I found myself still being fascinated by this story published 5 days ago in NYTimes. It read like this: “Guo Gangtang’s cross-country, decades-long search for his son inspired a movie. Now, there’s an ending fit for Hollywood.”
“For nearly 24 years, the father crossed China by motorbike. With banners displaying photos of a 2-year-old boy flying from the back of his bike, he traveled more than 300,000 miles, all in pursuit of one goal: finding his kidnapped son.
This week, Guo Gangtang’s search finally ended. He and his wife were reunited with their son, now 26, after the police matched their DNA, according to China’s public security ministry.”
While many American readers are moved by this miracle story and cheered good heartily for the happy ending, I’ve been mildly bothered by a few details. My curiosity took the better of me for the last couple of days on this story.
First and foremost, why did the Guo family not have another “replacement” son or daughter, as the Chinese government’s one-child policy would allow since this kidnapping incident was becoming so public and legit a case 24 years ago?
Ever since China introduced the one-child policy back in 1979, there had been quite some Hollywood-worth schemes invented by the desperate families who needed or wanted more than one child in their families. Among them, even I myself had witnessed one or two tales beyond extraordinary. I wish one day someone would come up with a book to document down these cases.
Most of them played with the few exceptions policies. Losing a child through kidnapping was definitely one of the most legit reasons to obtain the “quota” and party “approval” to raise a “replacement” only child.
Secondly, how did the Chinese public security ministry obtain the lost son’s DNA since he is a regular citizen, a school teacher without any criminal record? He was the only child of a couple far away. The public security ministry should not be able to use any of his (potentially with a criminal record) relatives’ DNA to narrow down his whereabouts. He himself was totally not aware of his kidnap story, and the story did not mention that he himself volunteered his DNA for finding his roots.
I am inquisitive about how thorough and how quickly the Chinese public security ministry has built the database on the Chinese citizens’ (and possibly visiting foreigners) DNA info at this very moment. Maybe already 90%, perhaps need to thanks for the COVID-19 pandemic. And how the lack of such info at the national scale in the rest of the world would play out with advantages or disadvantages of various economic, natural disasters, or ideology-related competitions for the decades to come.
Lastly, and this is something I am holding a strong personal opinion is the Hollywood-like finale of the quest.
Why would the parents go a very public way (internationally in the end) to tell their stolen son, after 24 years of absence, that he was kidnapped and they were his real biologic parents who never gave up the hope to find him? And worse, his current seemly very loving and caring parents for 26 years (in his own eyes) were the accomplices of the kidnapping because they “purchased” him from the underground human trafficking ring.
I understand that the government wants to send a strong message to the public through this happy ending: now we got you! Human trafficking of toddlers (almost always boys) and young women (capable of bearing babies) had been a by-product of the one-child policy for the last couple of decades. The cases have been more than the government would want to admit. Now armed with this national citizen's DNA database, this long-lasting headache will soon be gone.
It doesn’t hurt to showcase the iron fists once through this finale.
But, imaging the mental crushing on the young 26 years old Mr. Guo and the long psychological damage of his parent-child relationship, and the forced new love/hate he needs to prepare himself for his now four parents. The forced love for his biological parent would become even more demanding as the Chinese public, particularly those holding high traditional moral ground, would expect him to do so and judge him for the rest of his life.
If I were the senior Guos, and if no Chinese national security ministry interfered, I would have chosen to walk away when I was told with 100% certainty the lost son was found.
I might become a life-long stalker of the lost and found son, but I would never reach out to him to disturb his life.
As for the adopted (kidnapping) parents, if I were the passive-aggressive Hollywood vengeful type, I might arrange a private meet-up with the parents to thank them for raising my lost son to a decent adult and insisted on keeping the meeting private and never to be leaked to the young Mr. Guo ever.
That would be my way to show my deepest love and the 24-year-in-brewing anger.
Maybe I should not do the secret meet-up type and choose to forgive.
On the other hand, according to my observation, the will and capability of forgiving other people’s sins, in the far east cultures, is not deemed as holy and pristine as in Christianity of the western world.
No wonder I found this piece of news so intriguing.
