A heartwarming story of perseverance and reunion has captivated people worldwide as Gouming Martens, a PhD graduate, successfully reunited with his birth family in China after a 12-year-long search. Mr. Martens, who was lost while traveling with his parents at the age of three, was adopted by a Dutch couple and began his journey to find his origins many years later.
In 1994, Mr. Martens got lost while traveling with his parents from their home in eastern China’s Jiangsu province to his mother’s hometown in southwestern Sichuan province. He was found by kind-hearted individuals and sent to an orphanage, where he was later adopted by a Dutch couple, Jozef and Maria Martens, in 1996. The couple named him Gouming, after the name given to him by the orphanage.
Supported by his adoptive parents, Mr. Martens embarked on a quest to find his birth family. In 2007, the family returned to China in search of clues, only to find that the orphanage was no longer there. Undeterred, Mr. Martens continued his search, relearning Mandarin and working part-time to fund his trips to China during his university years.
In 2012, he registered with Baobeihuijia (Baby Come Home), a volunteer organization dedicated to reuniting families, and enlisted the help of volunteers. Mr. Martens, who holds a degree from Leiden University in the Netherlands and a PhD in linguistics from McGill University in Canada, now works as an AI speech recognition expert in Canada.
Last year, his efforts paid off when volunteers informed him that his DNA matched that of his birth mother, Wen Xurong. It was revealed that his birth parents had never stopped searching for their lost child, Gao Yang. Tragically, Mr. Martens’ birth father died in 2009 after years of desperate searching, but his mother had registered her DNA with the police and posted her son’s information on Baobeihuijia in 2017.
The reunion occurred on Mr. Martens’ birthday, October 12, according to the Chinese agricultural calendar. However, the joy was bittersweet, as his adoptive mother had passed away shortly before the good news. His adoptive father expressed happiness for him, and Mr. Martens reunited with Wen and his half-siblings in Sichuan during the Spring Festival holiday in February.
Wen, who had suffered from mental health issues, appeared overjoyed to see her son, calling him by his childhood nickname, Yangyang, and asking, “Where have you been?” Mr. Martens simply replied, “I’m here.”
The story has deeply moved many people on social media. “He might have thought his parents abandoned him, but they have never given up on him,” one user wrote. Another commented, “Despite the unfortunate beginning of his story, he was eventually lucky as both his birth family and adoptive family are full of love.”
Sources By Agencies
