A Boy Who Lost Everything, but Never Forgot the View of Home
Since childhood, Li Jingwei didn’t know his real name, where he was born, or even his exact age. But last month, after more than 30 years of searching, he finally found his biological family, thanks to a hand-drawn map he had memorized as a child.
Li was a victim of child trafficking. In 1989, at just 4 years old, a bald neighbor lured him away by promising to show him cars, rare in rural China at that time. That day was the last time he saw his home.
Abducted and Sold to Another Province
Li remembers being taken behind a hill to a road where bicycles and kidnappers waited. He cried and resisted, but they put him on a bike and rode off.
“I wanted to go home but they didn’t allow that”, Li said. “Two hours later, I knew I wouldn’t be going back home and I must have met bad people.”
He was eventually transported by train and sold to a family in Henan province.
At age 4, with no schooling and little knowledge, he couldn’t remember names or specific details. But he never forgot the landscape of the place he once called home.
A Map That Kept His Memory Alive
Li Jingwei grew up remembering mountains, a bamboo forest, a pond, and the surroundings of his village in Zhaotong, Yunnan province.
After his abduction, he drew maps every day until he was 13. Before he could write, he drew on the ground. After starting school, he filled notebooks with sketches. It became an obsession, his way of holding on.
More than 30 years later, that map would change everything.
Inspired by Other Reunions, Li Jingwei Began Searching Again
Recent high-profile reunions in China motivated him:
- A father reuniting with his son after 24 years
- Another family reunited after 14 years
- A 2020 reunion after 32 years
- A daughter found in 2018 after 24 years
Li Jingwei decided it was time.
He spoke with his adoptive parents and tried DNA databases, but nothing came up.
Then volunteers encouraged him to post a video on Douyin (TikTok China) showing the map he remembered so vividly. It took him just 10 minutes to redraw something he had drawn thousands of times. That video went viral.
A Hand-Drawn Map That Found a Village
Police had already narrowed possible locations based on his DNA. His map helped villagers recognize a specific family in Yunnan.
Li spoke to his biological mother for the first time over the phone. She asked him about a scar on his chin—one she remembered from his childhood.
“When she mentioned the scar, I knew it was her”, he said.
DNA testing confirmed it.
A Reunion After More Than 30 Years
On New Year’s Day, Li Jingwei saw his mother for the first time since 1989.
Overwhelmed, he fell to the ground before being helped up by his younger siblings. Then he finally embraced his mother – a moment more than three decades in the making.
Li grew emotional talking about his father, who passed away before the reunion. Now a father himself, he plans to visit his father’s grave with his entire reunited family during Lunar New Year.
“It’s going to be a real big reunion”, he said. “I want to tell him that his son is back.”
