Father left the country 15 times to find his son in the 'devil's den'

"It happened nearly 10 years ago, but I have not forgotten any details of that journey to find my child," said a man in his 60s with a haggard face, slowly speaking in an old house in Me Linh, Hanoi.

In 2007, like many teenagers, Luong - Mr. Thang's third daughter asked her father to buy her a mobile phone to make studying easier. From random messages from strangers, the 16-year-old girl was invited out by a scammer, drugged and sold to Guangxi (China).

The daughter went missing, the whole family was in chaos. They searched every nook and cranny of 11 northern provinces such as Phu Tho, Hung Yen, Quang Ninh, Lang Son... Mr. Thang wandered all over the streets, to internet cafes, bus stations, hair salons, karaoke bars to find his daughter. He also reported to the police but after many days there was still no news.

In desperation, Mr. Thang suspected that his daughter might have been tricked and sold to China. Hearing the tip, he went to see a father in Phu Tho who had found his missing daughter to learn from her experience. From there, his journey began.

In November 2007, Mr. Thang boarded a train to Po Chai bus station (Pingxiang, Guangxi province). Alone in a foreign land, not knowing a word of Chinese, looking at the long line of people lining up at the bus station, he burst into tears: "Where can I find my child in this endless sea of ​​people?"

Luckily, he met a Chinese man named Huu, who was good at Vietnamese and volunteered to help. Mr. Huu took Mr. Thang to the police station to report and then drew a map of towns and cities where Vietnamese people often lived so he could find him. "I didn't know Chinese, he even wrote down common conversational phrases so I wouldn't get lost," Mr. Thang sadly recalled.

With that luggage, Mr. Thang continued to go to some towns in Guangxi province. This time, he was taken to Nanning city by a local girl and taken to the Vietnamese Consulate to file a report. After a few days of searching without results, he returned home when his money was gone.

From the first two searches, he realized he could not rely on the help of others forever, because the journey could last for years, even several years.

In March 2008, Mr. Thang decided to study Chinese in Hanoi. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening, he regularly cycled to the center, 7 or 8 kilometers from his home.

"Uncle Thang always arrived the earliest in class and left the last. He often stayed behind to ask me how to read and write some Chinese place names. At first, I was surprised. But when I learned about his situation, I was deeply moved," said Tran Thanh Hoa (Cau Giay, Hanoi), Mr. Thang's Chinese teacher at that time.

"There was a time when I was studying and saw him skipping many classes. When he came back, he told me that he went to China to look for his child but couldn't find him," teacher Hoa recalled.

With little foreign language knowledge after 4 months, plus the money from selling a piece of land, Mr. Thang continued to go to Guangxi. This time, he printed thousands of leaflets with a reward of 50 million VND, but still had no results.

The next times he looked for his daughter, instead of going everywhere, he pretended to be a customer and went to brothels - where he thought his daughter was most likely - to ask questions. From Guangxi, he went to Yunnan, then Guangdong.

"The total distance I traveled was about 30,000 km, some days I traveled nearly a thousand kilometers. For long distances I took the train or bus, for short distances I walked or took a taxi," he said.

However, he never felt tired because every time he lay down, the image of his daughter appeared, making his heart ache. "She was still young, being sold into prostitution was no different from hell," Mr. Thang recalled.

Once, while passing through a village in Yunnan province, he was attacked by a group of young men with knives, thinking they were robbers. After listening to his explanation, they let him go and wished him a speedy recovery of his daughter.

Every time he takes a taxi, he only chooses a female driver because "my Chinese is limited, and if I speak too much, it will be exposed. If I accidentally encounter a male taxi driver with bad intentions, I could lose both money and my life, let alone find my child."

Searching and returning, after more than a year and 15 trips to China, at the end of 2008, a piece of good news came when the missing girl suddenly sent a message on Yahoo to her sister. The brief content was that she was in Chongzuo, Guangxi. Later, Mr. Thang learned that due to the carelessness of the protection group, the girl had escaped and sent a message.

Upon hearing the news, Mr. Thang forgot to eat or sleep and immediately went to find a place called Sung Ta. Discovering that there was a brothel there, he called Mr. Huu for help.

Pretending to be customers, the two men went in and asked the owner, "Are there any Vietnamese girls?" After nodding, a young girl came out. "Oh my gosh!", Mr. Thang cried out and bit his mouth to stop the tears from flowing. The daughter also choked but then fell silent. "If we hadn't held back our emotions at that time, I might have died over there," he recalled.

His heart pounding, his hands and feet shaking, he quickly calmed down, found an excuse that the girl was ugly and left. Outside, they quickly called the Chinese authorities, waiting anxiously, afraid that the pimp would find out and take the girl away.

A while later, the police arrived and raided the prostitution den. Mr. Thang and his son, along with 10 other Vietnamese girls, were taken to the police station.

Before the Lunar New Year 2009, Chinese police returned Mr. Thang's daughter to the Mong Cai Border Guard of Vietnam, ending her journey of more than a year of being sold to a foreign country.

Returning to Vietnam, Mr. Thang's daughter continued her unfinished studies. 10 years have passed, putting the sad past behind her, she has her own family with 2 children and a husband who sympathizes with her past. "Many people ask me how I can persevere like that, but I think any father in my situation would do the same. Simply because I am a father," he said.

An officer at the C14 Department of the Ministry of Public Security - who participated in the case - said that Mr. Thang's case was quite rare because he found his child in a foreign country and reported it. The incident happened a long time ago, but every time Mr. Thang is mentioned, this officer never forgets.