Chance encounter reunites cross-Strait family after decades

A sunrise over Lugu Lake in Yunnan province set the stage for a chance encounter between Chen Jie from Shanghai and his uncle from Taiwan, leading to the reunion of a cross-Strait family that had been separated for three decades.

On the morning of July 9, Chen was watching the sunrise at Lugu Lake when a man approached him and asked him to take a photo. During their brief conversation, Chen learned that the man, surnamed Fei, now lives in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and was originally from Puyuan in Tongxiang, Zhejiang province — Chen's hometown.

"It was such a coincidence that we came from the same place," Chen said. "So we took a photo together and added each other on WeChat."

Fei's surname immediately reminded Chen of relatives with the same surname who had moved to Kaohsiung decades earlier.

Chen had heard since childhood that his family had relatives in Taiwan. But as the older generations passed away, contact was gradually lost and many details of the family's history faded from memory.

After the encounter, Chen sent the photo to his father, who asked whether the man's father was Fei Yunfeng, the elder brother of Chen's grandfather.

Chen and Fei later spoke by phone to verify family details and ultimately confirmed that they were long-lost relatives who had been out of touch for many years.

According to Chen, his grandfather and Fei's father were brothers who were orphaned at a young age. Chen's grandfather was adopted by the Chen family and took their surname, while Fei's father remained in Puyuan before later moving to Taiwan with the Chinese Kuomintang.

"It was not until the 1990s, after Taiwan allowed veterans to return to the mainland to visit their families, that my great-uncle came back and reunited with my grandfather, marking the brothers' first reunion in decades," Chen said.

The brothers remained in contact through letters after their reunion. However, communication gradually ceased as they grew older and eventually passed away.

Chen said he was astonished by the extraordinary coincidence of the encounter.

"Out of more than a billion people, we happened to meet by chance on the shores of Lugu Lake, thousands of kilometers from home," he wrote in a post on RedNote that has received nearly 100,000 likes.

The story quickly resonated with netizens, many of whom described the reunion as destiny. One commenter wrote that "it was as if the two late elders were watching over them from above, bringing the two families together again".

Chen and Fei have planned to return to Puyuan on Aug 10 to visit relatives.

"We will cherish this reunion all the more because fate has brought us together again, and we will make sure this family bond endures," Chen said.