After 11 years of wandering the streets of Dongwan City in China’s Guangdong Province, Taiwanese Chung Hsi-feng (鍾喜風) on Thursday returned home after months of cross-strait negotiations and aid from Taiwanese businesspeople.
Chung, from Taitung County’s Jhiben Township (知本), traveled to Dongwan in 2005 to work at a company that manufactured golf equipment, his family said.
However, he lost his job when the company closed down the same year, Chung said, adding that he lost all his belongings, including his passport and Taiwanese compatriot travel document, in an armed robbery.
Chung said he lived on the streets, making money selling recyclable materials and eating leftover fruit that vendors left behind at the end of the day.
Chung’s plight was first reported by Taiwanese media after he was sent into the Dongwan City Hospital’s psychiatric division for a second time last year.
Dongwan Association of Taiwan secretary-general Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭承功) was quoted by the Chinese-language United Daily News as saying that he was notified by the public security bureau of someone in their custody claiming Taiwanese nationality, asking him to identify the man.
Cheng said he knew Chung was Taiwanese from his accent, but Chung was not coherent at the time, adding that Chinese public security officials had taken Chung to hospital.
Cheng said he arranged for Taiwanese businesspeople to help search for Chung’s family to help the man return home.
Since learning of Chung’s plight last year, Jhiben Township’s Jianye Borough (建業) warden Wang Cheng-yuan (王正元) and the county government’s household registration office asked Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation to verify Chung’s identity and help issue documents for his return.
After about two months of negotiations, Taiwanese businesspeople managed to obtain plane tickets for Chung to return to Taiwan.
Chung, accompanied by Taiwanese businessman Hsiao Yuan-yi (蕭源益), arrived in Kaohsiung’s Siaogang International Airport on Thursday and was received by Wang and Chung’s elder brother.
Chung said he was thankful for all the help and that he would strive to succeed in life, adding that he is coming to terms with the past decade, seeing it as “a bump in the road.”
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