Chennai woman traces long-lost Chinese sister

Beijing: An Indian woman, who came to Beijing to trace her 81-year-old step sister, a lone survivor of her Chinese father’s family in the World War II, on Tuesday reportedly located her in the city through social media.

62-year-old Jennifer An, daughter of a Chinese Marine Engineer An Chi Pong, who settled in Madras (now Chennai) and lived there for over 40 years, has been informed by Chinese official media that they have located her sister An Roesai, who is staying with her daughter in Beijing, through social media.

However, Jennifer, who is in the city for the last three days with her husband, is yet to meet or contact her sister.

“We are waiting for confirmation and looking forward to meeting at the earliest,” said Jennifer’s husband V R S Balaji.

“Only when I meet her in person and talk to her about her past I will be convinced,” Jennifer said.

On May 7, the family had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is visiting China from May 14, requesting him to help them trace An.

Jennifer and her husband came to Beijing three days ago and resided with their friend Viswanath, an Indian consultant of several pharmaceutical companies, and contacted different Chinese media networks to help them to trace her. Jennifer’s father Pong, who hailed from Shanghai, landed in Mumbai in 1940s after the ship in which he was working ran into trouble and later shifted to Chennai where he married a local woman Irene Pereira with whom he had four children including Jennifer.

Pong, who studied marine engineering in Oxford University, remained in Chennai throughout his life dreading to return to his homeland, which was caught in a whirlpool of turmoil including the Japanese invasion in WW-II followed by the revolution headed by Mao Zedong. He died in 1982 at the age of 82.

The story of Pong’s family was very tragic as not only he drifted away from the family and never returned home, his entire family including wife and six children who were settled in the Chinese city of Nanjing perished either in bombing or in the massacre of civilians by Japanese troops in the city.

Only An survived because she was with her grandmother in a village. She was subsequently traced by Pong who found her to be working with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Jennifer said.

Throughout his stay in Chennai, Pong remained a Chinese national and regularly renewed his passport through Chinese Embassy in New Delhi and even received a communication from the Mission that An has been traced and she may visit him.

He received the communication early November 1982 from the Chinese Embassy that An was traced and may visit him but tragically he died few days later.