This episode is brought to you by Prime Video's incredible new film Thirteen Lives, based on the gripping true story of the twenty eighteen Tai Cave rescue. If you've been listening for a while, you'll know of this story from my all time favorite episode with doctor Richard Harris in episode one h two, and now you can watch it unravel from August fifth.
What I've come to realize is I'm really chosen. That's my theme in my life, like the fact that we were chosen from Australian parents, that it never met us before, yeah, and we had not done anything to earn It is the definition of grace. No one thinks about identity more than an adoptee. In my view, I think adoptees all think about identity all the time.
Welcome to the C's thea podcast. Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than one way. So this is a platform to hear and explore the stories of those who found live say, adore the good, bad and ugly, the best and worst day will bear
all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson, or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned unentrepreneur who swapped the suits and heels to co found matcha Maiden and matcha Milk Bar. Ses The YA is a series of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along the way,
beautiful yighborhood. You may have noticed that the Yavidsons are over in Italy at the moment for the extraordinary wedding of one of our past guests, Blair James, co founder of Iconic Oz, the Empire Bondai Sands, and his new wife, Melanie Adams or Melanie James. Should I say, if you've listened to his episode, you'll know about his humble beginnings in a tiny country town of Victoria and how incredible his path YA has been to Lake Como here today.
And if you haven't already heard that story, go back and have a listen and a stalk of the wedding. Let the James begin. I've never seen anything so beautiful, but of course I made sure you have an episode in your ears and I'm so excited about today's it
is a very special one to me on adoption. Following our anonymous Q and A a couple of weeks ago, some of you may remember that I was at an event recently and was partnered with a legend named Matt Purcell from Sydney, who I had never met before, and somehow we figured out we were not only both adopted and both adopted from South Korea, but adopted from the
same orphanage around the very same time. I often talk about my adoption, but really with someone with the same unique cultural experience that we have, and this was so special. To realize things about how I felt that I didn't even know myself, and to hear Matt's perspective now that he has his own biological children just blew my mind. He's also got an amazing business and Korea pathiery as well, which you'll hear all about, but I'll let you hear
it from the man himself. I hope you enjoy listening. And then we answered all of your questions from the anonymous Q and A, but please feel free to submit any more that you have. Introducing to the neighborhood, Matt Purcell Matt Purcell aka brother from another mother, which is actually possible. Welcome to Cca.
Oh my god, Hello, sister from another mister or maybe the same mister.
How bizarre, how bizarre?
I know, I know it was a special day, and I do feel like we made a good news story together.
We see a lot of people losing.
Their houses of the economy or COVID, and then just meeting each other was a beautiful time. You're from Eastern welwearfairs, from welfare Eurasian, but your career and you're adopted now.
So for those who don't know, although it seems like a lot of you did kind of catch wind of the story. Matt and I we don't live in the same state and we have a lot of like mutual friends, but we didn't know this at the time, and we both turned up at this activation for Zero, an incredible, incredible tool if anyone has a business. I don't even
know how I would do business without it. But we both turned up and we were paired together having never met before, and the people at zero who organized it also not knowing any of this, and we figured out within like the first thirty seconds that we were both adopted from the same orphanage in career. What the actual fuck? I know, like, what do you mean?
I know, I don't know what it's very I mean, yeah, I think that's what seven billion people on the planet.
And then if you look at the population in Australia and we're.
Luckily two of them out of twenty six million, it's like a zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero is something to even be he let alone be adopted from that same place.
And what year were you born? I mean you might not want to disclose that, but was it late? Was it late?
I mean ninety seven? Can't you tell from my skin?
Sixty eight actually? And you would still look good.
The Agian vampire genes that you get, and then you hit sixty two and then you just.
Something happens.
Sultana. It's sultana.
That's so right. Something happens.
Skin gets tight for so many years and it's like I've had enough jab at the heart.
It's crazy, isn't it. So this is something we definitely need to talk about, the fact that we have like so many benefits of Asian genetics without necessarily feeling Asian in our brains. So it's like this, like I've spoken about this before on the podcast, but never with someone else who comes from that same quirky, very unique situation. So even just for us to have met and be able to talk about it, we were trying to do
our actual job and like experience the thing. But we were also like, oh my godd were you born And we were born like a year apart, so you were eighty eight, right and I'm eighty nine, so like our parents could have literally cross parts. It's like, it's so bizarre.
It's crazy, and I've got to ask you a question, like when you look in the mirror. When I look in the mirror, I don't see an Asian dude, Like I don't go oh, I don't think about it.
Me, I don't see an Asian dude either. No, no, I genuinely don't all the time. I forget, like all the time. And then sometimes I'll just catch myself in at an angle that looks like where I look more Asian than I usually do, if that's possible, and I'm like, oh, wait, that's me.
That's what I am. So bizarre, that's me.
I sometimes catch myself out going that's right, I'm Asian on the outside, I say, I've got Asian hardware on the the hardware is the.
Strained software is there. So that's why I'm.
Like, totally, it's so weird, And it's so weird that like nether of us look even remotely not fully Asian, Like we're not even three quarters Caucasian one quarter Asian, where you could genuinely forget that you look Asian. Like no one has ever been mistaken about me being Asian or not, is what I'm saying, you know what I mean. So it's weird that we get surprised.
I know, it's really strange. I don't know what was it like growing up with that for you. I mean, I'll let you interfuse you. This is your share, but.
