The first time it happens, everyone comes up with their own explanations for it. You know, the mind can do very silly things. She was just zoning out and happened to be staring there. It wasn't intentional. Sang's mom had set the table. She has a plate for herself, a plate for her husband, and a plate for her daughter, Sang.
And there's this one spot where there's no plates set out and there's just an empty chair because tables usually have sets of four place settings rather than three. Then Sang's mom keeps staring at this empty chair and she's almost smiling towards... The chair as if somebody is sitting there sharing this invisible meal with the family. People thought maybe she's just reminiscing of an old fond memory.
Sang's dad tells her, you know how your mother is. Don't get too freaked out. She's just been tired with everything that's been going on. That's what the dad would say, but she's not so convinced. The next night at dinner, it happens again. But this time, the mom has even set out a set of plates and utensils for the empty chair. And she's smiling, talking to herself before she turns to her daughter and tells her,
Don't eat so much. You have to save some food for Nunu. It's like her mom is talking to a ghost. And everyone in the neighborhood is starting to get freaked out by their family. the first few times everybody was understanding but now it's been months and it is clear sang's mom has
Lost her mind. They say she lost her marbles. Sometimes the wind would blow and Sang's mom would sit up in the bed. Her eyes are glazed over. Did you hear that? Did you hear that? Hear what, mom? It's just the wind. It's okay. No. Nunu is calling me. Nunu is calling me. I've got to go. Did you hear that? She would run out of the house, banging on the neighbor's doors. Nunu called me. Did anybody hear in which direction Nunu's voice was?
Anybody seen Nunu? The family tried everything. They brought her to a doctor to treat her at home. They put an IV in her. And for two seconds. The doctor and Sang and the dad are outside talking about the mom's condition and the mom runs outside with the IV bag still attached to her, running through the woods screaming, Nunu, where are you? Nunu.
They wouldn't find her until late that night. The IV bag is still attached to her vein, but because it's absorbed all the liquid into her body, the negative pressure is causing the IV bag to slowly fill with her blood. And she's just sitting there, leaves in her hair, screaming, Nunu, where are you? Like the IV back sucked the blood out of her? Yeah. Whoa. If Sang had to pinpoint where this all started. When her mom started losing her mind, she could because it all starts with this little doll.
With creepy eyes. I mean, there was something seriously wrong with that doll. The minute that she brought that doll home, everybody felt it. It had the kind of eyes that follow you around as you move. But that doll is no longer here. And neither is Sang's sister. the doll's owner. Nunu is gone. Just a little five-year-old girl nicknamed Nunu and her doll disappeared into thin air. Everyone in the neighborhood thought she was dead. but nobody would hear from her.
Until 26 years later, she comes back with a very crazy story. She had been kidnapped and trafficked and she was going to hunt her trafficker down. She was going to kill her trafficker. We would like to thank today's sponsors who have made it possible for Rotten Mango to support the NAMI network. This network's nonprofit mission is to end sexual abuse, slavery and human trafficking by creating pathways to safe employment and providing survivors with empowering resources. This episode.
partnerships have also made it possible to support rotten mangoes growing team we'd also like to thank you guys for your continued support as we work on our mission to be worthy advocates as always full show notes are available at rotten mango podcast.com a few disclaimers for this case there are heavy
mentions of sexual abuse human trafficking please take care of yourselves and if you need a break we'll see you in the next one we also worked with our chinese translators on this but please let us know if anything is mistranslated miscommunicated or anything that we missed down in the comments
As well as, Nunu published a book on her first-hand account on everything that's happened. It's called A Path Blooming with Flower. Our Chinese researchers read it to help gather the data for this case. So most of the in-depth descriptions of events are a thing. to her book she was really able to convey the feeling of these very intense moments and how she reacted and even recall all these small details that helped build this picture of everything that's led to this so with that being said
Let's get started. July 14th, 2023. It's kind of a strange day. Everybody is gathered in this big giant room and they're all hoping, God willing, fingers crossed, okay? that the 61 year old lady croaks and dies. They are gathered here today to hope that this 61 year old senior citizen plops dead. They hope that they put her in the van and just kill her.
Listen, that's what people are saying and wishing for it. That's not what I'm saying. It's just not exactly what you would call normal. But 61-year-old Hua is not normal. She's got this skeletal frame. To put it lightly, she resembles an anatomically correct medical skeleton wearing clothes. Her shoulder bones look like they're going to break through her thin white shirt. And even though it's summer, she's so old and frail that she just looks...
She just looks cold. If you know nothing about this woman, but you know that this entire room wants her to die, you might think that everybody else is the problem. How could they possibly wish ill health on this nice old little lady? She probably can't even see well. But then...
This old lady looks up at the 31-year-old woman on the stand and there is something about her beady little eyes. Her eyelids are drooping, which is a natural inconvenience that comes with aging. The look that she's giving the 31-year-old woman on the stand, it's a... death glare and then she picks up her hand points a bony little finger at her and spits you're a liar the way she's going after this young woman it is clear that they have history
And they do. It goes back 26 years to when the old lady, Hua, kidnapped and sold the woman on the stand. For the past 26 years, that little girl grew up and started hunting down her own trafficker. The 61-year-old woman that everyone calls the human devil. A trafficker so evil, she would even sell her own son. What? Yeah. She trafficked her own son? That was her very first trafficking victim.
There's this ongoing debate on whether or not some people have lived a past life. Or maybe, I don't know, we've all lived a past life, but we just don't remember it. It's just like few people, they remember such odd details that they make the news. One parent writes on Reddit, my youngest was around four years old and she would tell me about how warm and cozy she felt inside my belly and how cold and scary it was to be born and how the hardest part about being born was that she...
used to know everything, but now she doesn't know anything again. I would give her the space to talk, but her frustration at almost being able to remember everything was palpable. Another reads, when I was four, my parents and I went to my aunt's farm and the wind started picking up and I looked back at my parents and said, gotta tie the hay bale down in the wind. That's how David died. Four years old. To this day.
Nobody knows who David is. That's kind of how Nunu, a young woman from China, felt. for the first few years she didn't really know what was real what's not real or what could have been a previous life or maybe she's like imagining things maybe she has a problem that she needs to handle her grandmother would tell her no you've been abandoned by your family
And that's why I'm your grandmother. I took you in because you had nobody else. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Let you freeze to death? Your family abandoned you.
