Lost Letter Reaches Woman Nearly 30 Years After Father Mailed It

A handwritten letter sent by a father to his teenage daughter nearly 30 years ago has finally reached its intended recipient after two collectors in Xiamen posted it online and found the family within 10 hours, Xiaoxiang Morning Post reported today.

The letter was written in November 1996 by Tang Xiaobai, a father from Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, to his daughter Tang Wenjun, who was then studying in Renqiu, Hebei Province. It was lost in the mail and never delivered.

The letter recently drew wide attention online after a Xiamen-based vintage collector, known online as Titi, shared it with a friend named A Tao. Titi said she had bought five old letters last year from an online “blind box” listing for 5.5 yuan (82 US cents). Among them, the Taizhou letter stood out because of its neat handwriting and the detailed concern the father showed for his daughter.

One line in particular moved many viewers: “The flower and bird market is still there. It has not moved. When you come home, Dad will definitely take you there.”

Titi and A Tao decided to look for the letter’s owner. They filmed and edited a short video in about 30 minutes and posted it online at 3am on August 2. By the next morning, the video had attracted tens of thousands of likes and many comments.

A man surnamed Miao from Taizhou’s Jiangyan District saw the video and offered to help. He did not know Tang Wenjun, but searched her name on a local personnel website and found a public commendation list that included her name and workplace. He contacted the workplace on Sunday morning and left the information.

Tang later said she initially worried it might be a scam. But when colleagues sent her the video at noon, she immediately recognized her father’s handwriting and contacted Miao, who then put her in touch with A Tao.

Tang Xiaobai, now 74, said he knew right away which letter it was. A retired employee of the Agricultural Bank of China and a former soldier, he said it was the second letter he had mailed to his daughter after she left home for vocational school — and the only one among more than 30 family letters that was lost.

In 1996, Tang Wenjun was 15 and had left home for the first time to study at North China Petroleum Health School in Renqiu. She said monthly letters from her parents became an important link to home as she adjusted to life in northern China.

After receiving the first letter, she waited for the second at the school mailroom, repeatedly asking the gatekeeper to search for it. She later learned it had been lost during delivery.

On August 4, Tang Wenjun received the letter from Titi. She did not open it immediately. After work, she brought it to her parents’ home, where the family sat together and opened the letter that had arrived almost three decades late.