Yeah, I have so many questions. Okay, let's go to the beginning. Okay, so the booke end questions that will kind of like surround us any kind of CZA interview, even though I'm so excited to fill most of the middle with adoption chat. The first question for you to break the ice is what is the most down to earth thing about you? And you can't say adopted because everyone already knows that fact about you. But I know you're a dad so I feel like maybe that'll break
the ice. Like you get to work with some pretty incredible people, big names who we'll talk about that later as well. But it would be easy to meet you and think on the outside that what you do is really glossies. So what's something really normal about you?
I snore sometimes, nah, and I am a dad. I married my high school sweetheart when I was We met when we're fourteen, so we married.
Oh my gosh, I've been married ten years. See my wife, she's got blunt hair, blue eyes, and we've got half halfy daughters, so oh my god.
Yeah, you know what's really crazy? And I think we can get there soon. Like we will chat about this probably today. Is that's my first blood relative I know of, Like my kids are like, that's that's it. So like for so many years I thought I can clearly see what's my Australian parents, the nurture part, but the nature part. I'm like everything that's a gap between them and my
gifts and things, that's got to be genetics. And I'm seeing my kids, me and my kids, I'm like, this is the this is the weird I seeing they look like me. They crack jokes, like me. They have the same anger problems like me.
Sometimes that's me.
No, but.
This is so interesting. We haven't had kids yet, so I haven't had that sort of conversion from never having anyone that looks like me to actually like that was the first question I asked you when I was like, dude, wait, you have kids. What is it like to have someone that looks like you?
That's so good, it's so special, it's more profound. I have to keep it to myself because my wife gets it. She's like, she thinks I'm amazing because of where we've come from, and I guess been able to live a pretty straight life in a way, like a pretty good life despite so many challenges we've had. But having my own blood is something more profound. It's a level I never knew that I had, in a depth I never knew I had, And it makes me cry a lot
because it's a beautiful. It's a connection to something that I never had before. So it's just I don't think a lot of people have that disconnect from blood sometimes. I mean other adoptees would, and foster care kids wouldn't have helped a lot of them, But that was very special you'll love it.
You absolutely, Oh, just crush over the kids.
Oh my god, I'll be on the phone to you. I'm sure, like the first whole year, I'll be like, but like no one gets it. Stim yeah, literally, oh my god. So I feel like the best place to start before we kind of build up to you now having kids and going a bit more into that experience, is to go back to the very beginning, like your very early days. And we took some questions in the last twenty four hours on socials just to sort of
see what people would be interested in. And I think more than any other guest, you know, we usually start at childhood and our memories, but in this situation, a lot of people wanted to know about our parents and particularly our mothers, and what their journey was to adoption, why they chose to adopt, and also how they chose Korea because it's, you know, it's natural to us, like that's such an obvious thing because it's not foreign, it's
we've grown up around it. But for other people it's sort of like, oh, that's interesting, Like Australian couples chose Korea of all places, So what was your families?
Yeah, well, I've said this to you by the way for the edit. But he's a picture of my mum, so that's.
Holding me as a bubble fat baby. And the story of my mother and my dad.
They are both they're white people, so they're from Newcastle and it looks like.
They're oh my god, they're no Vocas nor Vocastrians. Cute.
I mean, I make it joke all the time of it. It sounds awful, but it's so true. Being an Ovocastrian and having two white parents. People can probably just think, hey, little boy, are you kidnapped?
But it's like not even funny because it is an unusual thing to see, especially in the eighties, especially.
In the eighties. Yeah, my mom and dad.
My mother found out very early on that she couldn't have kids naturally, so but she just wanted to be a mom. Obviously, she wanted to be a mom, and they did everything they could to look into getting having children and to like there were even foster Pearans for a time, and that was really challenging for them because you get some foster children get they're already grown up, you know, they're already twelve or something, and they come
into your house. They went applied for international adoption in Korea was one of the major agencies that were promoting around the time, so around your age. In my age, that was one of the main countries on the map.
But what I didn't realize and I really appreciate now is they had to go through four years of waiting and they paid thousands of dollars for this, and they had to have owner house, they had to have background checks, they had to have of a solid income and go to these set seminar dates and things like that to be eligible. And then when our child became available, here's the kicker. You don't get to choose if they're healthy, what gender.
They are, or what their parents' backgrounds were of the child.
So they said, listen, we're going to try to talk you out of this. You could have a disabled child, and do you still want to.
Go through with it? And they're like, yeah, we definitely want to be parents.
So already from the outset, I mean growing up now and hearing that, I'm like, wow, if you can have kids naturally, that's fantastic gift. Sometimes it's like people find it easy to do that and you don't have to jump through any of those hoops. But when you're going through what our parents had to go through, and I'm sure it was the same for you, that's a huge.
Risk on their end, and it showed that.
That's what real love is, is that despite the risk of maybe not having a perfectly healthy child, still say yes.
It's so beautiful because you know how much they have to have wanted you to make it happen. Like my mum always says, it wasn't a nine month pregnancy. It was like a nine year pregnancy, like the process of getting too even close to getting a child. Once she knew mum was similar, they worked out that they couldn't
conceive naturally. Mum did IVF for a really long time, which was already extraordinarily expensive and so much on the body, and so counting that plus the four years of the social workers coming to live with you and your finance is getting vetted and sending money left, right and center. She's like, it took nine years to get you. So if you ever questioned that I didn't want you, I have nine years of my life that I was effectively
pregnant trying to have you. So it is. I think it's such a beautiful, selfless thing because also they know that, I mean, there's a risk of having all kinds of things, even if you have your child naturally and you don't love them any less and you know there's that connection.
