After overcoming several challenges, a woman from Madagascar has finally met with her relatives in Taiwan, realizing her father’s dream of many years.
Her father, who is a member of the Amis community, which is concentrated in Taitung County, went to Madagascar in his 30s — about 40 years ago — with a Taiwanese mission to help with the development of agriculture in that country.
After he arrived, he married a local woman, according to Taitung police, who helped the woman to find her relatives.
Over the past few years, the man, surnamed Yang (陽), began to miss his family in Taiwan, but his poor health meant he was unable to make the long flight back, so he asked his wife, Razafzna, and daughter, Yang Yuh-jen, to go instead.
Carrying a letter from her father to his family members in Taiwan, the daughter arrived with her mother earlier this month, and they traveled to Taitung County to look for their relatives, police said on Tuesday.
They said they faced many challenges, because they were unfamiliar with the county and do not speak Mandarin.
They said they later decided to turn to police in the county’s Malan Village for help.
The police went through their records and found some residents surnamed Yang, who also had a relative who went to East Africa about four decades ago.
Seeing the letter and the genealogy presented by the younger Yang, a Taiwanese woman identified the man who wrote the letter as her elder brother.
The daughter was happy to have realized her father’s dream, police said.
After the man got married, he had returned to Taiwan only once, but did not get to meet any family members, because they had moved away from the area, police quoted the women as saying.
The two women have returned to Madagascar.
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