It made sense because otherwise, why would she end up with this random family that she's never met before and call this old random lady her grandmother, unless the story is true. But it's like this weird part of Nunu either lived a previous life and she... remembered or something's not adding up because she has these short little visions these little memories they feel like memories where she's not abandoned her parents love her she remembers that
It's so vivid. She even remembers, or she has this vision, of course, of going dress shopping with her parents. And when she is not able to pick between the five different dresses, her dad would throw his hands up in the air and say, let's just get them all.
She remembers playing in the back with this feels like an older sister and falling down when she would run and her parents made sure she felt better at night. I mean, how does she remember all these things so vividly if they never happened to her? Maybe it happened to her in a previous life. Or perhaps it's like a fake memory her brain created to keep her safe from the truth. Or maybe, maybe it's the truth a few years ago.
A series of videos start going viral on Duying. Duying is like the TikTok of China, the original TikTok. It's of Nunu, the younger woman from court, and she's sitting and she's talking to the camera. How old is Nunu? She's now in her 30s. Oh, this is a video of a 30-year-old Nunu. Yes. Okay. Hello, everyone. I'm asking for your help.
I think I was abducted as a child. I was probably kidnapped between November and December when I was around five years old. I remember being with my parents at the time. I think I remember my parents moving to a new city for work. They were renting this small apartment. I lived with them and my sister, who I believe is three years older than me. I was trafficked by somebody close to us that had gained my family's trust. And I also remember, I remember calling my grandma Abuda. So...
In China, there's a lot of different dialects. So she's trying to give these little tidbits of information so someone can be like, oh, that sounds like a southern accent. Oh, that sounds like, you know. Right, right, right. The exact region. Yes. She doesn't even know which region she was from. No.
Right, so basically every state in China almost has its own little dialect. Yes. So she's trying to tell people, okay. So she's like, I think I called my grandma Abuda, Abuda, or something like that. I recall calling my mother Mai, Mai. Something similar. She's saying something similar. I remember my hometown as a pretty mountainous area, but that's about it.
Most of the comments consist of netizens that are unable to help Nunu, but are encouraging her, hoping for the best outcome for you and your family. I wish I could know something, but I'm not sure. I'll re-share this video with my friends though. But there are some weird comments too. Like, she's a girl. Her parents probably sold her so that they could have a son. You can stop looking. You were most definitely sold by your parents and they're not going to acknowledge you even if you find them.
Some would comment she's a liar and she's trying to gain attention online. In the nonstop comments, there's one that starts gaining attention though. Can I get your contact information? If I'm not wrong, I think we're cousins. Immediately, everybody starts commenting on this supposed alleged cousin's comment. This girl makes traditional meow costumes for a living. She's also doing this for clout. She's commenting to gain attention for her business.
The quote-unquote cousin is selling traditional dress. Oh, so people are saying she's marketing. Yes. Yes, everyone starts taking turns leaving mean comments until one reads. Wait, have you guys actually looked through her profile? Go to the ones. If you scroll all the way down, she has pictures of herself. She looks just like the girl that says she was trafficked.
Look at their eyes. Maybe they are cousins. Do you know what the Ben Franklin effect is? It's actually so fascinating. What do you think is the best way to quickly get someone to like you? Obviously, they have to be on neutral terms with you to begin with. They can't know anything too much about you. They can't have heard about your reputation because that's a bias. But imagine a random neighbor moves in.
You haven't heard about them. They're not a mutual friend. How do you get them to like it? What's the easiest way? Common ground similarities. That's what some people think. But there is a psychological study, a small one that says it's something else. You know, people always say, maybe you give them like a small, thoughtful gift. Maybe you buy them a coffee and stop by a pleasant surprise. It's actually the opposite. Instead of doing that person a favor.
You ask them to do you a favor. Really? Yeah. I don't know about that one. It's this weird phenomenon. If you do a person a favor, you expect... that they will like you more, right? But research shows it's actually the opposite. If you do someone a favor, you tend to like them more, even though you're the one that inconvenienced yourself to do a favor. Now, the favor can't be a big favor. It can't be high.
Can you sell your house and give me all your money? It must be like, oh my gosh, could I borrow that book? I've been wanting to read that book for months now and it's been sold out. Can I borrow some salt? Yes. Like something so small? Yes.
And there is this strange human bias that we rationalize our decisions as being logical. So in our minds, we like to believe we're all logical creatures and we logic ourselves into thinking I did them a favor because I. like them otherwise why would i do them a favor yeah yeah and then on top of that you feel good about yourself
It's so interesting. There's a subtle self-consciousness of if somebody else does you a favor, you feel slightly indebted to them, which makes you just the tiniest bit uncomfortable every time you run into them because it's, oh, I got to thank them again for this. Oh, I should.
i should buy them cookies oh i forgot cookies from the store okay next time i gotta remember i gotta buy them cookies to thank them however if you do someone a favor you feel good about yourself and you already feel a sense of closeness and every time you see them they're like oh my gosh
who's meaning to buy you cookies, you say, don't even worry about it. I don't need cookies. Nunu's family is on the second floor of the apartment building, and it's five-year-old Nunu, her eight-year-old sister Sang, and her parents. They have new neighbors that just moved in. Now, there's a few ways that this could play out. One, you go and you introduce yourself and...
You bring them a basket of baked goods. Or two, you just wait to never see them. And then you see them in the hallway and you act like you're super busy and try to ignore them and keep distance from your neighbors. Or you play with psychology. You play with the... Ben Franklin effect. Nuna's family hears a knock on the door. Hi, I'm so sorry. We just moved in next door. My husband and our daughter. Oh, hi.
my daughter's about like the same age as your daughter the little girl yeah they should play sometime but I have a small little favor we haven't finished unpacking yet and we just ordered food they didn't include utensils could we borrow just like two sets of utensils just for the night. Nuna's parents give them a few sets of utensils, one for each of the three, mom, dad, and daughter, their new neighbors.
And the next day, the neighbors bring them over completely washed. And just like that, trust is built. So for the next few weeks, every time the girls run into the family, they would wave, say hello. Hi, auntie. Hi, uncle. Until Nunu makes the grave mistake of a very bad trade. Nunu is playing with the next door neighbor's kid.