But with adopt you get the child when they're sort of five or six months old, like you don't have that innate like, oh I birthed them, this just random kid is just like Hi, I'm sort of you know, had six months of my life and this is me. You've got to take me with all I've got going on, Like it's such a weird situation.
Yeah, it's really weird now.
And it goes to show that adoptees are chosen. And that's what I have as my theme of my life and that's what gives me value through all the changes and challenges I've had as a person that from the beginning I was chosen from my Australian parents who look like Bill Clinton and Hillary's amazing.
So, how old were you at the time when you were adopted?
I was four months how about you?
Yeah? Five, so similar age, which I think means our experience. I think just a sort of not disclaimer, but just a note to anyone listening that the experience of people adopted as infants is infinitely different to anyone who was, you know, old enough to have memories of their family beforehand, or even as teenagers. Like it's a completely different situation. So, you know, we're speaking from a very infant level adoption.
And I think to sort of wrap up that answer about why Korea at the time, you know, there are only certain countries who were open for adoption, and that changes every couple of years. So I think at least in my parents situation, they were just they just wanted to be parents, same as you were saying, Matt, and
it was like, well, how can we do that? And the country that was open at the time was Korea, and I think they're actually closed at the moment, and that it rotates around the world and also depends on that country's relationship with Australia. So it wasn't sort of like, let's pick Korea out of all of the countries. It was let's try and be parents. What's available at this point,
and it just happened to be Korea. And you know, I don't think that even been there before, which is even more like, wow, well you just were so sure you wanted to be parents that you had not you know what I mean. I just think it's much.
It's beautiful. Yeah, it really is.
So one of the other questions we got was did you have an instant connection with your adoptive family or did it take time? And then another person said a similar thing, but also because for them they often felt a disconnect or like they didn't sort of belong. And I think I have to remind everyone here that we were infants, so I didn't have a connection to anyone else. Even if I did have a connection to my birth mother,
I wouldn't have remembered that at five months old. So it's sort of a hard question to answer in that sense. But as I grew up, like, what was your experience once you did kind of grow up?
Oh?
Same, I think it's the same thing. You just love your mom and dad.
Mom and dad was the two white people that raised me, Like my mom and dad dare your mom and dad, and despite blood, and that didn't really bother me at all until they separated when I was six, so that's when it all changed for me. And then I started And my sister, she's from Taiwan, not a blood relative, but she was four years younger than me, and she's from Taiwan.
This is awful. You can edit this out if you want. This is awful. But my sister, my dad goes your sister was more expensive. Yeah.
My mom always says like she's the most politically correct person in the entire world, but like, you've got to make light of the weird uniqueness of your situation. She's always like, well, you know, lots of people say, oh, my kids are trouble olah blah blah blah, but you know, I just shopped around. I just shopped around until I found a good one. Like, Mom, No, we don't say those things out loud.
This one was on special.
That's my warranty run out. Like, can I send her back because she's just being a little shit Like when I was a teenager. She's like, you know what if there was a returns pola, I see right now, I'd be thinking about it. I was like, Mom, No.
Oh my god, you know what's really interesting? I actually have you been back?
Yes, so that's my next question. Sorry, yeah, but before we get to that.
Sorry, Yeah, I didn't bother me. Util my parents separated and then my mom. I live with my mom and my mom struggled. I mean we struggled financially for years and then my dad eventually got a better job than he did well, So I was bounty between waiting, you know, like as a child going, oh, my friends all have this stuff and Mum's saying, you're going to have to wait two months to you go in a dad's house
who wants to spoil you all the time. But we moved the house about fourteen times as kids with my mom. So so I wasn't born with a silver spoon. I wasn't adopted with a silver spoon in my mouth, and I was born with chopsticks nana ja all the I honestly think even meeting you and I'll be interested to meet. I've actually met a handful of adoptees from Korea, but from other backgrounds. I spoke around at a conference in New Zealand and they're all adopted there, and it's interesting.
A lot of them are high achievers. And I think no one thinks about identity more than an adoptee. In my view, I think adoptees all think about identity all the time, absolutely once they hit a certain age. And I think we a lot of us go into achievement mode two and I think, yeah, yeah, I think that definitely looks like what you've done. You're a high achieve I'm a high achieved. I wasn't good at school, by the way, I was a bit of a drop kick at school. I got an asterix for my ata an asterix.
That's the thing they give you when you get a mark so low. They just don't give him the number.
I just give him a stop it. No, that's a stop I call that a star. You've got a special star. But it's interesting you said that. I totally agree that you grapple with concepts like identity earlier than anybody else, so you've had much more practice by the time you get to adolescence when it really hits sort of the average person, but a particularly cross cultural adoption. You really have to get comfortable with being different from very early.
And that's you know, most kids, they have a lot of their life blissfully ignorant of needing to fit in because they already do fit in. Whereas for us, I feel like you have a really hard time earlier, but that helps you build resilience later. And then in terms of the hard work thing, you also have this like overarching knowledge that things could have been different. That you know, everyone's lucky to grow up in Australia, but we're extra lucky because we didn't start here. We got a second
chance to have this life. And so I feel like that drives a lot of that need to achieve and make the most of it, which is, you know, a blessing and a burden at least a lot of burnout, but also has a lot do a wonderful life. But before we do move on to that question that we're about to start before, one of the other questions was whether or not you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you weren't adopted.
Oh, hell yeah, I had a different name.
So when I went to visit a little bit before getting to it, when I went to visit the orphanage the Eastern Chile Welfare, they said my birth mother had named me already.
And to me, that hit me hard because I'm like, this is like.
