"I've been out for so long that I don't know the way home and I can't find it. Ask my daughter and son to pick me up and go home." On the afternoon of May 10, Luo Xiaotian, a 70-year-old man, met the separated 25 in the Douyin live broadcast room. Years of relatives. Luo Xiaotian couldn't help but choke up and shed tears when talking about the bitter memories of searching for his relatives for many years.
Picture: Luo Xiaotian (upper right) and his family recognized their relatives in Douyin live broadcast room
Luo Xiaotian is 78 years old and a native of Longping Town, Luodian County, Qiannan Prefecture, Guizhou Province. In 1997, he and his family were abducted to Nanning by human traffickers while going to the market. Due to poor language communication and illiteracy, Luo Xiaotian's journey to find a relative was once full of difficulties. In April this year, with the assistance of the Nanning Rescue Station in Guangxi, Douyin People Search helped the elderly release a family search video and found effective clues.
In the end, Luo Xiaotian and his relatives successfully recognized each other in the Douyin live broadcast room on May 10. The next day, her daughter, Ms. Huang, and her nephew's family rushed to Nanning to take Luo Xiaotian back to his hometown in Guizhou. Before being reunited with his family, Luo Xiaotian had experienced 25 years of loneliness and long journey to find relatives.
| A video, a live broadcast, the old man found his way home
| At 3 pm on May 10, a family search event for 8 lost people was held in the Douyin "Nanning Family Search" live broadcast room. The Nanning City Rescue Management Station invited eight recipients one by one to the camera. Some suspected relatives who had watched the family search video in advance also entered the live broadcast room to watch.
Luo Xiaotian was one of the lucky people who successfully found his relatives through live broadcast that day.
At the end of April this year, Luo Xiaotian, who was in Shanglin County, Nanning City, asked the civil affairs department for help, saying he "wanted to go home." Subsequently, the staff of the Nanning City Rescue Management Station asked Douyin for help, and synchronized the old man's rescue information and video of his speech to the Douyin staff. On April 28, the staff posted the video of the old man searching for his relatives on the official account of Douyin.
Picture: On April 28, Douyin released Luo Xiaotian’s family search video
Ms. Huang from Luodian County, Qiannan Prefecture, Guizhou Province came across this video on Douyin and found that the old man in the video seemed to have been missing for 25 years. mother. However, due to the passage of time and the great changes in people's appearance, it is difficult to be 100% sure only through short videos.
In order to assist in the final confirmation, on the afternoon of May 10, Douyin Search and the Nanning Rescue Management Station launched a live broadcast of the family search to help the elderly and Ms. Huang’s family communicate online. After seeing the old man in the video, Mr. Huang, a relative, was very sure: "I recognized it at a glance. This is my aunt."
At 4 o'clock in the morning on May 11, Mr. Huang took his wife, younger brother and cousin (i.e. Luo Xiaotian’s daughter, Ms. Huang) drove to Nanning by herself. At about 10 o'clock in the morning on the 11th, Ms. Huang burst into tears when she saw her mother: "Mom, do you still know me?" The word "Mom" after 25 years finally brought Luo Xiaotian's wandering to an end.
A bowl of noodles, a turn around, 25 years have passed since we were reunited
Luo Xiaotian’s disappearance happened in 1997. One day in July or August, two relatives went to the town with Luo Xiaotian to attend the market. When the three of them were eating noodles in a noodle shop, they discovered that Luo Xiaotian "had disappeared in the blink of an eye and didn't come home at night."
On May 10, Luo Xiaotian restored the situation in the Douyin live broadcast room: "The two people who sold me said they would take me to the market. They said my husband was dead, so they took me out and sold me to others." After that, Luo Xiaotian went from Guizhou was sold to Guangxi, then moved to Binyang County, Nanning City, and finally to Shanglin County, Nanning City, where he was taken in by a man. In April this year, Luo Xiaotian came to the Nanning Rescue Management Station and hoped that the rescue station staff would help her return home.
When looking for relatives, Luo Xiaotian always called himself "Huang Meirong". Later, everyone learned that due to the strong accent of ethnic minority dialects, she actually spoke "Huang Meiren" - this is the name her family in Guizhou used to call her when she was young.
According to the Nanning City Rescue Management Station, Luo Xiaotian is from Longping Town, Luodian County, Qiannan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province. She belongs to the Buyi ethnic group. When she was young, she was beautiful and her husband’s surname was Huang, so everyone called her Huang Beauty. The staff said that it is the long-term misunderstanding of names that "brings considerable difficulties to the work of finding relatives." On April 28, it wasn't until the missing person video was posted on Douyin that Luo Xiaotian's search for his family finally turned around.
On May 11, her daughter Ms. Huang and her party took Luo Xiaotian back to his hometown in Luodian County, Guizhou Province. The whole family killed chickens and pigs to welcome the old man back home. After returning home, Luo Xiaotian slept until dawn. "I felt more at ease after returning home, and naturally slept more soundly." Currently, his family is applying for a new household registration for Luo Xiaotian.
Luo Xiaotian’s story is not accidental. At present, more and more lost people like Luo Xiaotian are finding their way home through Douyin.
It is reported that since March 2022, Douyin Search has carried out 8 live broadcasts of family search on Lianmai, and has provided family search services for 56 people seeking help. A total of more than 1.5 million netizens have watched it, and it has successfully helped 2 recipients. Those who go home. As of May 16, Toutiao Person Tracing has helped 18,834 missing people reunite with their families, and its sub-project Douyin Person Tracing has successfully recovered 667 people.
