Man is reunited with family after 49 years
Print Edition
JI Xinxian, who lives in central China’s Henan Province, was reunited with his mother and siblings on Chongming Island, Shanghai, yesterday afternoon.
Thanks to the efforts of volunteers from Henan and Shanghai, the 49-year-old was reconnected with his birth family who put him in an orphanage when he was a baby, as they were poor.
“Welcome home, dear son,” read a large homemade banner attached to a house in Shuxin Town where He Yaying, Ji’s 88-year-old mother lives.
Seeing his mother, Ji knelt down in front of her and cried. He, who is deaf, also cried.
Ji was then introduced to the rest of his family and, along with his wife, son and daughter-in-law, posed for a photograph with them in front of the house.
A DNA test in January confirmed Ji was He’s son, after He managed to trace Ji from historical archives at the Shanghai Children’s Orphanage where Ji was left when he was a baby.
“I heard from people when I was very young that I was adopted, and my whole life I have been longing to find my birth family,” Ji said.
Lu Weiguo, a businessman from Chongming, was one of the people who helped to reunite the family.
“When Lu told me he had been helping people born in Chongming to look for their parents, I said I hoped to find my younger brother because our late father once said that he would love to have him back in the family,” said Yang Xuezhong, Ji’s older brother.
Lu told Shanghai Daily that Ji is the first person he has managed to find.
“We have a few volunteers helping and are trying to tell more older people about what we are doing,” he said.
Brochures with information about 30 children given away by their families have been distributed in Chongming, and there are some Internet groups on the subject.
He Zhengjun, who does similar work in Henan, said about 3,000 people submitted their blood samples for DNA analysis at a testing center in Beijing. He said in Luoyang alone there are about 20,000 people who were born in Shanghai.
“We’re encouraging people to look at the archives at Shanghai Children’s Orphanage or Nanjing Children’s Orphanage,” he said.
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