A Hollywood story of a life of an identity that I actually had an identity, like my name would have had a certain reputation with the family, and the reason why my mother passed me on was because she was worried about that name because she's fearful that her father would kick her out. So I would have had She was a very uneducated woman, apparently like young woman, and
I would have had a pretty tough time. I think we grew up in I was born in a country area and she went to the city dropped me off. So like I think my life it could have been like rejected by my birth granddad and struggle for a single mother.
It would have been pretty tough.
So her choice to say listen, I think someone else can raise you better. It's a sacrifice that I'm really grateful for. And I think often throughout my life I wish I could say to her, you did the right thing, like you made the right choice, thank you, because I think she would be you never forget your kids.
You'd be looking at the stars while not going I hope your God. It's really emotional.
Actually yeah, I think you look up the stars and be like, I hope you had it all right.
Really it's really beautiful.
Yeah, So I think that would have been a different life. So that makes me really grateful with the one I have now.
Sorry, no, no, I think it's beautiful that there's a place where we can talk about stuff like this as well in a way that you don't often explore it that often because like this level depth reflection, there's not many people you can reflect with about it because it is such a unique scenario to think about this person
out there who might be thinking of you still. And I don't actually know what my birth mother's situation was, but I mean, in most cases, the logic is that you were put up for adoption for a reason, and that's probably not going to be the most rainbow type story.
And looking back at Korea in the eighties, you know, there were like really heavy stigmas around having children in certain situations and for girls as well, like young women of well, young girl children, children, girl children, is that I think, yeah, young girl children, young girls, you know, they were not like if you weren't from a good family or if you had raised in an orphanage there was no access to education or Korea was a third
world country at the time. It's amazingly developed now, but in the eighties it was very different. And I often think like my grandmother, my adopted grandmother, used to cry, thinking that the sex trade existed at the time, that there was trafficking, like there was all kinds of things that in a parallel universe could have been our life,
and it's just bizarre. And then to humanize that, to think there's an actual person out there who wanted us to have better and still might look at the stars and think about us, just oh god, it's so I don't even know how to describe that feeling.
So you don't know much about your back Krean, I mean the reasons.
Did you get any story or anything.
No, So the next question was about like going back and finding your biological parents, And I guess the first question there is so you've obviously been back, But the first question is for a lot of Korean adoptees, you sort of have birth parents and then they put you up for adoption, and then your family here can pay for you to be fostered in the time in between, so that you live with a family rather than living just in like the sterility of an orphanage. Did you have a foster family as well?
No, I just lived in the orphanage, did you.
Yeah, So, my my strained parents told me the first time they saw me, They're like this fat baby.
Rolling on the ground.
They're just laying on the grown so back to the ground, just like looking out and they're like, oh, that's that sad. And they picked me up and they turned my head area and my head's completely flat because they never.
To it turned me. So I have a flat head. It's a grand but it's quite flat. And they never turned me the bard.
Oh my gosh, you poor little Bubba, little baby.
Dunlop, Marshmallow baby.
Michelin baby. Oh you were so cute. By the way, those photos came through this morning. I was like, holy fucking shit, you are adorable.
Yeah, I mean the flathead thing makes sense. They thought I was brain damaged. Yeah, they weren't sure then, yes, that's interesting.
Oh my gosh. So one thing also, I will say, as we start to get into the biological parents thing, I don't know about you, but my default language is my parents. Here that other people sort of say you're adoptive parents or you're Australian parents. They're just my parents, and my brother is my brother, and my grandparents are my grandparents. The only reason I am saying adoptive in this episode is so that people don't get confused because
we'll be talking about both. But normally like there's you know, someone asked earlier whether you ever feel like left out or disconnect. I never felt that way. I have always felt like they're the only parents I've ever known, the only family I've never known. I never I'm like, oh, meet my adoptive mom. I'm like, that's my mum. But I will call him my adopted mom today so that you guys know who I'm talking about. Are you what's your feelings about.
That are totally the same. And I say mom, a's my mum And some people actually do ask me, oh, you're you real mom? Yeah, yes, that's my my real mom.
Yeah.
So dad like Asian and like no, and they're like, oh my god, I'm so sorry.
Yeah, you should be made. I don't make him feel too bad. It's always a funny thing. But they don't say real mom or real dad.
Oh always, And I'm like, but they are my real parents. Your parents are like who brought you up and who you have all your memories with. That's yeah, it's weird when people like, have you met your real parents? I'm like, yeah, they're right over there. You want to go say hi? Yeah, Like those Caucasian people over.
There, they're like are you serious.
By being punked right now, Lovely neighborhood. It isn't used to anyone that Episode one or two with Doctor Richard Harris is possibly my personal favorite episode of all time. One of my ultimate messages here is that it doesn't matter how unusual or unique your personal combination of yay is. Someone out there is looking for exactly that, and nobody could ever have known that an anethetist cave diver was the key to one of the hardest or rescue missions
of our time. They say you remember exactly where you were the moment you heard about a disaster like thirteen young boys getting stuck in a cave almost impossible to reach for eighteen days. It may just be me, but I feel like the details of just how impossible the rescue was went over my head at the time, and
I never really grasped that they may not survive. So what I do remember was the moment two years later when I realized the dive just to reach them was so hard it took the life of a Navy seal and could take eleven hours return, that it was through coffee colored water in tunnels so narrow it touched both their chest and back at the same time, that the boys had to be sedated to prevent panic in the multi hour dive, and restrained to stop their limbs getting
cut off by jagged rocks, and that even the divers themselves weren't sure they'd come out the other end until hours later when they did. These and so many other details of this impossible feat still give me goosebumps. It's one of my favorite stories to hear over and over again. And now you can watch the mission unravel in the incredible new film based on the true story, Thirteen Lives on Prime Video, directed by Ron Howard and starring the
likes of Joel Edgerton and Colin Farrell. You'll get goosebumps, spine tingles, tiers of despair, and tiers of hope. It is streaming from August fifth, so it's out now, do not miss out. So when did you decide? As you guys can obviously tell, we both know that we were adopted from Eastern Child Welfare which is now called Eastern Social Welfare Services, which is still in Seoul, in the capitol in Korea, in South Korea, and that you can go back and you can still visit the babies, you
can still see the orphanage. But you know a lot of people will go back in order to find their biological family. So when was the first time you went back, And was it for that reason?
