Since he was a child, Li Jingwei didn’t know his real name. He didn’t know where he was born, or exactly how old he was. That’s because Li was a victim of child trafficking. In 1989, when he was just 4 years old, a neighbor lured him away, promising to take him to look at cars. That was the last time Li saw his home. He remembers being taken on a train, and eventually he was sold to a childless couple in the Henan province. While he didn’t remember the names of his parents or his home town, etched in his memory was the landscape of his village in the southwestern city of Zhaotong in the Yunnan province. After his abduction, Li said he drew maps of his village every day until he was 13 so he wouldn’t forget. More than 30 years after his abduction, a meticulous drawing of his village landscape helped police locate it and track down his biological mother and siblings. Li finally connected with his mother over the telephone. She asked about a scar on his chin, which she said was caused by a fall from a ladder. "When she mentioned the scar, I knew it was her," Li said. Other details and recollections fell into place, and a DNA test confirmed his heritage.
