24 Years Later, Found at Last

Guo was reunited with his son 24 years after searching for him

Guo Gangtang finally found his son after searching for him for 24 years. They along with Guo's wife had a tearful reunion in Liaocheng, Shandong province on Sunday after DNA samples confirmed the 26-year-old man was Guo Xinzhen. 

The child was only two years and five months old when he was abducted outside his home in a village in Liaocheng on September 21, 1997.

Guo distributed flyers with photos of his son

The shock of losing the boy resulted in Guo Gangtang losing weight from 80kg to 60kg and his hair turned white in the first month of the abduction.

He then went on a mission to find his son, printing pictures of him and basic information about the boy on leaflets he distributed, hoping to find clues of his whereabouts.

Guo also made banners of the boy's photo and information and put them on his motorcycle that he rode all over the mainland -- some 500,000km -- and wearing out 10 motorcycles -- in the hopes of finding his son.

"Only on the road, I felt I am a father," he told a Shandong-based newspaper in 2015. "I have no reason to stop [searching]. And it's impossible for me to stop."

Andy Lau played Guo in Lost and Love

His plight inspired the movie Lost and Love starring Andy Lau Tak-wah that year, and Lau waived his fees to play the part of Guo.

The film featured many incidents he faced, from road accidents, battling highway robbers, and sleeping near bridge pillars when he ran out of money for accommodation.

"Many people say I am a great father. But I am not great at all," said Guo. "I am helpless. I just lack the courage to restart life after experiencing tremendous hardship. Therefore I kept on searching."

A few years ago he set up a website to help other parents find their missing children. This led to the police finding over 100 abducted children. 

Apparently the couple that abducted Guo Xinzhen have been arrested.

The family is reunited but what are the next steps?

While this story is heartwarming, it is interesting to note this story came out today -- the fourth anniversary of Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo's death. 

He died in 2017 of complications from liver cancer in a Shenyang hospital in Liaoning province and was carefully by state security.

The last time a Nobel Peace laureate died in state custody was in 1938, when pacifist Carl von Ossietzky died of tuberculosis under guard in a hospital in Nazi Germany.

Democracy Activist Claims Being Abducted

Howard Lam shows the signed postcard apparently from Lionel Messi

There are questions around the Democratic Party's Howard Lam Tsz-kin's claims that he was abducted by mainland Chinese agents and beaten up, had his thighs punctured with staples, then left in his underwear on a beach.

That's what he said this afternoon in a press conference -- even revealed the staples still in his thighs.

Staples in Lam's thighs were still there for the media to see

Lam claims that footballer Lionel Messi had given him a signed postcard to give to Liu Xia, the wife of the late Liu Xiaobo, and because of this, mainland agents threw him into a van in Portland Street soon after he bought some football jerseys.

During the press conference, Lam said he hadn't gone to the police because he didn't trust them, but after meeting the media he would go to the hospital to get checked out.

The Hong Kong police is obviously concerned and has launched an investigation into this bizarre-sounding incident, and has said that if anyone experiences an incident, they should report it to the authorities as soon as possible so that the culprits won't destroy evidence or get away.

Which is why we wonder if Lam's claims are real or fabricated. For someone who was apparently roughed up, there aren't many serious bruises on his body, and why keep those staples in his thighs for so long? Why not take a picture and then go to the hospital to get treated?

Lam went to the hospital after his press conference

If he really was abducted, these guys were really low level ones to think of stapling his thighs.

However, if this is a hoax, then why go through all this trouble? Why is he seeking this kind of attention?

When I first read the story I was quite shocked, but now the more I think about it, the more questions I have about Lam's motivations.

We'll have to see what happens in the coming days -- does his claim fall flat, or are there some mainland abductors who are staple-gun crazy?

Home At Last

Zheng Fayan (right) reunited with her mother after 18 years

I just read a tragic story from Chongqing.

A woman has been reunited with her family 18 years after she was abducted.

Zheng Fayan was welcomed back to her village in Chongqing last Monday. The last time she saw her family was when she was 16.

However, she was unable to see her father -- he passed away in 2009.

Like many other rural residents in the 1990s, Zheng went to Guangdong province to get a factory job. There she met a woman who took her to a remote village in Chaozhou the following year.

There the woman sold her to a man surnamed Chen, who was about 40 at the time. "I the first few months, I was chained to the door," Zheng said, adding Chen feared she would flee.

In 1998 she gave birth to her first child with Chen and went on to have four more.

Zheng said she tried to send letters to her family back home, but they were all returned.

Finally a chance to escape came when Chen, who was too old to work, sent her to a factory in Dongguan, in Guangdong.

There she met Zhang Dajun, also from Chongqing who helped her get back to her home in Wuxi county.

"In these 18 years, I imagined countless times meeting my family. Today I can finally see my mother and brother," Zheng said after arriving home.

County police have launched an investigation into her abduction, but the chances of finding that woman again are few and far between. They will probably find Chen with the children, and then what? Charge him with abduction and violating the one-child policy?

And how does she feel about leaving behind her five children? Does she have any affection for them despite having them with a man she did not love?

The fact that abductions like this still happens in China shows how people in the cities continue to take advantage of those from the countryside, exploiting them for their own gain.

The government has to stop these abductions and severely punish those who enable this heinous crime.

Zheng is not alone. There are thousands, probably tens of thousands of cases like hers. Even more heartbreaking are babies and children who are abducted and have no idea what their names are, let alone their parents' identities, and where they are from. Finding these children are near impossible.

Hopefully Zheng will make up for lost time with her family and try to piece her life back together again. What happened to her will be a lesson to others in the perils of being too trusting...

A Sad Ending

The picture of the six-month-old baby that was released to the public

Several days ago on November 23 Hong Kong people were worried about the abduction of a six-month old baby in Kowloon City.

The mother claimed she was giving directions to a middle-aged woman with a mainland accent how to get to Wong Tai Sin MTR station when a man hurried past and apparently took the child. She said she continued for a while before she realized the baby was gone.

In the CCTV footage from the entrance to San Po Kong Mansion, about 45 minutes before the "abduction", there's a woman pushing a stroller, but the cover is down even though it is night time.

Also, there was no footage of the child from the surveillance cameras in the previous few days.

However last night the mother was arrested for illegal burial of a body.

The Hong Kong media was all over the abduction story

The mother allegedly told the authorities that she found the baby dead in her home, possibly from suffocation. She apparently disposed of the body in a violin case and then put it in the rubbish bin.

Not knowing how to tell the baby's father (who is already married and has three children), the mother then allegedly made up the story the child was abducted...

Tomorrow there are plans for the police to take on the grisly task of finding the child's body that was dumped in the massive Tsueng Kwan O landfill site. Not only do they have to figure out where exactly it was dumped, but also if it is a possible safety hazard for investigators to search the area.

More will be revealed about what exactly happened in the coming days, but the story has such a sad ending for everyone involved.