Yeah, it was for that reason. I didn't know a bar of Korean. I don't know about you, but I didn't do well at learning Korean.
No, maybe I learned like twink or twin cale and like that's about it.
Yeah, I learned on your haco in mushy mushi sayo, which is.
Probably not the right thing.
It's fully like a swear word, or it was meant to say delicious because I'd eat few of it would.
Say oh that's so cut and probably with like a really bogan accent.
Also, Yomo, I went over I was about I was about ten years ago now, and I went solo.
And it was weird because I didn't know any of the language.
So I teed up from Australia before I left to meet with some people in Korea which I knew through Compassion, the child sponsorship group, And I was like planning to meet up with someone and they're going to help me out, just get around town and translate for me, because I had no idea, and so I went to Eastern Child Welfare and I didn't know what to expect. I world up with a lot of emotion in the taxi, I remember, and I was like, this is where it all started.
I'm heading to Yeah, here's about my identity.
It's like I had an amnesia, Like there's a part of me that just doesn't remember. So I just sat in this room where these two really nice Korean Koreans got a folder out, a Manila.
Folder of photos and a document. This is strange.
So that fat baby photo I just showed before was one of the photos my mom had to send back to the orphanage because she needed to send progress reports every three months to show.
That I was nourished and I was happy. I didn't know that.
So that trip I learned a lot about what my parents had to do with the deal to be able to have adopted kids. And they told me the crazy story about my life. They said that your birth mother left a note and didn't leave a Social Security security and she told her story a little bit and I was like, going, oh my god, is here we go and the story goes she lived in a place called Chola book though which is a couple of hours out
of Soul in a rural area. Her mother passed away when she was younger, so she grew up as the elders, looking after a dad and her two younger brothers. And my father was some delivery guy from the city and delivered goods to that farm all the time, and he slept over one night and it went on his way, and she had no idea she was pregnant. I had no idea she was pregnant because she wasn't educated and had no mom telling her. And her description was five foot two and fat. They said she was fat in.
The description with a phat like a cool fat, not a curvy, not a beautiful It was fat. And I'm like, what is wrong with you? That's my mother, Yima.
Don't talk about my mom like that.
That's such an Asian thing, like you know how they just sometimes have no attact, like they're just like, oh, oh, very chubby, cute, chubby cheeks. I'm like, mate, come on, like you know, we want honesty, but not that much.
And it actually makes sense because her sires hid pregnancy symptoms for her, like she didn't know what was going on. And it's not uncommon with uneducated Yeah, an education, low education to be like that has happened in Australia and stories have heard of people who have been pregnant and didn't know it.
But she didn't know.
I'm surprised because you feel the kicks. I've felt the kicks of my wife's belly. So I don't know what she's thinking. Maybe the chicken still alive from the night before.
Its horror, that's horrible.
What are you thinking? Anyway?
She this is the crazy thing. I thought this was got to be a lie because it sounds like a movie. She actually hit labor.
In the barn floor.
Stop it in her But no, she hit labor on the barn floor and the next door neighbors freakishly heard her crying and delivered me on the barn floor.
And I'm like, what the are you? I'm like, I'm is astonished, like you see it, like, yeah, how much can go wrong when you have a kid?
Oh my god.
How many people mothers and children have died at childbirth. So I was it was a miracle that I.
Had been delivered and someone had hurt her cries and it wasn't her dad, And I say that I'm Asian Jesus in a lot of ways.
Because I was born on a floor.
In a lot of ways, like so many ways. I love that. Yeah, were you in Ald Like.
I'm going to say I was. Let's let's just add a bit of Hollywood in there now.
Absolutely. I mean you walked on water the first time. That's how you got to Australia. You walked here.
Yeah, I swam. Some people have asked me what part of career from me from north or south? And we're like, oh god.
I was actually going to ask you if that comes up all the time.
From north or South? I'm like, are you an idiot? I always ask him bluntly, are you an idiot?
Like I have to be the best swimmer in the planet across from there?
I know it's wild. I'm like, I would not be here because people can't actually go in and out. But cute, cute wild. So this is fascinating because I have also been back. I went back when I was four to get my brother, who is also Korean, same orphanage, different biological families, same birthday.
What I tell you that, yeah, oh my gosh. Wow.
So you know how the Koreans believe that, like the child chooses the family, like not the other way around.
Do you know that.
Koreans don't count you're one day, you're year one when you're born. Yeah, so you're not You're not month you're one. So we're an older we're actually in Korea a year older that we are in Australia.
