A man recently tracked down his missing son, who had been gone for 19 years, and found he had been adopted by a couple in the United States.

Li Xuwen and his wife Fu Guihua, residents of Fanchang county, Wuhu, Anhui province, lost their son at a food stand in 1992 after they took the 5-year-old Li Xiang to Nanjing, capital city of Jiangsu province.

The couple had been relentlessly looking for him for 19 years.

Four years ago, police officers at a police substation in Nanjing told the couple they had dealt with a missing boy matching his description back in 1992. The unclaimed child was sent to the city's welfare house for children.

Li learned that their son was put up for adoption and was selected by a US couple in 1995.

The parents subsequently found that their son was a graduate student in the US but he refused to respond to his parents because he believed they had abandoned him.

Li said he now hopes to be able to tell his son face-to-face that they did not abandon him.

(Yangtze Evening News)