Birth-parent bonanza: China abductee, 25, snatched as newborn reunites with rich parents, given 3 flats, car at emotional homecoming
- Man stolen, sold as three-month-old after being left alone in unlocked shop
- Birth family celebrates reunion by showering gifts on lost son
A 25-year-old man in China who recently found out he was abducted and adopted at three months old – and his birth parents were multimillionaires – has triggered a heated discussion on mainland social media.
Xie Qingshuai, 25, was shocked when the police told him his birth parents were the wealthy owners of several construction companies in northern China’s Hebei province.
After his adoptive father died when he was little, his adoptive mother remarried and left the family, after which Xie was raised by his adoptive grandparents.
On January 20, 1999, three-month-old Xie was abducted when his mother left him alone in her grocery shop. She thought she would only be gone for 10 minutes and left the front door unlocked.
He was abducted and it was 25 years before she would see her son again.
At a grand reunion ceremony held in his hometown on December 1, his birth father Xie Kefeng said the family had prepared three apartments for the long-lost son, and would buy him a new car the next day.
Xie senior also took him to his company, where hundreds of employees were waiting to greet the son of their boss.
Xie junior was working at an interior design company in Sichuan province, southwestern China, more than 1,000 kilometres away, when he was found.
His father said he planned to teach the younger Xie sales and let him run a family company with his older brother. He would also support him if he wanted to start his own business.
Online observers were happy about the reunion, with some joking they were going to check if they were their parents’ birth child in case their real parents were rich.
Many other parents work hard to find their abducted children and struggle to create better financial conditions which they use as a “bargaining chip” to make the children more willing to return to them.
In February, Chinese media outlet Jiupai News reported that Mei Zhiqiang, 27, returned to his multimillionaire birth family from his billionaire adoptive family, who treated him badly after buying him from human traffickers because “money can’t buy happiness”.
On December 3, another father who has been searching for his son, who was abducted 22 years ago, said he had worked hard to possess six apartments and four companies, in a desperate bid to encourage more people to provide DNA data for the police to make a match.
Xie junior said his adoptive grandparents had treated him even better than their birth grandchildren.
He had not told them about his return to his birth family fearing the news might break their hearts, but he promised to continue looking after them.