Yeah, which I just choose to ignore because grest Yeah, me too. But so I went back on us four, don't I was too young to kind of really understand what that really meant. Then I went back when I was twelve for the Soccer World Cup when it was in Korea and Japan, and that was when I first kind of understood that I was a foreigner there, like straight away. I didn't like, no one thought I was from Korea, Like Australian kids are so like loud and crazy and all the Korean kids are like really neat
and refined. But I met we both met our foster parents that that time, and I understood the significance of that because I knew that she'd had us for the five months that we were, you know, kind of between being born an adoption. But I don't think on either of our paperwork any notes or any details about our actual birth parents, so we don't have any of that information.
That's blown my mind.
Yeah, I assumed that there may have been something left, but a silly of me, because you're right, like some people get left in firm boxes literally and found.
My mom. Actually, this is the weird thing.
My my mom told me that I was left in a phone box, and I believe that my whole life, that I was left in a firm box and found by the orphanage. Then I went to Korea and they I wasn't left in a phone box. I was delivered by my birth mom with a note and then she left. And I'm like, what the hell happened there?
We miscommunication, dude.
She's like, no, I swear that they told me that that's my life. Like I believe that my whole life.
And they said I wasn't left in a firm box, in a shoe box or something like that.
Anyway, cute story, like very Hollywood.
Yeah, I've just lied to a whole bunch of people. I've shared that story too.
Oh so, yeah, we don't sort of easily have access to that information. And often I was told the birth father because of the circumstances of your adoption is never listed on the paperwork at all, if they even knew who he was. So the question I often get asked is do you want to find your biological parents? The first answer is the information isn't readily there, so it would be extraordinarily difficult, given it was no digitization of records.
The records at the time were terrible anyway, The details of the birth father probably aren't there. The details of the birth mother, it was again rural, she's probably moved to house a million times, might not have been a real name. Like, you've got to really want to find them and be able to deal with Korean bureaucracy from like thirty five years ago to do that. And I haven't had the desire. If you told me I could just go there and find out, I would go there
and find out. But given it's like a twenty thirty year kind of life consuming task, I just haven't really felt the need to do that. But did you end up finding out, like being able to actually contact your birth mother?
Nah? I couldn't.
They didn't have enough information as well. And there's like eighty million people plus stare now, so it's just I just trying to find one person with the wrong name, and I mean they she left her first name and left my name there, like this is beyond Nongu, that's my name.
Mine's Chess singer Chase Chess.
Sunger jsunger Ah, that's nice. Does that mean criminal?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it does loose cannon in Korean. But you know what's even harder in Korea. I don't know if you guys listening know this, but there's really only like five surnames Park, Lee, Chair, which is actually choice spelled c Hi. That's my surname, Kim, and like a few others, but almost everyone is missus Kim or missus Lee or missus Park in Korea. So it's even harder because it's not like there's a million different surnames and it could be a really unusual one. There's just like
one jillion of the same surname. So it just would be so difficult. So my answer is always like, yes, if they were in the next room, I'd love to meet them, ask them about, like see what they look like. But given that it's like so much effort, I'm not desperate.
I'm at peace with not being able to meet them.
I'm at peace because that trip actually created a lot of closure for me just to close that loop, like it's just too hard and I could just wish it. I can hope and I can pray and that's that's about it, and just be grateful for you just got to learn to be thankful for that you're chosen.
Yeah, that's so I'm at peace with it too.
Yeah, that's really nice. That's really nice. And I think it's like, as you just mentioned then, that the reverse of being at peace with it is that it does take most of your lifetime to this point to grapple with that identity. So i'd love to sort of ask you now about that identity piece, about you know, when
you do go to Korea. I went back again Nike a couple of years ago, and it was the first time i'd been back since I was twelve, and again, it was so interesting to get to like the motherland and not feel any connection to it, Like I felt such a deep emotional connection. But I didn't look at people around me and go, these are my people, and they didn't look at me and go, she's Korean. Like I automatically look like a tourist. I'd look out of place,
like i'd dress out of place. It's interesting to me that no one's ever been confused that I was a Korean from Korea, Like it's so obvious. And that identity piece is really interesting because you kind of grow up, like as you mentioned, literally as a Caucasian person in your brain with this full blown Asian exterior, and it's it's weird, like it's unusual.
Yeah, amazed me. That made me go very deep.
I was often my mum would get concerned with how deep I'd get, just we really, I would think.
So I started thinking very early on.
I was always attracted to older people because I just my own age people, just I just I just crave certainty and crave to be able to discuss deeper topics.
And I think identity is it's a crazy topic at the moment because you have.
A national identity, you have a peer identity, a professional identity, and you peel back all the layers of the onion and be like, what really is my identity when you know I'm a daughter, I'm a son, I'm a friend or my husband.
And what I've come to realize is I'm really chosen.
That's my theme in my life, like someone's chosen me and you could choose to go, oh, yeah, I'm earning my identity.
That's that's an interesting concept.
I earn it and I wear my identity, and he's I could show my identity, But really I am the fact that we were chosen from Australian parents that it never met us before. Yeah, and we had not done anything to earn it. Is the definition of grace. Grace is unmerited favor. So that's why grace is not a word thrown ayana anymore. But in Christian terms, grace is giving favor and showing love and sacrificing for someone who doesn't deserve it.
And that's what our parents did for us. So I feel like that's part of my identity.
That's like as core as I can get to. And I think the quote I live by is we're not born when is a losers we're born chooses. Oh, so we get to choose our identity. Who I am is whose I am in a way, it doesn't make sense sometimes when I say that, I get me.
I get it. That's so interesting. You sound like you've had a quite similar experience to me in that it isn't you know, sometimes people get very much when you say you're adopted, they get like, oh, like, is that trauma for you? And I don't find it particularly traumatic because I don't remember being torn away from a situation, you know, if it's only ever represented a great life and the theoretical possibility that it could have been different.
