Thanks to a map he drew from memory, a Chinese man was able to find his mother after more than 30 years since his abduction. Li Jingui was four years old when someone lured him away from his family home and sold him to a child trafficking gang. On December 24, he posted a hand-drawn map on the video-sharing app known in China as "Douyin." The police compared the drawing he posted with a small village where a woman had reported her son missing over 30 years ago. After conducting DNA tests, mother and son were reunited in Yunnan province in southwestern China this past Saturday.
A video captured the moments of their meeting, showing how Jingui gently reached out to remove the mask from his mother's face to recognize her, before bursting into tears and falling into her embrace. Just before this meeting, Jingui wrote on his Douyin page: "33 years of waiting, countless nights of longing, and finally a hand-drawn map from memory. It is the right moment to post after 13 days." He added, "I thank everyone who helped me return to my family."
Jingui was abducted in an area near the city of Chao-tong in 1989 before being sold to a family living 1,800 kilometers away. He lived in Guangdong Province in southern China. After failing to identify his family by asking the family with whom he lived, and being unable to find anything through DNA databases, Jingui decided to turn to the internet. In a video that was shared thousands of times, he said: "I am a child looking for my family. A bald neighbor took me to Henan Province in 1989 when I was about four years old." He added on Douyin: "This is a map of my village, which I drew from memory." The map features landmarks including what resembles a school, a bamboo forest, and a small pond.
Child abduction is not uncommon in China, where many children are abducted at a young age and sold to other families. Statistics from 2015 indicated that about 20,000 children are kidnapped each year in China. In 2021, many examples were recorded of young people reuniting with their parents after long absences. Last July, Guo Gangtang was reunited with his son after 24 years of his abduction in Shandong Province in eastern China.
