"The children have all grown up. Where have you been?" asked the wife of a man missing for more than a decade when the couple was reunited last week, according to the Hong Kong Standard.
The man, named Chan Chi-kin, went missing 11 years ago, on March 11, 2006, in Guangdong.
Chan, 68, first reappeared in January in Dongguan. At the time he was homeless and foraging for food in garbage cans. Concerned citizens contacted a mainland-based NGO, who tracked the man down to the outskirts of a market on January 31.
According to the Hong Kong Standard report, Chan had a bloated stomach and appeared to be suffering from breathing difficulties. It was also speculated that he had had a stroke at some point, as the right side of his face drooped noticeably.
A volunteer surnamed Cheung told Oriental Daily that Chan was wary of human interaction and reluctant to speak, yet still “eloquent and polite."
Unable to get him to talk, the volunteers asked Chan to write down his personal details instead. He obliged, scribbling ‘Chan Chi-kin’ and December 1948, the month and year of his birth.
He also jotted down a Guangdong address located in Kaiping’s Chongmei village, although this turned up nothing.
In February, Chan managed to write a series of numbers that were later identified as his Hong Kong ID number. He also wrote that he used to live in Wan Chai and wanted to go home.
At this point the NGO, called Return Love Home, took him to their office, where he was showered, given a haircut and provided with new clothes.
The organization's volunteers took Chan to Shenzhen’s Luohu police station on July 30, where his fingerprints were recorded and sent to police in Hong Kong. Authorities in the Special Administrative Region were then able to confirm that Chan was an e-commerce businessman who had gone missing over a decade ago.
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On August 2, Chan was finally reunited with his wife, surnamed Yeung, via video call. Married in 1991, the couple has two sons together, although they were not present for the reunion.
Yeung said that although her husband’s appearance had changed, she could still recognize him. Understandably, there was no shortage of tears.
According to Oriental Daily, Yeung had searched for her husband for “years,” but gave up in 2010 after Chan failed to show up to his mother’s funeral.
“After all these years without a word from him, I thought he was no longer alive. I never thought he could be sleeping on the streets,” she told Oriental Daily. She and their two children currently reside in Kunming, Yunnan province.
Chan himself returned to Hong Kong last Thursday, August 3, with assistance from the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office.
Regrettably, his homecoming took a strange turn over the weekend when he briefly went missing again. Police found him unharmed but ID-less at Kwu Tung, near Lok Ma Chau.
Officers identified Chan by a piece of paper he was holding with his identification number on it. He was then brought to North District Hospital in Sheung Shui.
As of August 7, authorities were trying to reach Chan's wife.
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[Images via Oriental Daily]
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