Quest for Mother -- Lifelong Dream of Chinese Brtitish Brothers

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 13, 2002

Quest for Mother -- Lifelong Dream of Chinese Brtitish Brothers

The Lu brothers' lifelong dream is to be reunited with their British mother and sister, even though they have no information about their names or addresses after 55 years of separation.

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The Lu brothers' lifelong dream is to be reunited with their British mother and sister, even though they have no information about their names or addresses after 55 years of separation.

All they have from their distant childhood is a picture of their younger sister, whom they have never met and who was only eight when the picture was taken.

"We don't even know if our mother is still alive," says David Lu, a 58-year-old amateur doctor in the suburbs of Zhoushan, an island city in east China's Zhejiang Province. "Our younger sister could have married in Liverpool or somewhere else in Britain."

David's younger brother, 56-year-old Palain Lu, is a security guard. With their yellowish brown hair and deep set eyes, the two stand out among the villagers.

The Lu family's story is one of romance and sorrow. The brothers know their father, Lu Xiancai, a well-built seaman on a British flag ship, in 1943 fell in love at first sight with a British girl in a Liverpool bar.

The brothers know nothing about that love, but elders used to say that from that first encounter the girl would always stand on the wharf awaiting the arrival of her lover's ship.

The two later married in Liverpool, and their two sons, David and Palain, were born in 1944 and 1946.

The "happily-ever-after" tale ended in 1947, when Lu Xiancai, whose meagre wage could not support the family, sent their two sons back to his hometown, Zhoushan in China.

David says their mother was pregnant with their younger sister when they were sent back to China.

From then on, the boys' family was separated: their mother remained in Liverpool with their sister; their father served on vessels from a Hong Kong-based shipping company and the two brothers lived with their aunt and uncle in Zhoushan.

At first, the brothers and their father met briefly every three to four months, when his ship called at Shanghai port near Zhoushan. It was during one of these meetings they were given their sister's photograph, and theirs was taken to their mother in Britain.

Unfortunately, the tense political situation in China stopped their meetings, as anyone with overseas relations was strongly denounced during that time.

"We saw Dad for the last time in 1957," David recalled. "He gave us both a pen and told us to study well."

All their subsequent pleas for a family reunion were turned down. In 1960, Lu Xiancai died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Hong Kong.

The brothers once wrote their home address in Britain on a calendar, but the calendar was subsequently lost.

Even their birth certificates and other documents, which their father had deposited in a friend's house in Hong Kong, were destroyed in a fire. The brothers, therefore, have never known the whereabouts of their mother and sister.

David can remember from his early childhood memories that their British mother was not very tall, but fairly strong. Their home in Britain was on the ground floor of an apartment building, with a window overlooking a lawn where someone used to practice boxing.

The brothers have had many ups and downs over the years, particularly Palain, whose only son, a boy with distinctly European features, drowned when he was nine.

However, they have never given up hope. "We might still be lucky enough to find our mother," says Palain, whose confidence was boosted by the recent reunion after fifty years of a German Chinese and his German mother.

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