So they have a kid. They do. Yes. Like a son? A daughter. A daughter. About Nunu's age. And Nunu has a pair of rollerblades. The girl next door has this creepy little doll. Okay. I mean, it's kind of cute. Maybe it could be cute. Perhaps, maybe, not really, but it just has these creepy little eyes that follow you and the eyes look like they're moving. And somehow Nunu gets convinced into making this trade.
trading in her perfectly good roller skates for the creepy doll with the moving eyes. But now it's too late to go back on her word and ask for a trade back because that goes against every single unspoken toddler trade rule. She can't do that. So Nunu decides. Maybe I can just make the best of it. Maybe I could knit it an eye mask. Or maybe it just needs a cute crocheted sweater in a bright pastel color to take the attention away from her creepy little eyes that are bulging out of her head.
But that is neither here nor there. She goes next door to play with the little neighbor girl, and she's hanging out with the girl her age when the neighbor's mom, the new neighbor, she comes home. And she leans down, gets eye level with Nunu, and asks her, do you want to go shopping with me to get some snacks? Oh, no, I'm okay. I have to be home for dinner. Are you sure? We can get anything you want from the store. You sure there's nothing you want?
Nunu takes a moment to think about it. Well, I did want some knitting needles to knit my doll a sweater. The neighbor agrees to buy her knitting supplies. She grabs little five-year-old Nunu's hands. She leaves her own daughter at home and starts walking towards the train station. I mean, to little five-year-old Nunu.
Time perception is already skewed. 15 minutes on a train feels like 18 minutes or perhaps even 30 minutes. Even then, Nunu senses something is so off about this whole train ride. It stretches from 15 to 30 to an hour and Nunu starts feeling...
anxious. She's sitting next to the window. The neighbor is sitting on the aisle seat of this nearly empty train car. She tries to get up to use the restroom and the neighbor yanks her tiny little arm down all the way until she slams back into the hard train seat. She reaches over to the little girl, opens the window. The same neighbor that so nicely and politely returned the cutlery and waved in the hallways, she's opening the tight window.
this is in a smaller town so it opens pretty wide not much safety precautions put in place on this specific train and this was back in the day if you try to get up and scream or you even complain i will throw you out the window without any hesitation Nunu is forced to change out of her warm jacket that her parents bought her into what looks like literal rags, barely enough fabric to keep her from shivering. The entire journey lasts 24 hours.
Her neighbor took her to the entire other side of the country. The entire train ride, Nunu is forbidden from using the restroom to the point where she urinates on her seat in her clothes. In response to that, the neighbor starts glancing around, making sure nobody is passing by, and then just starts beating Nunu.
Nunu is sitting there soaked in her own urine, shivering in the cold without her winter jacket, confused on where she's being taken. And this is the start of 26 years without her family. i feel like it's a pretty common acknowledgement or sentiment i guess that human life has no cost you say it's priceless i mean at least that's the way it's supposed to be right but there is a price
Children from various countries on the black market go anywhere between $45 to $25,000. Women and teenage girls anywhere between $2 to $12,000. Babies are $160 to $7,800. Just on average. Prices vary depending on country, region, gender, age, and the most depressing virginity. Also, sex trafficking is going to fetch much higher prices than let's say someone wants to purchase a human for labor trafficking. The next vivid memory of Nunu is waiting in this...
Random house. It's like a shed. Middle of nowhere home with this middle-aged man listening to her female neighbor negotiate with strangers. I don't care that she's not a boy. She's still at least worth $500. The negotiations with strangers go back and forth in front of Nunu until it's determined, fine, she will be sold for a whopping $491.
Nunu is sitting there trying to whisper her own name to herself when nobody else is around because this new family of hers that bought her for $491 is calling her Li Suyan. Nunu's situation is... A little bit unique when you think about how most Americans see trafficking. Nunu is told by this new grandma that she was purchased so that she could take care of new grandma's son, aka her new dad.
His name is Mr. Lee. Mr. Lee is from a poor family. He's also nonverbal and deaf, meaning nobody in this small town wants to marry Mr. Lee. Not because they're ableist. Okay, honestly, maybe a little bit of that too, but also just survival-wise, they can barely keep food on the table. Everybody's starving in this little small town. Marriage is typically the only time someone can gain a little bit more economic standing by combining resources from two different households.
Marriage is not necessarily done out of love, but out of survival. Which means Mr. Lee, Nunu's new dad, may never be able to get married. Which means, consequentially, he's not going to have children. And Grandma Lee cannot have that. Because if he doesn't have...
children when she dies who's gonna take care of him at least if he has kids he can burden his kids because of their traditional duty to take care of their parents they're gonna take care of mr. Lee That's why Grandma Lee purchases Nunu for her son, like a gift, a sick and twisted gift as a daughter so that when Grandma Lee passes away, he's going to have someone to take care of him in old age.
At least that's what Nunu is told. But everyone else in town, all the kids from school, are telling her something different. You know your grandmother used your dad's money to buy you. He saved up hundreds of dollars working as the local shoe repairman.
Do you know that he saved the money for a future wife? But since your grandmother bought you with it, don't you think that means something? Nunu is so confused what they're trying to imply here. One of her- quote friends from school just tells her he's kind of creepy your dad he never says anything he just stares be careful when you sleep don't sleep too deep
Nunu still doesn't understand what's being implied here. And eventually they tell her, my mom said that you were bought as a bride for your adoptive father. All the adults are worried that when you sleep, your stepfather is going to enter your room.
Nunu still doesn't know what that means. She has no idea what it means to be somebody's bride. But from then on, she starts avoiding Mr. Lee. For a few years, she doesn't even get a good night's rest because she's so terrified Mr. Lee is going to walk in and do whatever they do to child bride. She's not even old enough to know. Even during summer, she would keep her jacket on sweating through the night just in case. But Mr. Li actually had different plans.
He was very angry at his mom for purchasing this child. He wants to return Nunu to her family, but when he realizes that his mom is never going to listen to him, in his own way, he just tries protecting Nunu. He would see her sad, try to give her food, or sometimes he would sneak her a dollar, like one renminbi, one yan, and he motions for her to hide it in her shoe so grandmother can't see.
