This morning, in the conference room of the Shanghai Jiading Public Security Bureau, 59-year-old Wang Jinhu met 80-year-old Qin Zhenying. After nearly 60 years of separation, he can finally shout "Mom" to his biological mother.
Wang Jinhu was one of tens of thousands of abandoned babies sent to the north during the "three years of natural disasters". In the first half of his life, he reconciled with himself, and in the second half of his life, he worked hard to find relatives, and in the past 13 years, Wang Jinhu has gone south to Shanghai no less than ten times, but each time he has returned disappointed.
The regrets left by the difficult years, today, finally have a happy ending.
Pictured: Wang Jinhu (left), who has been separated for 57 years, reunites with his mother and brother at the Jiading Public Security Bureau. Xinmin Evening News reporter Zhang Long photographed (the same below)
Scars on the ears
There were two wounds on Wang Jinhu's ear pinna, which remained faintly white after many years of healing. It was cut with scissors.
When he was 6 years old, Wang Jinhu, who lived in Luoyang, learned the biggest secret of his life: he was an adopted son. At that time, his mother took him out, and someone asked, "Is this the Shanghai baby you raised?" Mom replied, "Yeah. Wang Jinhu seemed ignorant on the side, but he listened to everything in his heart.
He felt uncomfortable and wanted to find the answer to all this, but because he was too young, there was nothing he could do. Since then, the grief of being abandoned by loved ones has remained with me. It wasn't until he was 13 that he finally learned the meaning of those two scars on his ears.
He saw in the book that the scars on the ears or the scars on the body were originally marks made by farmers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai on their livestock. During the "three years of natural disasters", there was a great famine in Jiangnan, and many children were tearfully abandoned by their parents. After the welfare home adopted these children, they were sent to the north in batches to find a solid family for adoption. These children are also known as the "children of the nation."
At that time, when some parents made helpless choices, they also held up a glimmer of hope and left a mark as a marker for future relatives.
From growing up to getting married and having children, Wang Jinhu has always kept his secrets, and even his wife has not revealed it. It wasn't until one summer night in 1990 that he dreamed of his relatives in Shanghai, who, though their faces were vague, were calling his name.
The next day, he bought a train ticket to Shanghai. At that time, he had no clue, just guessed that the conditions at home were not good, heard that the development of Zhabei District was backward, he guarded Zhabei, and went around in circles on the Suzhou River every day, staring at one window after another, trying to find a face similar to his own. It's often a night of staring.
It is conceivable that all this will not bear fruit. The idea of looking for relatives was gradually hidden in the depths of memory. But the two scars on his ears that had been cut for recognition made Wang Jinhu unable to die.
In early April 2009, Wang Jinhu, who was already 46 years old, somehow talked about his own life in a small talk with his elders. Unexpectedly, it was this small talk that actually let him know his name before he was raised: "Mao Fan", and even learned that he was from Jiading, Shanghai.
The suppressed search for relatives in my heart burst forth again. During the May Day Golden Week that year, Wang Jinhu, who had about 18 fellow villagers who had similar experiences with him, once again embarked on a journey to Shanghai to find relatives.
At the Jiacheng police station of the Jiading branch, Wang Jinhu checked the household registration file and found "Mao Fan". The date on which the household registration was moved coincided with the time he knew to have moved to Luoyang, Henan. Among the companions, some people also found the original file that matched their household registration. At that time, a sense of joy that was getting closer and closer to the truth spread in the small search procession.
After several rushes and contacts, the family search group held a "family recognition rally" at the Jiading Fucheng Experimental Primary School with the help of the police station. But there are not many families who come to look for their separated relatives, only two families have identified photos of their childhood, and some vague memories, and vaguely feel that two people may be children who were adopted at that time.
But in the end, the DNA comparison was unsuccessful, so the family search team returned to Luoyang with regrets. The crowd did not give up, and Wang Jinhu continued to cheer up his companions. The following year, during the "May Day" Golden Week, they gathered again and came to this former hometown. Then the third year, the fourth year... This family search trip lasted for 13 years, and the number of people slowly expanded from the initial 18 to more than 300 people. Wang Jinhu, the initiator of that year, also became the leader of the search for relatives.
Pictured: Wang Jinhu (left) reunites with his mother and brother and bows to public security officers, volunteers, and the news media.
Late reunion
From 2009 to 2021, in the spring and autumn of 12 years, Wang Jinhu has helped more than 10 long-lost families to reunite.
Looking at one child after another who has left home thousands of miles and returned to the arms of his parents, Wang Jinhu is not only happy, but also has a trace of inexplicable and inexplicable loss. After all, when he first set foot on the strange homeland of Jiading, he already knew his childhood name and knew that his roots were here. But after 12 years of running, it is always difficult to find relatives, what a pity.
Just when Wang Jinhu thought that he would spend the year again in loss and waiting, a phone call from the Jiading Public Security Bureau made his calm heart wave again.
On the evening of December 23, Wang Jinhu was having dinner with his wife when Wang Xiang, a police officer from the Jiading Public Security Bureau who had been in contact with him, suddenly called. From picking up the mobile phone to the "beep" sound after hanging up in the earpiece, Wang Jinhu has been stupidly maintaining the answering action, but in his mind is an uproar, and The sentence of Officer Wang has always been echoing: "Tell you a good news, we may have found your relatives, and this time the possibility is very large!" ”
Unspeakable anticipation and anxiety began to fill the phone from the moment I put down my phone. In those days, Wang Jinhu's heart has always been unable to calm down, and has been churning and fluctuating in various emotions.
On December 26, Wang Jinhu's WeChat suddenly received a friend application, and the other Party's WeChat name was "Juanzi". At first, he thought it was someone who came to the search group for help, but he did not expect that just after passing the application, the other party called the video phone. After the connection, the people at both ends of the screen looked at each other and were speechless for a long time.
When the silence was broken, the other party asked a question that Wang Jinhu had been waiting for for many years: "Are you my brother?" The wife next to her noticed something strange, leaned over to look at it, and was stunned when she saw it. Because with just one glance, she was sure that the woman in the picture must be the relatives that her husband had been looking for for many years, and that eyebrow and look were exactly the same as Wang Jinhu's daughter!
Yes, this "Juanzi" is Wang Jinhu's sister.
It turned out that in June this year, with the assistance of the Jiading police, Wang Jinhu's biological samples were successively sent to large and small cities in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai for comparison. On December 23, an old uncle in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, was selected, but after further investigation, the old uncle was not Wang Jinhu's immediate family, but his paternal relatives, who should be cousins according to generations.
Crucially, the cousin provided an important clue: the cousin's family, who had sent away the child, had been living in the Jiading Huating area for a long time. According to this clue, the community police of the Jiading Huating police station quickly found the family of Mrs. Qin, who may be Wang Jinhu's family - when Wang Jinhu was young, the photo was taken to the local elderly to identify, and several people recognized it at a glance, which was the "Mao Fan" who was sent away that year.
The next day, the police of the Criminal Division of the Jiading Public Security Bureau drove to Mrs. Qin's house, collected biological sample information for the whole family, and began to analyze and compare without stopping. On December 29, preliminary results confirmed that Wang Jinhu was related to Mrs. Qin. On December 30th, the second re-examination, just like the same!
A period of family affection that has been submerged in the vast sea of people for nearly a year has finally continued at the beginning of the New Year.
Chief reporter of Xinmin Evening News Pan Gaofeng