A Chinese woman takes a train and reunites with her family 37 years later
Jiang Ai-wu recently reunited with her parents, 37 years after becoming lost when she boarded the wrong train in Chenzhou, in Hunan province. A truly remarkable story!
Jiang Ai-wu recently reunited with her parents, 37 years after becoming lost when she boarded the wrong train in Chenzhou, in Hunan province. A truly remarkable story!
Jiang Ai-wu was just 6 years old in 1979 when she ran away from her home in central China. Tasked with buying meat for her family, the young girl unfortunately lost a small sum of money on her way back from the market. Frightened and fearing her parents' punishment, Jiang Ai-wu fled before eventually taking refuge in a coal train, where she fell asleep.
While she slept, the train left the station, marking the beginning of a tragic odyssey across eastern China… Wanting to return to Chenzhou but unable to provide her address, the young girl boarded train after train and moved through station after station, eventually ending up in Xuzhou, a city in the eastern province of Jiangsu, over 1,000 kilometers from her native village. "I always wanted to find my real family, I dreamed of it… But I was so young, I didn't know how to find them. I didn't even know our address." Meanwhile, Jiang Ai-wu had learned to live a normal life. She married and gave birth to a daughter, yet she never truly lost hope.
"Little by little, I had to focus on the life I had, but I never abandoned the hope that one day my mother and father would come find me."
Her desperate parents, for their part, never abandoned the search for their daughter. Her mother, Ju Yeh, notably declared: "She went out on a small errand but never came home. We were desperate. We went to the police, we searched the city, we went to all the train and bus stations, but we could never find her." Adding: "We never knew what happened, but deep down I never forgot my little girl and I prayed for her every evening."
It was only last week that Jiang Ai-wu finally managed to trace her parents, after nearly four decades apart from them. The reunion was made possible thanks to Ai-wu's daughter, Mei, who had contacted a missing persons website and spent nearly a year searching for her grandparents. Through its national network of informants, the organization was able to discover that Jiang's family had lived in a coal mining community in Hunan province during the 1970s. In the years following their daughter's disappearance, the parents moved north to Shanxi province. It was in this very place that they reunited last Thursday, for the first time in 37 years.
Ju Yeh, now 70 years old, declared: "I couldn't believe it when I received a call asking if I had a daughter who had gotten lost when she was young." Ai-wu added: "We have so much to catch up on - I now have a whole new extended family I need to get used to…" Beautiful.
Frequently asked questions
In 1979, Jiang Ai-wu was 6 years old and lived in Chenzhou, in Hunan province. After losing money at the market, frightened by her parents' potential reaction, she fled and took refuge in a coal train. Asleep when the train departed, she woke up far from home, unable to find her way back because she didn't know her address.
It was Jiang Ai-wu's daughter, named Mei, who contacted a website specialized in searching for missing persons. After nearly a year of searching, thanks to this organization's national network of informants, it was possible to trace Jiang Ai-wu's parents, who had meanwhile moved to Shanxi province.
The reunion took place in Shanxi province, in northern China, where Jiang Ai-wu's parents had settled in the years following their daughter's disappearance. It was their first meeting in 37 years.
Yes, there are organizations and websites in China specializing in the search for missing persons, particularly children. These platforms rely on national networks of informants and databases from local authorities to facilitate reunions. It was one of these organizations that enabled Jiang Ai-wu to reunite with her parents after 37 years of separation.