Mr. Lee never saw Nunu as any sort of child bride. He just, he slowly in his own twisted way started to see her as his child. And this is, in its own sick, weird way, the only other person that hated this situation as much as Nunu did. To the point where even after Nunu would leave the family home, they would keep in touch. But now, 26 years after being trafficked,
Nunu has a phone number she's supposed to call of somebody that is claiming to be her cousin. It should be very exciting, but it's not that exciting. This is like the ninth cousin reaching out to her this week, which should feel like a family reunion.
Except none of them were her cousins. Who's to say this isn't another weirdo on the internet trying to gain some sick satisfaction and giving Nunu hope. And she finally makes the call. And the cousin starts explaining what happened in their family to see if things are lining up. My cousin, when she was kidnapped, she told her sister she was going to go buy knitting needles with the neighbor. And then she vanished.
Nunu says in that moment, she couldn't even control her hands or her feet. They were just shaking nonstop. I mean, everything is matching up. The descriptions of her home, the family members, everything. I can ask your sister to call you if you'd like, Nunu. Would you like to speak with her? Nunu agrees and they hang up.
And she says that every second from that moment forward feels like eternity. She's anxious. She's sitting on her bed. Her head is buzzing. It's on fire. She's clutching her phone, but also making sure she doesn't accidentally press a button that would reject the call that's coming through.
And five minutes pass. It feels like five orbits around the sun and nothing. And then 15 minutes pass and still nothing. And finally, Nunu can't take it anymore. And she messages the cousin. She's crying at this point on her bed. Please don't lie to me. I've been searching for my family.
for years if what you're saying is true just tell my sister to call me as soon as possible if this is all some sort of prank or a sick joke please just tell me i'm not gonna be upset just don't lie to me please the only response that she gets back from her cousin is quote We would never lie about such things. And then her phone rings. It's her sister. It had been 26 years.
Nobody blames Nunu for the incoming interrogation. It is exactly what everybody else would have done. Sister, do you remember the time we played hide and seek and I fell? Of course I remember. It was me, you, and our youngest aunt. She was so worried. Who's asking who? Nunu is asking this supposed sister on the phone Sister, we lived on the second floor Were the stairs too much for me to climb on my own since I was so young? We didn't have stairs
It was a really unique home. I've never seen it before. It had a slope up to the second floor, not a flight of stairs in sight. This is it. This is her sister. Nunu knew it, but also now that it's confirmed, she starts getting a little frustrated. I'm so confused though. Why didn't you find me sooner? I've been looking for you for 26 years. Sister, I didn't know how. I didn't even go to school. Nunu cries to her. Wait, Nunu's sister didn't go to school? No. You'll see why soon.
You knew Christ her about how hard her life was and how hard she worked to never forget her own name. She only remembered because she had dreams of her parents calling her name searching the mountains near their town. She was supposed to grow up with her sister, but instead... Instead, her biggest freaking memory in life is working at the stupid ice cream factory and donating money to an earthquake.
Fund. It was the only job Nunu could get after moving out of her quote-unquote adoptive family's house. And to call it a job is very generous. And she's telling all her sister this whole story. She's barely paid. Most of the time, she couldn't even focus on work because she's starving.
at the ice cream factory. And that's not even her biggest problem. All the other girls in the factory are around her age, but they seemingly decided that they all have a disliking towards her for reasons unknown to Nunu. She would try so hard to befriend them, figure out
how they're feeding themselves off this paycheck, okay? It's slim pickings. But all they would do is nod or shake their head, yes or no, and then move away from her. They would just crinkle their nose and stare at her feet. Finally, one of the girls tells her,
Maybe you should wear a new pair of socks tomorrow. When Nunu left her quote-unquote adoptive family's home, she just had one pair of socks. Her socks were naturally sweaty and stinky by the end of the long workday at the factory, but... when she washed them at night she didn't have a heater or a blow dryer or anything she would hang dry them until the next morning but they would never fully dry which means they would be wet and so her options were now either wear the wet
and even stinkier socks or just not wash the socks or just keep wearing the same pair for at least a few days right and then go without them one day well that night she's so embarrassed that they all smelt her socks. She decided, okay, I'm going to wash my socks immediately when I get home and I'm going to spend an hour squeezing out every single droplet of water from the socks and whipping them around all night, letting them air dry so that they can be
completely dry by the next morning. The next morning, she slipped her feet into the nearly frozen, still wet socks as she headed to work. Another distinct memory of new news is One day, the TV was on at work and it was playing one of those wholesome news segments about a father who refused to give up looking for his son. He finds his abducted son reunites with him and Nunu is watching this.
More than anybody else is. Part of her wants that to happen to her. I mean, it gives her hope. The other part of her wonders, that dad is searching so hard for his son. Where are my parents? Why the hell aren't they looking for me? Maybe they are looking for me. Maybe they just haven't searched over here. China is quite large. She tries to think about what area she's from. Maybe Sichuan.
She remembers, I mean, it's so vague, but she remembers, she remembers hearing about that district when she was younger. Maybe they're from Sichuan or something. It means something. Maybe they have family in Sichuan. She went around asking all her colleagues that are from the Sichuan area, do you call your grandma Abuda? No. Why?
OK, but maybe it's still like a nickname that her family exclusively uses, or perhaps they all moved out of Sichuan later. Then in 2008, May 12th, 70,000 people die in Sichuan from the earthquake. It's like one of the worst earthquakes ever. Everyone at the ice cream factory held a three minute silent prayer for those in Sichuan. Nunu is emotional. She just keeps thinking.
I think that's where my parents live. And if my parents live there, then they're in danger. And if they're in danger, how are they going to find me? Everyone in the factory decided to donate about $3 each. to the earthquake fund, which doesn't sound like a lot, but they're all making about $82 a month.
for the entire month of work. They all barely have enough to eat and survive. But Nunu shows up and donates $30, which confuses the hell out of everyone because they're making the same amount of money. I mean, she can only afford one pair of socks. What's going on? Nunu was willing to starve for the next few months, even sleep on the streets, if it meant that she could potentially help her family. But nothing ever came to it. After the ice cream factory,
So there's something very interesting that happens in Shanghai at the local park. There's this very interesting event every single weekend. It's actually a everyday thing, but busiest on the weekends. Older people. middle-aged to full-blown senior citizens. Bless their hearts. They will walk through the park with hands held behind their backs and they're here for one mission. They're going to find them. They're going to find them, secure them, and marry them off.
