A Chinese man has been shocked to learn that the father he reunited with 16 years ago is not his biological dad but a foster parent. - Photo: SCMP composite/Douyin
BEIJING: A Chinese man has been shocked to learn that the “birth father” he reunited with 16 years ago was a fake and had lied about his identity.
Wang Gang, 41, who never met his birth parents, grew up in seven foster families, and began earning his own money at 13.
In 2008, at the age of 25, Wang decided to search for his family. He tracked down a foster family in eastern China’s Shandong province, who introduced another foster father surnamed Hou.
Hou told Wang that he was actually his illegitimate son in front of a room of reporters, and showed him a photo of him when he was three.
They happily reunited, but when Wang took Hou to the hospital for a check-up last December, he did a DNA kinship test for the first time in 16 years, and discovered the shocking truth that Hou was not his birth father.
Wang said he asked Hou to do the test since they reunited, but Hou kept turning him down saying it was too much trouble to go to the DNA testing centre in another city.
Wang said he swallowed his doubts as they both had Type B blood, and he did not want to destroy the hard-earned family reunion.
Wang said he was confused why Hou lied to him.
Their relationship had been harmonious over the past 16 years. Wang, who lived in central China’s Henan province, visited Hou from time to time. Hou did not ask him for money, and even gave his child lucky money during the Lunar New Year.
When Wang asked Hou why he faked his identity, Hou first hung up on him, then told Wang he did so thinking Wang was “poor without parents”, when he confronted him face to face.
Wang said he did not buy Hou’s excuse. He planned to restart the search of his birth family, and considered asking the police to investigate if Hou was involved in human trafficking.
Wang said he suspected Hou might have pretended to be his family to prevent him from tracking down the traffickers.
Mainland social media observers lambasted Hou for wasting 16 years of Wang’s life.
“His chance of finding his birth family became much less than 16 years ago,” one said.
Another suspected that Hou wanted to have a child to support him when he gets older.
China has been enhancing its efforts to combat human trafficking and help families reunite with their stolen or lost members in recent years.
Many parents who had been searching for their stolen children for over a decade, such as Sun Haiyang and Guo Gangtang, successfully reunited with their children in 2021.
That is the year mainland police launched the Campaign Reunite dedicated to searching for missing and abducted children.
According to people.com.cn, the number of people prosecuted for human trafficking by agencies nationwide decreased from 14,000 in 2000 to 1,100 in 2021.
According to the top procuratorate, of the 3,152 people charged with human trafficking in 2021 and 2022, 31 per cent were old cases dating before 2016. - South China Morning Post