But it does take some grappling with but you get to a place where you can feel grateful for it and live this beautiful life. But I do find that one of the harder things when I was younger was dealing with things like racism or bullying without actually feeling like I matched that person, Like my identity was as this Asian Australian, like now we would say a person of color, and even now when there's you know, much better social discourse around diversity and you know, not discriminating
against people based on being a person of color. Sometimes I feel like I'm speaking about my experience, but I feel like a fraud because I'm like, but I'm not a real Asian, so yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't feel like I can speak on behalf of all Asian women because like I didn't grow up having that experience of having weird food at lunchtime or but I did get
bullied for being Asian, you know what I mean? Like, did you have that when you were younger where you were kind of like teased but you were like, wait, I'm white, Like you don't get it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think in primary school a lot I was picked on and even physically bullied by some kids and stuff like that. On that And it's interesting you say that, like it's because we don't have the culture of Asian culture in US, like that's the culture is a big part of it.
And so yeah, I was picked on for being especially in.
Newcastle where there wasn't a lot of it's surround You go visit Sydney and I swear that was the first time my mum lost me because it's like everywhere you're surrounded by the invasion of the Asians, Like wow, it was such an eye opening finger in a Chinatown as a young kid going.
Wow, wow, what is this?
Yeah, especially from Newcastle, you'd have been like, dude, oh my god.
Yeah.
I always found that weird to sort of have parts of an Asian identity ascribed to me but internally not really resonating with a lot of them, and like reconciling that somehow, Like I remember being at Pains when I was younger to not be friends only with Asian people, so people didn't assume that I was your typical Asian kid. I don't know why I cared about that, but like I was like, no, I'm like a Wasian, Like I really wasn't to prove that I was for some reason. I don't know why.
Yeah, in people's minds here and when I grew up, it was I think now reflecting back, maybe everyone generalizes in stereotypes and they have a certain attitude toward people who look a certain way based on what they've been given and to believe through their society and upbringing. So I definitely think they're confused too, as much as anyone. But as a young kid, you're just vulnerable because you're not taught how to defend yourself or what to say
and what the rules engagement are. But now I do, and I wish I could go back and jackie chan them all on the head.
That's it. The thing we were talking about. I can't remember who were recording or not yet, maybe we were was that, like the weird thing is that you get a lot of the like the benefits of having an Asian heritage without really feeling like you had to earn them, Like my skin, I don't have botox yet, and I'm like, I'm thirty three. I'm pretty happy with that, right.
Yeah, we look good.
We good like we have no like hardly any body hair. We're like, are you good at maths?
I'm pretty good at maths?
Like, pretty good at maths.
You know.
There's all these things that like do come with a coup from your like ethnic heritage that I'm like, I've got good hair, got good nails, pretty good skin Like, I'm pretty happy with that.
Yeah, and your work ethic, do you think that's a innate or nature nurture with your work ethic?
Yeah, that's a really good question. I have always been fascinated by what's nature and what's nurture. I never had I don't know if you did. But my parents are so not tiger parents. They were so not like making me do tutoring or making me choose particular subjects, Like I just never had pressure to be anyone other than who I was just developing into. And they were so
supportive of the arts. I was a ballerina when I was younger, and I think they show me a very good work ethic, so I think they contributed to it. But I also think I was kind of born like crazy, like I need to do eight hundred things at a time. So I don't know. I think maybe it's both. It's weird. It's weird that we have to ask ourselves that all
the time. So now that you've got to the stage of having your own biological children, as we started with, it's this fascinating experience of having a blood relative for the first time. What has that been like, and especially not having any medical information about fertility or you know that. I think the medical information is like a big gap where maybe I would like to sort of have a little bit more information.
I'm so glad you raise that, because I could be a walking time bomb. I mean, I don't know about you, but I haven't I've been a typical Aussie bloke, I think in the sense I haven't checked myself for a lot of my of any signs of because I'm not sick on the outside at all.
I don't have any.
Symptoms, but I don't know if I've got yeah A three background problems and things like that. So that's a big part of the mystery of Matt And probably a big mystery of being Sarah is we get delt a hand of cards. Biologically, I don't know if.
They're good or not.
But my kids, yeah, it's it's interesting. Yeah, my sticky back for my daughters. There's really small observations. But I'm a really easy I wake up early in the morning very easily, and I could just talk talk talk, and at night I can go to bed really late. And I've always been like that as a person. And my my leg always moves like I'm always moving something.
And my mum always used.
To get really annoyed at me, saying you've got a d D or something something like you need to go to the bathroom, like what you're talking about.
And there's legs is moving, and my.
One of my daughters has that, and it's I can see, I can just see these weird things come.
Through like that.
That is so magical.
My wife can't wake up early to save herself, really like she's so so so struggles not a morning person.
And one of my daughters is like that.
So it's very small, small, small observation that I'm seeing little things come through as I get older, which freaked me.
Out do they ask about the Korean side, like, do they ever get curious about Korean culture and heritage in a way that you're like, I got no answers, dude.
I know not at the moment. My oldest is six and my youngest is three.
My six year old does know about me being adopted because their grandparents are white.
So they're like, yeah, she's already smart enough to be like, it's a.
Math, it doesn't make the equation, it doesn't make sense.
She gets sad about it. She's like, oh, I said, your birth mom passed you over as a baby to your mom and dad. Oh, your little baby. And she's sympathetic and empathetic already.