There are stations set up where it's just an entire 10-foot wall of handwritten posters. It feels like they're selling these people. They have statistics on them. Age, height, weight, highest level of education, personal income, Chinese zodiac sign. Every poster tries to stand out in some way. shape or form very casually loves to cook for senior citizens there are sub zones within the poster sometimes it's organized by birth year this is the weekly shanghai marriage market
where parents gather to find their adult children a spouse. Now, side note, most of the posters aren't even made by the potential marriage candidates, but rather their parents who print out these posters and go display them at the marriage market.
From what I can see, most young Chinese people think the last people on earth that should help them pick a marriage partner are their parents. But I digress. Some of the parents will even print their unmarried children's statistics onto the sides of their umbrellas as they walk through the park.
their little sunbrellas. If anyone is approved, the parents will ask the potential candidate for their child. How much money do you have saved up? How much money do you make in a year? How many kids do you want? Do you have any health issues? These are very normal first meeting questions. It's fascinating. One poster reads, looking for a friend, Shanghainese, born in 1980, male, professional college degree, company clerk.
has an apartment with three bedrooms, lives alone. Here's the phone number. It's not just in Shanghai. Many major cities across China have these marriage markets. And again, most of the time, parents don't even get their children's explicit consent to be doing this. Otherwise, I see this as no different from regular online dating, just done in person. Maybe visually it's a little bit more jolting, but other than that, it's very normal. But for Nunu, this marriage market is not going to work.
Usually you don't have the marriage candidate go out there themselves and market themselves. That usually results in a storm of people surrounding you and you have no clue if they're even here for the right reasons. So instead, Nuna goes straight to a matchmaker.
It's not the best option considering she's going to have to pay them. But the matchmaker tells her to go to this very specific location. If the matchmaker finds anyone that is interested in Nunu, she's going to send them over to meet up with Nunu. She's like, go wait at this cafe.
Nunu is looking for a partner? Yes. Oh. This is when she's mid to late 20s now. Okay. And she tells her, go wait at this cafe. If I find someone that's interested in you, I'm going to send them to the cafe and they're going to be looking for you. Nunu waits for three days. Obviously, not continuously. She would go home at night, wash up, and come back the next day. But for three days, nothing. Nobody assent. And the main problem, she thought, was they all looked down on my family.
You know, because the matchmaker has to provide all the details about Nunu. And she said it's to be expected. She believed other potential candidates would only see her as a burden to take on, not someone to match their children or even uplift their children, just...
More baggage. Nunu goes back to the matchmaker and tells her, maybe all those things that I told you earlier about what I want in a husband, maybe it's fine. I mean, I'm not that picky. I could even lower some of the standards that I previously gave you. Okay, what are your standards now? Any deal breakers? Nunu says that she thought about it for a second and said, Well, I guess as long as he doesn't beat me after marriage. I guess that's my only standard.
A few more days pass and still nobody shows up, and Nunu goes back to the matchmaker and tells her, well, actually, maybe if he just hits me once in a while, I'll be okay. Alarmingly, the next day, a man arrives to match with her. Let's call him Sam. It's so awkward. I mean, they both know that they're trying to get married, but there's no natural way to meet for the first time like this. It's uncomfortable, but kind of in an endearing way.
Nunu is incredibly bubbly, outspoken. She's got this cute doe-eyed look to her. And after their date, the matchmaker calls her. So what do you think of Sam? Nunu is terrified of rejection. Even though she really likes Sam, she plays it cool. You should ask Sam first. If he agrees, then I agree. If he doesn't agree, then I don't agree. That night, the matchmaker texts her. Sam agrees.
The two get married and I keep waiting. I keep waiting for more shoes to drop. Like Sam is going to be this horrendous monster, but he's actually so sweet. He does not care about her past. He takes such good care of her. They purchase a home together. He helps her open up her own beauty salon and they have children together. And now Nunu is on the phone with her sister.
26 years after being kidnapped, asking her, this is everything that's happened in my life. Now I'm married. I have children. And why didn't you look for me? So much has happened. I mean, where were you? Nuno's sister tells her, of course we looked for you. We were known as the Blanket family. For months after Nunu went missing, they printed out pictures of Nunu, went to every single neighbor, every train station asking, have you seen this girl? Have you seen her? They carried around blankets.
For eight months, they just went from one train station to another sleeping at the train stations. Their dad almost got into trouble a few times because he would grab at random strangers at the station, shaking them by the shoulders. Why did you take my daughter? Where did you take her? Just tell me. I know you took her.
Nuna's sister would have to explain, I'm sorry for my dad. My sister's missing and we're all a little bit tense. All the strangers would brush the dust off their shoulders and just kind of give looks of pity. and maybe understanding before walking off.
Nunu originally believed that she had been given up to be trafficked or given up for adoption because of the one child policy in China. And she's a girl. She says, all these years I've really suffered, but who could I even tell? I've been waiting to go back and tell my parents. I want to complain to my parents for a little bit I want to say do you know what I've been through do you know how hard I fought to grow up do you know how many beatings I took I just want to tell them that
She says, I just I want to go home crying and I want to tell them, do you know how much I suffered? But the minute I spoke with my sister, all of that was gone. I just wanted to be with them. I wanted to bring them to live with me and buy lots of skincare from my mother, lots of snacks from my sister. I mean, it's been 26 years, but she's been thinking of them every waking moment of her entire freaking life. So it's fine.
And she tells her sister, it's okay, just hurry up and give me mom and dad's number. Hello? No, no. They're dead. Nunu says in that moment, she threw herself on the ground. Her whole body felt like she had just been thrown off a boat into the ocean. She just felt sobs go through her body. Her wails were painful. Her husband and three kids run into the room trying to figure out what's wrong. Nunu can't even talk.
Finally, when the words come out, she just screams at her husband. There's nothing left. Everything is gone. She says, this is not how I fantasized about it. I imagined I would at least be able to see my parents and I envisioned how I would interact with them.
What do you mean they're dead? I imagined all these scenarios of why my parents didn't find me sooner. My parents might have had relationship problems. Maybe they got divorced and started their own little families and they didn't want to look for me. Another possibility was...
