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Woman discovers missing dad

Tran Thi Kham, from Vietnam, stands reunited with her long lost Taiwanese father, Tsai Han chao, on Jan. 7 on Kinmen. PHOTO: AP

With the hope of reuniting with her father, a Vietnamese woman came to Taiwan to work as a domestic helper, only to find that her previous employer was her long missing dad, police said yesterday.

In a story similar to that of a soap opera plot, the woman, identified as Tran Thi Khang, 40, came to Taiwan in June 2004 and worked as a domestic helper looking after the seriously ill wife of her 77-year-old employer, Tsai Han-chao (蔡漢朝), in Taipei County, police said.

But Tsai's wife died seven months later and Tran found another job with a family on Kinmen Island.

"She came to us last year, hoping we could help her find a ring and a picture she said were very important to her," a Kinmen police officer said by telephone.

She told police the golden ring, engraved with the name "Tsai Han-chao," and the picture of Tsai were left to her by her late mother and might be useful in helping her find her long-lost father, the officer said.

"We figured that she must have left the things at her previous employer's home. So we contacted him and asked him to see if any of the items had been left there," the officer said.

Tsai was stunned to find the items were the things he had given to his separated lover whom he met in Hong Kong in 1967 before she returned to Vietnam to see her ailing mother, the officer said.

Tsai told local TV he quickly flew to Kinmen and burst into tears on seeing his daughter.

"Life is such a drama and I never knew I had a daughter," he was quoted as saying by cable news network TVBS.

He said he lost contact with his Vietnamese girlfriend because of the Vietnam War.

He later returned to Taiwan from Hong Kong, still hoping that he might see her one day.

Tsai said his daughter told him she only realized she had a biological father in Taiwan on the day of her wedding.

At that time, her aunt told her that her biological mother died two months after she was born in North Vietnam and left the baby in her care.

Her aunt also gave her the ring and the picture of her biological father.

Tran then decided to look her father up and came to Taiwan in 2004 after her own children had grown up.

Police confirmed DNA matching of the two and said Tran is now in Vietnam preparing official papers for the final reunion of the long separated family.
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