Toward that, which makes her love her daddy even more, which show definitely will have that my sleep as a card one day.
Just remember your daddy.
That is so special. I can't even imagine the next generation of like them not actually being adopted, so not having that oh wow, like innate understanding, but then still having to explain to them very young what it means and why yeah, their parents looks different to their grandparent, Like it's so interesting.
Oh my god. Yeah, the family generation line, the timeline tree, it changes that it was all white for the Pursels, and then these Asians came in, like these adopted Korea, and then Taiwanese people came in, and then all of a sudden, the Percell family tree started looking half Asian and Corduasian. And there's Asian genetics coming through the Percel line now, and say.
For you cool, Oh my gosh, that's so fascinating. I could literally talk to you about this all day. I feel like we need to have a catch up, if not volume one, two and three of this episode. But I'm aware I've already taken an hour of your time, So before we wrap up, can you just quickly tell us? And thank you so much for sharing so openly, but can you just quickly tell us what you've gone on to do? I mean, I'm sure like a million things, but I want to hear all about the amazing like
where we can follow you now? You do these amazing, amazing talks. You've worked with some fascinating people. You do a bit of everything. So what is Matt now?
Matt's just a dad?
Who is I've never you know Matt now? Is he used to be like too many things, to too many industries and now he's I've always been an entrepreneur by spirit, and I mean that by a share quick story. When I was in year eight, my school said we've got to get a boy's care. It's going to cost one hundred and twenty bucks. I'm like, great, I'm excited. We got to pitch tents, we're going to learn how to make a fire, We're going to roll the teachers down the hilly.
So I took the note to my mom said, listen, hundred twenty bucks, we're going in two weeks. He's like, I can't afford it. I'm like, a under twenty buck, you series pay it. So I don't have any money, and I've got to borrow it from your dad. I'm not going to borrow it from your uncle. I'm like, oh no, whatever, Lord, I don't have any money to pay you. So I'm like thinking, how the hell can
I make this happen? So I went to the school principal and asked the receptionist, can I meet with the principal? What for? What did you do this time? I just want to talk about this camp. And I asked for a payment plan for my principal stop yeah, and then she and then he called my mom.
He said, let's have a meeting. He said, Matt's raised an interesting point. If you can't afford to go to camp, if Matt washes the science blocks windows for the week, we'll send him to camp. I said, do you give me the backing and sponge and I'll do it. So I worked my way to the year eight camp. But I made it freaking happen.
So I've always been like that, if I want something, tell me costs too much, or find a way.
And so that's led me to music and help kids around Australia for twelve years speaking about my story and now and then I'd marketed that whole time since the Dawn on MySpace and.
Og that shows ah.
And I think my superpower is is I've been able to transfer whatever I've learned from anything I've got good at into everything I can.
So many people they learn a skill, say like guitar or something, and they just go, that's it. That's just for guitar. But I'm able to go.
Na practicing or the pattern recognition from that can apply to making videos or campaigns and standing out.
So I had to really hustle my whole life to get a good gig.
And now I'm working with some really cool people, like some brands and people that I had seen on TV or had had on my wall. Even go oh man, one day, I'd love to meet that person. And it's incredible to be a whisperer in the ease of kings and queens. That's my type of thing. Now. I just advise a lot of key people and brands where they should go and how to position themselves so they can be the best they can. And that's what I'm doing now do my creative agency and a whole bunch of
companies that I'm involved with. So I'd never thought I'd be a business person. I thought I just was a creative person. But you can't just be an artist. And it's really hard to be an artist without making it into a living and living from being an artist. So I had to apply that year eight Matt to the art and be like, yes, and that's got me a really great life.
Oh that's amazing. Where can we find out more? If people want to follow you and learn about your business, well you.
Can hit to I want you to spree now.
Just follow me on Instagram Matt Percel Official. I call it official because someone stole Matt percell. They had my account one time, and I'm like, had to make it official something different. So Matt personl official and Matpurso dot com and my creative agencies mentored Media.
So that's the creative agencies that we help people with.
Amazing and very last question for you. You've already shared an incredible one, so you're allowed to use it again. What's your favorite quote?
I think the two quotes, I'll say one is from one thing used ten thousand times. So from one thing, use ten thousand times.
So if you've learned one skill, find how you can use that and transfer that too ten thousand other uses usages. Another quote is whether if you're fourteen or ninety years old, you'll never be this young again.
I love that one. That's so true. Oh thank you so much for this chat. This was so interesting and enjoyable, and we have to smash some plates again in real life soon.
Yeah. Maybe we can just go to my kitchen or your kitchen or.
My kitchen either. Either works amazing. Bring your kids they can help.
I definitely love it.
Was that was so I thought so wrongdoing it, but so do you know, I'm a psycho though what are we doing.
That's why we get along so well. I mean psychost tonight. Thank you so much, Matt, Thanks Sierah. Oh my gosh, this was just so special. I really reflect to this level and being adopted. But when you're chatting with someone in the same position, you can just explore so much more about the experience. I hope you guys enjoyed it and found it interesting, and as I said, if you have any other questions, I'm super open about it, so
please feel free to ask. Just send a DM or an email as usual as I always ask of you, beautiful neighborhood. I would love you to shower him out with love and thank him for his time and openness, tagging at Matt Purcell Official and the show so we can keep growing the neighborhood as far and wide as possible. And of course I never ask often enough. I always forget,
and I forget to do it for other shows. But if you have been listening and enjoy what you hear, pretty please leave us a rating and a review wherever you get your podcasts. I hope you're having an amazing week and are seizing your yay