They finally gave birth to a boy. They had my sister. They had a son. So perhaps they didn't look for me as hard as they could or that I was indeed sold. I thought about all these scenarios for 26 years, but I didn't expect that they'd be dead. Nunu is 34 years old. She was trafficked when she was five. Her parents died when she was seven, but she never knew. The parents died two years later? Yeah, they were both very young. Why? Depression.
her parents did not sell her or help traffic her because they wanted a son everyone who knew them said the family they did okay for themselves they're small-town people but they were doing okay They had two kids, which yeah, not allowed in one-child policy, but they had two daughters. It does not appear that they ever wished for a son. The daughters were really well taken care of.
which sounds crazy to say that but like given the context you get it now Nunu's parents they worked a lot both of them were gone for majority of the day and even into the night which meant it was just Nunu and her sister Nunu's memory of her parents was
They would come home late at night and they would want to hang out with their girls. So they would get chicken drumsticks and wave it around in the girls' faces while they're asleep. And they would wake up to the smell of chicken and they would jump out of bed and they would all share. this delicious meal of fried chicken together in the middle of the night. And the most impactful memory for Nunu's dad was she promised to buy him a camel.
Okay, the majority of the local population where Nunu grew up are Miao people. And in their culture, when people pass away, it's customary for family members to purchase a cow and present it during the funeral. So right before Nunu is kidnapped, she had gone to a local funeral with her parents and she's five. She doesn't understand the depressing concept of death yet. She just knows that loved ones by loved ones cows when they pass away at the funeral.
Nunu turns to her dad. Dad, they're way too stingy. That cow is the smallest cow I've ever seen. When you die, I'm going to buy you the biggest cow. I'm going to buy you a bigger cow. It's kind of an odd statement. But instead of being upset at his daughter for planning his death, he finds it endearing. And soon after, at another funeral, she sees one of the family members of the deceased not only purchased a very big cow, but also brought a camel.
She turns to her dad and tells him, remember what I said? Forget it. I'm buying you a camel instead. And ever since Nunu disappeared, her sister Sang said, all dad would do is get drunk. roll around on the floor screaming, where is my camel though? But I was promised a camel, where's my camel?
He just went from being this very bright, cheerful workaholic that really only cared about work and his family to drinking all day. Nuno's sister explains that even when he was drunk, he never got violent or full of rage. He was just a sad man. Weeping on the floor. He couldn't sleep without alcohol. Even in his sleep, he would call out for Nunu as if they're back at the train stations. It's complicated for Nunu's sister because part of her hates herself because...
Nunu told her she was going to go buy knitting needles with the neighbor. She didn't stop her. But another part of her wants to scream at her parents, Mom, Dad, I'm your daughter too, and I need someone to take care of me too. But she never did. And one night, Dad pulled her aside and said, He's not drunk that night, surprisingly. He turns to her. I don't know how much longer I'm gonna last, saying, Dad, what are you saying? If one day I'm gone...
If your mother remarries, don't follow her. If your stepfather is cruel to you, you're going to suffer without escape. Don't go. Don't live with your uncle either. He has too many kids and might not be able to take care of you. Stay with your grandmother and your other uncle. He's always been a good person and he'll make sure you never starve. Nunu's sister nods because she can't really talk. But finally she asks him, Dad, why can't you stay?
I will earn money soon and take care of you, and Mom, just hold on a little longer. I can take care of you. He just grabs her hands and says, We just miss your sister a lot. You've always been a great daughter, and we wronged you. Please don't blame us. Soon after, he ingested rat poison and passed away. A few weeks later, their mom passed. She had been slowly losing her mind for a while now.
That night, Nunu decides she's not going to get her parents a cow or a camel. She's going to get them revenge. Not even just to avenge what happened to her or her parents, but also to her sister. Her sister was orphaned. At like 10 years old. I mean, everyone in the village called her sister a jinx. They believe because Nunu went missing, both her parents died, and she's the last one standing. Maybe she's the bad luck. They all just stayed away from her just to be safe.
Hearing all of this, Nunu says she knew my parents were taken from us while they were still young, deceived and trapped in a grave while the traffickers roam free in some distant place beyond the law. Just thinking about that makes me restless. Every single night, I...
lay in bed and I couldn't help but imagine my parents wandering around like lost souls on a desolate mountain for over a decade. And at that moment I became resolute in just one thought. I'm going to bring these traffickers to justice. going to seek justice for my parents' lives, for the suffering endured by my sister and me, and for the destruction of my family. And I just have one question. Human traffickers, do you know what you've done?
The only way to catch a human trafficker. There's not really a foolproof way. It's very hard to catch them, but I guess the first is to become famous. Nunu had been trying to hunt down traffickers, her traffickers, for years. Nobody listened until she became somewhat famous on doing. Suddenly, all the cops wanted to help her. She gained a following. She was reunited with her family. She was making mainstream media news. And now everybody wants justice.
And coincidentally, that does make the police much more helpful. They're able to track down the safe house that she was taken to where they were negotiating with how much she's going to cost. They retraced her steps, found the safe house, and the first person they get to is this... old man named Wang.
He's the middleman. He's the one that runs the safe house. She begs this man, please, you're already 90 years old. You've lived 60 more years than my parents. You might not even be imprisoned if they arrest you. Can you just do one thing good? Like, do you really?
want to carry this to your grave just give me the name of my trafficker i don't know if i can tell you i don't know okay and i don't even know where you came from hua never told me i can't find hua anymore anyway and it was it was hua is that the name Yes, but it's like saying it was Tom. Oh, okay. So just like part of the name. Yeah, it's like it was Kate. And she stops dead in her tracks. He's staring at her. How do you know her full name? Nunu says she's always remembered the name Yu Haiying.
But she had no clue where she remembered that name. She just thought it was a family member because her name is Nu Hua and her sister's name is Sang Ying. Hua Ying. Yu Haiying, she thought it was a family member, like an aunt, because it's a combination of both her and her sister's name. But now she knows in this moment, that name that she remembered is her trafficker's name.
Oh, it's been in her brain. Yes, and she always thought it was a family member. But she couldn't play too. Maybe it's her aunt because you don't really call your aunt by your full name and she was five. She thought it was an aunt. That's crazy. It was her trafficker's name. The police have to be sure though. They do a dozen photo lineups and each and every single time, Nunu is able to point her out. It's her. She's the trafficker. She's the freaking neighbor.
