At just four years old, Li Jingwei was kidnapped and taken from his family, setting off a 33-year journey to find his way back home. Now 37 and living in Guangdong Province, China, Li finally reunited with his birth mother, using nothing but a hand-drawn map of his childhood hometown and the power of social media, according to Vice.
Representative photo by Canva
A map drawn from memory sparks hope
The details of his early years were mostly lost to time. Li couldn’t recall his parents’ names or even the name of his village, but certain vivid images from his childhood stayed with him—from a nearby school to a bamboo grove and a small pond.
Unable to get information from his adoptive parents and facing dead ends with a national DNA database, he felt increasingly desperate. So, on Christmas Eve, he decided to share his story with the world.
Li posted a video on Douyin (China’s TikTok), showing his carefully sketched map of his old neighborhood. The pencil drawing included every landmark he could remember, hoping someone would recognize the place.
"I'm a child who's finding his home. I was taken to Henan by a bald neighbor around 1989, when I was about four years old," he said in the video.
An investigation brings answers at last
The video quickly went viral, drawing the attention of both local authorities and social media users. Soon, Li’s clues pointed to Zhaotong, a mountainous city in Yunnan, nearly 1,243 miles away from his current home in Lankao County, Henan Province.
Authorities uncovered that Li had likely been kidnapped and sold to a family desperate for a son. His story was just one of many in China, where a traditional preference for boys and the one-child policy had fueled a black market for abducted children.
Li wasn’t the only one. His story echoed that of Guo Gangtang, who spent 24 years traveling on a motorcycle across China searching for his son, as well as Sun Haiyang, who found his missing child after 14 years in January 2022.
Inspired by their reunions, Li decided it was time to take action.
"Seeing Sun Haiyang and Guo Gangtang successfully reunited with their families, I also hope to find my own birth parents, return home, and reunite with my family," he shared with local media.
A phone call changes everything
Before long, Li was put in touch with potential family members. When he spoke to a woman who might be his biological mother, she described a scar on his chin from when he had fallen off a ladder as a boy.
That tiny detail sealed the truth, and subsequent DNA tests confirmed their relationship.
On December 28, China's Public Security Ministry's Anti-Human Trafficking Office announced the good news on Douyin. Li and his mother would meet for the first time in 33 years on January 1.
Though his biological father had passed away, the upcoming reunion was a dream come true.
From tragedy to triumph: Li’s incredible journey
In the days leading up to the reunion, Li shared his gratitude on social media, expressing the emotional weight of his journey.
"Thirty-three years of waiting, countless nights of yearning, and finally a map hand-drawn from memory, this is the moment of perfect release after 13 days," he wrote on Douyin.
He also thanked everyone who had helped him, from social media users to local authorities, and everyone who had shared his story.
What began with a sketch on a piece of paper ended with a family reunion, proving that sometimes the smallest clues can lead to life-changing answers.
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