Long Lost Taiwanese Brother...suggestions?

I am a 49 year old woman born of American parents and I live in the States with my 4 kids. My father died two years ago and recently while going through his pictures, I found some letters and pictures of a Western looking Chinese boy. I lived in Taiwan from the ages of 1-5…and in Asia until I was 10 and I usually can tell who is from Vietnam or Korea or Burma…et cetera! Both my parents are now dead, but when I asked my stepmother if it was possible my father had a child with the Taiwanese lady we knew he had an affair with…she confirmed that he did. When I asked if my father ever sent support, my stepmother said he had not.

To our surprise, my siblings and I are all very upset. It isn’t like we are not ultra modern and all!!! But, I am appalled that my father would treat how own child and the mother so badly! And to abandon a child? Sickening. Also, we got the letters translated and it looks like my father either married this lady (when married to my mother) or that they pretended to be married…so finding out about us might be shocking to him as well. On the other hand, we are all pretty thrilled to learn of a new sibling!

I have now found my brother and learned that his mother died 3 years ago. My brother is very successful in his field.

Any thoughts? Should we approach our brother? Should we drop it? I was given his contact information and strongly urged to FAX him a letter? FAX? Here in the US faxing is considered fairly impersonal…though my inlaws fax dirty jokes to each other. I have my brother’s mailing address.

Cool. Congratulations. :bravo:

Definitely don’t drop it. You all did nothing wrong. You have nothing to be ashamed of. On the contrary, you just discovered you have a sibling you never knew of. How exciting to have the opportunity to connect after all these years, get to know each other, and enjoy communicating and spending time with each other (as time and distance permit), perhaps forming a precious, meaningful new relationship/s that should last you your remaining years (not saying that 49 is old; saying that this relationship can/should last decades). Family is way too precious to squander. Same for life. What a shame it would be to let this opportunity slip through your fingers due to guilt over your dad’s actions or nonactions, or over trivial concerns such as fax v. email. Too informal? Who knows? Who cares? One fax, then a phone call, then a bunch of phone calls and emails, then a plane trip. Sounds good to me.

Good luck. I hope he is receptive. If not, give it time after your initial contact and come back to him again. I would imagine he’ll be as curious as you are to meet his “new” kin.

If you’re thinking of sending a fax - is that fax number for his office? His home? Faxes can be and usually are read by just about anyone in an office, or even at home… discretion is highly advised.

Since you have the mailing address then mail him a letter, don’t use the fax. Takes a few days longer but that shouldn’t matter, IMHO this reduces the risk of him thinking someone is making a bad joke or spamming him, and surely it’s more personal.
You could however give your phone number and email in addition to your mailing address and tell him to use any of those ways (whatever he prefers) to contact you if he is interested.

Write it, by hand, and mail it in a sealed envelope. Not only is it more personal, but it is more private. If you don’t get a response, I’d say drop it rather than faxing. As noted above, faxes aren’t private enough, and would be like a public announcement to his whole office. :idunno:

Assuming of course that it gets to him and that he doesn’t just throw away a letter written in English.

HG

[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Assuming of course that it gets to him and that he doesn’t just throw away a letter written in English.

HG[/quote]
For sure. Write it in Chinese or have it translated by someone you trust.

Send an airmail letter, don’t fax. But before you do, you might want to check with a lawyer to see if this could have implications for your father’s estate. Better to know of possible ramifications now rather than later.

So perhaps no worries.

Regardless, yes, write him. Congratulations on your newfound family member!

I would say, get some neutral person in Taiwan (perhaps a private detective?) to contact the brother discreetly and ascertain his feelings. Have them leave your contact information with him.

Good luck.

KMW,

I went through (well we are still going through) something similar to your situation, 14 years ago now. We discovered we had a brother who had been “left” in Canada. Only three people in our family knew about him, and when he contacted our mother it was quite a sudden change to the family dynamic. The story of how he got there, and post-contact events, make quite a story and I won’t bother writing them all here, but basically I would say before you make any contact, prepare yourself well and find some support network where you can share your experience with people who have gone through this before.