On Father's Day, an arrest warrant is granted to Hua. The 60-year-old, now 60 years old, is playing mahjong with her friends when she's arrested. bright red hair. She dyes her hair at 60 and she's very intense. The prosecutors also bring forth the information that this isn't even Hua's first time getting arrested for abducting children. She was arrested in 2004 for kidnapping and selling children, a.k.a. human trafficking, child trafficking. She was sentenced to eight years in prison.
But for some reason, unbeknownst to me and anybody else with more than five brain cells, she gets released in five years on good behavior. You kidnap children. You sell children. But you've been doing a great job at keeping yourself very clean and tidy. Perhaps you have fully rehabilitated. I don't know how those two things are representative of each other. I mean, a shitty person with a tidy room is still a...
person with a tidy room, I guess. The logic is beyond me. This time around when she gets arrested and she's going to be tried in court because now Nunu is bringing her to court for trafficking her 26 years ago. Hua, the trafficker, is arguing. a bunch of different things. She's pulling out every excuse in the book. She says, actually, it's not me that's the brains of this operation. It's the middleman. The middleman was forcing me.
to take profits off of human trafficking. She even accused the middleman of sometimes skimming more money off the top, resulting in her to barely break even. Honestly, she's not even making money off of this. But then when she's confronted with the fact that eventually she stops using that middleman, Wang, the one that gives her name a little bit.
She's still trafficking children. So how do you explain that? She then explains, it's this guy that I was dating actually. He's the one that forced me to traffic. The police confront her with the fact that, well, he's dead. And he died a long time ago, and you still continue trafficking children after he died. Suddenly, she starts telling the court, you know, I know why I trafficked children.
Not any of that. It's not the middleman. It's not the man that I was seeing. It's this very terrible car accident that I was in. A car had rammed into a pole, except I was the pole. It rammed into me. The car hit me. You know, it just jumbled up my hippocampus. Curiously, it only left Hua with the memories of her doing good deeds and every bad deed she allegedly committed had been deleted and she doesn't remember trafficking anyone.
It's a very believable story if all of us are idiots. What? Yeah. She tries to argue everything. Then she switches up and says, you know, my life has been full of suffering. She tries to pull a pity card. I'm 60 years old for 60 years. All I've done is suffer in this life. She even points to Nunu during Nunu's testimonies and screams, she's lying. she's a liar you're a liar you were just a child you can't possibly remember anything that was 26 years ago don't make up stories
She also claimed that she never hit any of the children she abducted, which I know sounds moot point because she abducted them. So that should be enough. But it would actually get her more time behind bars if she was also violent with them. The prosecutors grilled her. You're telling me these children, all between the ages of three and six years old, how could they not cry or resist? What illegal methods did you use to stop them from crying? Or did you just hit them into submission?
Hua asked the prosecutors, well, if they didn't cry or resist, what do you want me to say? What does that mean? basically the prosecutors are saying there is in no world that these children did not cry and if they cried how did you get them to stop you must have hit them and she said well what if they didn't cry how do you want me to respond
Like I didn't hit them because they didn't cry. I don't know why she's being a smart ass right now. She has no remorse until the very end. All Nunu and the other victims that they were able to find, at first it was around 11. 11 victims that she has. They all came forward? Yes. 11 kids or adults now? Yes.
Wow. All they wanted was for her to say, I'm sorry. I was wrong. I was blinded by greed. I broke up families because of it. And all this suffering has been my fault. But instead, they got nothing. So it sounds like a lot of these came... out or or was solved because of doing like social media yes so she came forward first
And then it blew up. Everyone tracked this woman. And then all the other victims probably also heard about this news through social media and all of that. And they all came forward. And remembered her. Or some of the parents remembered her. Yeah. Wow. So there's two trials for Hua, one in 2023, one this year. And the first trial, it was 11 children.
Now, Nunu is asked to testify at the first trial, and she has to tell the courts how much worse off she is because of what the trafficker did. She tells the court about, one of my earliest memories was... because the family struggled to make any money. So they all find her a lot due in part to social media. Now, the first trial in 2023 is entirely draining. Nunu ends up walking into the courtroom one day and you just hear this giant thud. Everybody goes quiet and they're staring at her.
because Nunu is on her knees in the middle of the courtroom she has been testifying she's been advocating she's been going on news stations trying to tell everybody what's happened to her draw attention to this case because in China previously child traffickers were getting like She kneeled in front of the judge?
Because she didn't know what else to do, she's so desperate. All Nunu could hear while on her knees in the courtroom were the sounds of her sister sobbing behind her. September 18th, 2023, Hua is sentenced to death. Nunu would go back and kneel down, but this time at her parents' grave. Mom? Dad? I sent the trafficker to jail.
She's going to be sentenced to death for the crime of child trafficking. The court said the defendant, Yu Huaying, is sentenced to death for the crime of child trafficking with lifelong deprivation of political rights and confiscation of all personal property. That's what they thought.
But Hua had the audacity to demand a retrial, stating that the punishment is way too severe, that it borderlines cruel and unusual punishment, which I assume this is why so many lawyers just want their clients to shut up, because during the retrial, it's... uncovered that Hua actually trafficked not 11 children, but 17 children. They found five more victims. Hua had sold 15 children in total. Five of them were siblings. 12 families in total were impacted.
She trafficked five siblings from one family. Yes. Or like two, two and three, I believe. Oh. But still, imagine losing not just one child, but all your children at once. Some of the children were even thrown away midway because they couldn't find buyers. So she trafficked them for no reason, didn't even bring them back home. One of the most disturbing revelations is they discover that Hua's very first victim ever was her own son. She sold him for $700.
she did have a daughter as well that's her very first child she thought that she could help with trafficking other kids she said her daughter could help with her trafficking yes that's why she would keep the daughter and then go to neighborhoods their mo was they would rent these little rooms for maybe three weeks to a month act like they've moved in permanently they're getting settled down make friends with all the neighbors get the
get the daughter to hang out with little kids, lure them out like she did with Nunu, and then leave. Wow. Her husband and her daughter would meet her in the next location. Were they charged? Were they? They died. The daughter was not because by the time that she was of age, I think she escaped her parents. But the husband had died by that point.
One of the mothers that had been impacted, both of her children had been sold and trafficked by Hua. She says, she snatched and sold two of my children. It took me 28 years to find them. A lot of their stories are not as public as Nunu. Other parents were unable to reunite with their family members because a lot of them...
