The Story of a Chinese Woman Who Was Missing For a Decade
A weekly curated roundup of social, political and economic news from China.
In July, 47-year-old Jin Fang flew into Los Angeles to meet John Root Fitzpatrick, whom she had been corresponding with online for six months. They were supposed to tour Southern California together.
Now, her story has captivated mainland China after being broadcast on television. She is searching for her daughter, who she was forced to give up for adoption 40 years ago.
Xiao Yun
Xiao Yun (a pseudonym) ran away from home after arguing with her mom at age 14 and never came back. For 10 years, her parents assumed she was dead, even having her name removed from their family registry.
But a few years ago, Xiao Yun contacted her mother on WeChat, Tencent’s popular messaging app in China. After a lot of back and forth, the two were finally able to reunite over one weekend.
The 24-year-old woman told police that she spent the past decade living and playing video games in internet cafes, according to the South China Morning Post and Star Online. She would shower in public bath houses and work part time to earn money. But most of her days were spent playing the multiplayer shooter CrossFire.
When she finally reconnected with her mother, Xiao Yun vowed that she would never scold her again. However, despite her promise to stay out of trouble, the woman continued to get into trouble. Last year, Xiao Yun was arrested for illegally selling a fake ID card to other people in order to buy virtual goods in online games.
She was also convicted of possessing illegal drugs and was sentenced to four years in prison. During her time in jail, she met Lou Zheng, who was one of the eight guardians working for the Knights Templar. They fell in love and were later married.
They planned to escape the imperial court and start a new life together, but they were stopped by the king’s soldiers. Then, the king’s sister, Zhang Qizhu, caught their eye and offered them positions as her concubines. Despite their objections, the couple left for Tuscany with Zhang Qizhu and Zhu Jiuyuan.
Li Jingyuan
Jingzhi is now a full-time mother again. She and Jia Jia spend much of their time together making new memories. They are able to stay in touch on Wechat, China’s popular social media app. When she was first reunited with her son, a live TV broadcast showed him running into her arms. The tears were streaming down their faces. They embraced tightly for a long while and then looked at old photos together, hoping to awaken Jia Jia’s memory of his childhood before his abduction.
Jingzhi has now helped to connect 29 children with their birth families through her work with Baby Come Home. She says that she has seen a lot of change in the past few years, thanks to the media and the efforts of the Chinese government to publicise the issue. But there are still many families looking for their missing children and many grown children who want to find their birth parents.
In the past, couples who wanted to give their children a good education and ensure their financial security in old age would often buy a second child. But in 1979, the one-child policy was introduced in an attempt to control population growth and alleviate poverty. Couples who tried to have a second child after the age of one were fined and could not qualify for social benefits.
This led to a huge increase in the number of child abductions as couples began to look elsewhere for the income they needed to support their families. In most cases, the children who were taken by their parents were male because boys are more valuable than girls in Chinese culture. This was especially true for rural farmers who desperately needed a son to carry on the family name and farm land.
Li Siqi
She is a vlogger who has captivated millions of viewers with her videos of everyday life. Her videos often focus on a particular aspect of Chinese culture, such as food, art, or fashion. In recent years, she has become an influential figure in the global internet.
Li is also a writer, photographer, and independent planner and executor of small-scale events. She has written articles on a variety of topics, including gender, subculture, and mental health. She also works with different organisations to promote and support young talent in China.
In addition to writing, she has also filmed and produced music videos. She has a unique way of combining traditional Chinese culture with modern pop culture, which has made her an online sensation. Her YouTube channel, Li Siqi, has more than 100 million views.
While Li’s activism is praised abroad, her work has been met with harsh criticism in China. The government has been accused of censoring her and limiting her freedom. The government has also criticized her for criticizing China’s political system and social structure.
Earlier this month, she sparked controversy when she sent a bouquet of flowers to the hospital where the chained woman was being held. The bouquet was accompanied by a note that read, “The world hasn’t forgotten you.”
In an effort to keep her followers engaged, Li has been posting daily updates on Weibo. However, this new strategy may be difficult to maintain as audiences now prefer shorter clips. She will need to come up with a strategy to monetize her content and adapt to this new trend. In addition, she will need to adjust to the needs of her local audience.
Zhai Dengrui
Dengrui was born in a rich family and attended prestigious universities. Her first full-time job was as a theatre teacher, and later she became an online tutor. However, she was increasingly dissatisfied with her work as it did not allow her to express herself freely. She also felt she was losing her sense of purpose. In her last diary entry, she wrote: ‘It is not a good job for someone like me who cares about the world. I feel very alienated from my life and my work, so I don’t know what the point of it is anymore.’
She went to a public gathering at Liangma River on November 27 with some friends. It was one of many such events held across China to mourn the victims of the Urumqi fire, which had shocked the nation. As the crowd gathered, police started to summon many people who were holding blank papers to protest.
Cao Zhixin was one of those summoned. She had pre-recorded a video of herself in case she was arrested. The video, which she hoped her friends would release publicly if she was arrested, went viral on January 16.
On the same day as Cao was taken away, a friend of hers was told by the police to go to the Xuhui Detention Center. She was accused of ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’ for her coverage of the initial handling of Covid-19 in Wuhan.
Cao Zhixin is suffering from severe anxiety and a range of physical ailments. She has a hormonal imbalance, stopped menstruating for five months in a row, and has calcium deficiency, low blood pressure, weight loss, and back pain. Her family has appealed for help on social media, and the Free Xueqin and Jianbing campaign has collected over 800 signatures on a petition calling for her to be released.
Cao Zhixin
Cao Zhixin is a 27-year-old book editor who works in Beijing. In December she joined friends at a vigil to commemorate the victims of a fire in Urumqi that was blamed on China’s zero-Covid restrictions. Days after the vigil, she recorded a video that went viral on western social media and in messaging groups that monitor human rights issues in China. The video shows her learning of one friend after another being detained as a result of their attendance at the protest.
The video was uploaded to Youtube and subsequently spread to Chinese language Twitter and newspaper reports in Great Britain, the United States, and Taiwan. In it, she speaks calmly and firmly about the chain of events that led to her detention in early December.
In the video, she says she and her friends were first summoned for questioning after the vigil and released 24 hours later. But beginning on December 18, she said that police started taking her friends into criminal detention again, forcing them to sign detention notices with the location and crime intentionally left blank. She said she knew of four people being held in this way—Li Yuanjing (
The video sparked outrage and fear among many Chinese. Reports say Xueqin has been held without trial for 18 months, and her health is deteriorating. She has a hormone imbalance, has stopped menstruating, is suffering from severe calcium deficiency and low glucose levels, and is under constant stress. She is also experiencing a lowering of blood pressure, pain in her back, and insomnia. She needs urgent medical support and freedom from detention. A campaign has been launched for her release.
