the orphanage those two things
propelled me
to be somewhat successful
i received a scholarship playing
baseball
and academic scholarship as well nearly
paid for all my school
i even became the first i believe and
the only
korean-american korean-american adoptee
to pitch left and right-handed
at that time as a prospect you’re not
the only one pet vendetti
but still lost my identity didn’t know
and i didn’t care
then life has a funny way
of throwing you curveballs it threw me a
huge one
my american dad got diagnosed with
terminal cancer
and i was devastated depressed that the
person i looked up to my entire life
was so hurt
so i made a ultimate decision that year
and to defer
lots of my scholarships the schools that
i wanted to go to
and i moved back home to kansas city
just to be with them
and at that time as a 21 year old
i couldn’t handle it i let it get to me
i fell into severe depression and i quit
baseball
and i just finished school for the first
time
in my life i felt
like that little boy in the orphanage
having nothing nowhere to go
lost but then
in university i met my first korean
friend
and my first korean friend taught me
korean phonetics
korean culture korean food and actually
korean dramas the first one i watched
was stairway to heaven
and you know what i did i even tried to
dress
like the main supporting actor
but when i met him
those polaroid picture memories came
back up
i remembered almost everything that i
could
when i was little again i had all these
curiosities
so then i asked my american mom and dad
please do you have any paperwork
and they gave them to me and i found out
that i have a half brother and sister as
well too and they were abandoned
so i knew what i had to do as a young
adult this was my second chance
my opportunity to find out who i was
so i packed up my bags
quit my job sold my car and off i go to
the motherland
to find my korean father my korean
mother and my half brother and sister
when i landed i met with my korean
adoption agency and they told me to one
write a letter a very good positive
personal letter to them
and also pictures of myself growing up
to show that i’m strong and i’m healthy
so i did it then they sent the telegrams
out yes
in 2009 they sent telegrams still
to them and guess what happened a couple
months later
i found them
now i have the opportunity to find who i
am
and also rekindle a relationship with my
korean
family during that time i found out that
i’m not born in april i was born in
february i don’t know about the year but
i found out that i have aunts and uncles
that were living in orange county
and la the whole entire time before i
was
and i found out that my half brother
my half sister were abandoned
and adopted to france and i was the last
one abandoned
so now i knew what i had to do i had a
new task
that new goal was to provide a second
chance for my
brother and sister remember what i said
earlier
new family equals new responsibilities
during that time i found out that my mom
supposedly was stabbed by my dad
and that’s why she left always searching
for me and now she’s just a recovering
alcoholic
supposedly my dad was a gangster back
then
who lied cheated did anything good to
get what he wanted
but i knew this was my second chance and
i knew that
i now is the time to embrace that hate
to show my korean father and to in korea
that
i need to be more korean to show i’m
never gonna be like him
and my next goal is to find
my half brother and sister to let them
know
that somebody from their family their
blood is gonna find them
so what did i do i had to show my mother
and father forgiveness of course
i have to be patient i knew that my
mother or father had
my half brothers and sisters pictures
and my father did
and during those 12 years he refused to
give them to me
but guess what i found him i found those
pictures
but during that time in korea during
those 12 years i learned a lot about
myself and i did a lot of things
i became an event planner in korea one
of the reasons why so i can be the hub
if they ever come back
and believe me i networked like crazy
anybody can tell you that
i also had the opportunity to
have a korean restaurant partner into a
korean restaurant with
my older brother from america who’s also
korean adoptee
that was such a fun time
then ultimately love has a funny way of
working itself back around
i finally got the opportunity to play
independent baseball in korea as a
player an instructor
and during that time moreover i linked
up with so many adoption groups
and online forums just so
i can have the ability because i have
the pictures now to find them
to blast it out there and see what
happens
so after 12 years i waited to get those
pictures from my father
and one facebook post just this past
december merry christmas happened
if you can read i found them
so now we have the opportunity to
be a family it’s our second chance
now it’s their my half brother and
sister’s second chance
to find out who they are to be more
korean
but there’s another second chance here
as well
my father
he now has a second chance to be a
better father
to be a better person is he going to do
it
the question still remains
but because i went through that that
adversity
i was patient and i persevered
i can now help my brother and sister
find out who their birth mother are
and i did that too i had ability to
search for them
and find their mother
and facilitate that meeting
i did it me and the people around me
now it’s their opportunity to be more
korean and to come back
and to re-cultivate the memories
that i had it’s our opportunity it’s our
second chance
to be a family
second chances come in numerous
different ways
and usually these second chances come
when something bad happens
right so if a second chance ever comes
your way
maybe it’s a form of getting that
business opportunity
but you’re too scared to do it or you
have a fight with your mom
and dad or your siblings and your pride
takes over
something bad happens or maybe
it’s just simple you like somebody and
you want that second chance
whatever it is just know second chances
come very rare
and when they do work hard for it
because when a second chance comes
knocking on your door
what are you going to do
thank you