They just got scattered afterwards. A lot of the parents, after their children were trafficked, they got into divorces. They moved away. They weren't able to come back. Some of them got ill and passed away from a, quote, broken heart, if you will, or a few of them had self-exited. Before the sentencing, Hua, the trafficker, gives another statement. This is the second trial. She's like, I don't deserve the death penalty. I'm going to give another statement. She tries to tug at people's emotions.
I don't know. OK, she pulls out a few pieces of paper and just starts reading off her statement. And it's a bland statement. It's just I was too young at the time and I made mistakes and I only sold my child out of desperation. My financial situation was dire. my husband was irresponsible he got arrested he was the main breadwinner i had no way of surviving while raising this child that is crazy to say yeah
Nunu gives a final victim impact statement for the judge to take into consideration. She's wearing all black. She says very loudly for the entire court to hear every single word clearly. She's talking directly to her trafficker. You say you only completed the second grade and you didn't know better, but you have three pages of notes that you read off and not a single word was misread. Because of your actions, my quote unquote adoptive family, stopped me from going to school.
by the sixth grade and my sister only completed the fourth grade to this day my sister still can't recognize most words The trafficker can take out her own paper and clearly read out her own appeal. The trafficker caused all of this single-handedly. Hua tries to argue that she was young. She was 30 years old when she kidnapped me. She said she was too young to understand the consequences of what that would have done.
She was over 30 years old when she kidnapped me, but she still thinks that's too young. My mom was 32 when she died. She was already lying in her grave when Hua kidnapped me. She was already older than my dead mother. What Hua did to us directly caused my mother to go insane after she lost me. My father became an alcoholic. They asked everyone, do you know where Nunu is?
Why is it that in all of Hua's words, it's all about how tough her life was. And she did all of this because of money. Our suffering was caused by Hua. She could have had a happy life. Her life struggles were not caused by us. She says she had a difficult life, but my sister went to work at a factory when she was 13 i went to go work at an ice cream factory when i was 14 do you know how hard our lives were but we never once thought about breaking the law or trafficking children
She says she sold her son because she couldn't afford to raise him, but she was working at the time at a noodle shop earning money. She just wasn't satisfied. She could have put him up for adoption. So why sell him for money? She saw it as an easy way to make profit, much quicker than working hard. So she began kidnapping children to sell. And now after all of this, she repents.
She turns to Hua. You stand here in court confident while I, someone who's only asking for justice, I'm shaking with anxiety. I demand justice for my family and all. all the families of the victims present here. December 19th of this year, Hua is sentenced to death once more at 61 years old. The top trending search after her sentencing is how quickly.
Is she going to be executed? Which is pretty quickly in China within seven days after they signed the death warrant. But it's unclear when they're going to sign that warrant. Nunu tells journalists that is exactly what she wanted. She said how could I not hate the trafficker? Even when she reunited with her sister and extended family, knowing that her parents died, I mean, every fantasy she ever had of meeting them, hugging them while crying to them about how unfair her life was, it's gone.
It almost ruined her marriage. She remembers just being so angry at the world when she found out her parents were dead. Every single night she had insomnia. Her husband tried everything to help her. He would take these nightly runs with her to tire her out before bed, but nothing would work. She's surviving on one to two hours of sleep a night. She would stay up just crying to herself and then she would.
look to her side and her husband is asleep as he should be. You know, one of them has to be asleep. One of them has to get good sleep so they can wake up and take care of the kids. But for some reason, there was this rage inside of her that is just so unfair. Thankfully, the two of them supported each other. And even now, people question the husband. I don't know why. It's a weird question. But they ask, if you knew about your wife's past sooner, would you still have married her?
I cast a lot of judgment on the people asking these questions. However, the husband responds, if I had known a day earlier about her past, all that would change was I would have married to her a day earlier. Her adoptive father, Mr. Lee. And I'm sure it's a very complicated relationship. There seems to be mutual love or at least some level of understanding because Nunu brings him to the hometown.
introduces him to her entire family, includes him in all of their family photos. So with the clear verdict set, Nunu feels like she can move on with her life. She's opening back up her beauty salon. She's actually registered it as a blood collection spot for DNA testing for those looking for their families. Aside from that, she's been giving speeches to raise awareness to how trafficking works.
and what everyone can do to stop it. Sometimes she live streams to sell products, which, side note, for some freaking reason, some people decided that they don't like that. And the way Nunu responds to people who get upset with her for live streaming is a level of class I think would blow those weirdos' minds. She responds to the people who hate her. I don't know why you're angry with me.
Are you upset because I make shirts on my own now and perhaps I stole your business? But I check your profile and I know that you're not selling shirts. So that's not it. Now, is it because I'm not positive enough online? Well, that's not true. I'm really positive. So why are you guys mad at me? Is it because I suffered in the past and now I'm doing well? So you want to suppress me? I don't think that's it either. I think you're upset because you don't know me.
And you don't understand me. So for those people, I just ask for one thing. Maybe just stick around, get to know me, and we can give each other a chance. Side note, she's not even making an easy living. She takes her live streams incredibly seriously, which everybody should, but she refuses to even use the restroom.
even take a sip of water during a seven hour live streaming session because she doesn't want her viewers to think she's not taking it seriously by taking restroom breaks. And it's also a bit of a bad habit ever since her kidnapping because she... A lot of people think it's from the PTSD of urinating on herself in the train. She contracts a lot of UTIs because she refuses to use the restroom. She just has a thing about it.
And so now whenever family members check on her, they don't say, get some rest. They don't say, take care of yourself. They always scold her. Don't hold in your pee, okay? Wow. And the last page in her book reads, When I was lonely and helpless as a child, I wished for a big family with faces similar to mine around me. That wish has come true. And it's a picture of her and Mr. Lee and her entire family from back home. And that is the case of what has happened to Nunu. The child...
who was child trafficked and then found her trafficker 26 years later and got her sentenced to death. It's a very big, it's known as a monumentous case in China right now because like I mentioned before, typically a lot of child traffickers would get... 5, 10, 20 years max. And now this is really a harsh punishment, I guess, in retrospect. Even though I think it could be much harsher. What are your thoughts? Leave it in the comments and please be safe. I'll see you in the next one.