An American woman who came to Taiwan to try and find the amah who cared for her and her brothers in Taipei more than half a century ago was reunited with her, thanks to some determined detective work by officers at the National Police Agency (NPA).
Linda Dorn’s father, who was in the US military, was assigned to Taiwan in 1965 and brought his family with him. Her parents hired a Taiwanese woman, Chen Yueh-chiao (陳月嬌), to care for Dorn, now 61, and her three brothers.
After leaving Taiwan three years later, the family and Chen wrote letters to each other for years, but eventually lost touch, Dorn said.
Armed only with some old photographs, Chen’s English name and some of the letters Chen had written, Dorn flew to Taiwan on Feb. 12, accompanied by her children.
However, after nearly a month of hunting, and with time running out before they had to return home, Dorn took the advice of a Taiwanese she met on the Taipei MRT and sought the NPA’s help.
Dorn visited the agency’s Taipei headquarters on March 13 and officer Chung Yu-tien (鍾侑典) was assigned her case.
“When Dorn told me she was planning to leave the country on March 20, I immediately got to work,” Chung said.
Chung and a partner assembled a list of candidates using Dorn’s photographs and Chen’s English name, but even after figuring out Chen’s full Chinese name, they were left with about 300 people, he said.
The officers were able to narrow their search by using an old address written in English on one of the letters Chen sent, he said, adding that the search took about 20 hours.
The officers were confident that they had located the right Chen, but then they hit a snag.
When they telephoned Chen, she hung up them, thinking it was a scam. Subsequent calls went unanswered, so they asked officers from Taipei’s Zhongshan Precinct to visit Chen’s home and deliver the message in person, Chung said.
The NPA arranged for the two women to meet at its offices on March 15.
After learning that Dorn had come to Taiwan just to find her, Chen was extraordinarily touched and happy to see her, Chen’s son, Lin Chih-wei (林智威), said.
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