Through the tireless work of Chinese volunteer workers, a Hong Kong man believed to be missing for 11 years has been reunited with his family after he was found sleeping on the street in the mainland.
A volunteer at the NGO “Return Love Home”, surnamed Cheung, told Oriental Daily that he met Chan Chi-kin on the streets of Guangdong in January, at which point the man had been homeless for about 10 years, disliked human interaction, and scavenged for food in rubbish bins.
On the other hand, Cheung said Chan was “eloquent and polite”, but only wanted to communicate with volunteers via written messages, rather than speech.
Over time, Chan began to trust Cheung and eventually gave the volunteer worker his full name, ID card number, and other personal information, leading Cheung to discover that the street sleeper was in fact a long-lost Hong Kong businessman.
Finally, late last month, the volunteer workers got in touch with Chan’s family and confirmed his identity through a video call. “They were all very moved, and everyone was crying,” Cheung said, as quoted by HK01. “His wife said, ‘the children are all grown up, where did you go?’ and Mr. Chan kept crying, and had nothing to say.”
Following confirmation of Chan’s citizenship from the Immigration Department, the volunteer workers brought Chan back to his sisters’ apartment in Wan Chai last Thursday (August 3).
Chan’s wife, surnamed Yeung, told Oriental Daily that she and her husband had been married since 1991 and had two sons together. Yeung said Chan was a successful e-commerce business owner and frequently traveled between Shenzhen and Hong Kong for work. However, he went missing on their eldest son’s birthday in 2006 and hadn’t been heard from since.
Yeung said she spent “years” searching for Chan, but gave up after he failed to appear at his mother’s funeral in 2010. She and her two sons then moved to Kunming, in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. “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,” Yeung said.