Even though we, the children on both sides of the world, are the “innocent” parties, it is surprising what emotions come out upon contact, meeting, parting, working through new relationships… surprise, euphoria, disulusionment, grief… Your kids will be affected by your emotions during the whole thing, too.

I also found that there were many common threads between our own family’s experiences and those of others who had been adopted out or were with one parent when the other was not in the picture at all. I have a good friend at home whom, at 44 years of age got to meet her mother and half-sisters for the first time, and it went really well for a few months but then just fell apart, and you have to ready yourself for that possibility.

Of course, all those negatives aside, I would encourage you to follow up with contact. It is much better to do that than spend the rest of your life wondering “what if”.

I don’t know about the legal side of things, but from our experience I would suggest the gentle approach to contact. Write a letter and leave ways to contact you. Or, as Screaming Jesus suggests, find a neutral person in Taiwan do help you. Is there an organisation in Taiwan that handles this kind of thing?

All the best!

What sort of work does he do? (You wrote that you know he’s very successful.)

If he’s in a job that gives him experience with folks from outside Taiwan, that might make him a bit more open to meeting long lost relatives. If he’s never left Taiwan or dealt with anyone who isn’t Taiwanese, meeting you will be pretty strange for him, and you’ll have to think about using a go-between.

My wife and I vote for using a go-between option to ascertain his feelings and you should use a taiwanese. How did you find his address and info? Such an interesting human interest story and I get pin needles every time I read it.

It reminds me a bit about a worker here doing a remodel to our kitchen at the moment. He is a 61 yr old Taiwanese aborigine here in Phoenix who left Taiwan at around 20 years old because of persecution by the KMT. He was adopted by his uncle at a very young age in Taiwan, grew up in Jayi county and was forced out or fled Taiwan due to KMT persecution and hasnt been back for 40yrs. His brothers took everything in the estate and sold it after the parents died.
Now he is thinking about returning to Taiwan to live and rekindle relationships with his step family although he has nothing there and hasnt communicated with them for 30 years. He became a successful house builder in Arizona and Colorado. He has been asking us about life there and the health insurance system…etc. Very refreshing!!

[quote=“KMW”]I am a 49 year old woman born of American parents and I live in the States with my 4 kids. My father died two years ago and recently while going through his pictures, I found some letters and pictures of a Western looking Chinese boy. I lived in Taiwan from the ages of 1-5…and in Asia until I was 10 and I usually can tell who is from Vietnam or Korea or Burma…et cetera! Both my parents are now dead, but when I asked my stepmother if it was possible my father had a child with the Taiwanese lady we knew he had an affair with…she confirmed that he did. When I asked if my father ever sent support, my stepmother said he had not.

To our surprise, my siblings and I are all very upset. It isn’t like we are not ultra modern and all!!! But, I am appalled that my father would treat how own child and the mother so badly! And to abandon a child? Sickening. Also, we got the letters translated and it looks like my father either married this lady (when married to my mother) or that they pretended to be married…so finding out about us might be shocking to him as well. On the other hand, we are all pretty thrilled to learn of a new sibling!

I have now found my brother and learned that his mother died 3 years ago. My brother is very successful in his field.

Any thoughts? Should we approach our brother? Should we drop it? I was given his contact information and strongly urged to FAX him a letter? FAX? Here in the US faxing is considered fairly impersonal…though my inlaws fax dirty jokes to each other. I have my brother’s mailing address.[/quote]

My great grandfather (my father’s maternal grandfather) came to South Africa from Holland in the 1920s. He met my great grandmother and had three kids. My grandmother, great aunt and great uncle. My great grandfather died in 1987 aged 86, but we knew he had had a younger sister back in Holland. My grandmother started writing to her after my great grandfather’s passing to keep in contact with family we had back there. Eventually the old woman died, or so we assumed, because she no longe returned our letters. Then in 2003 when I was already in Taiwan my grandmother called me up one day and said she had some interesting news.
She had been contacted by a Dutch gentlemen who said he was her nephew! Turns out my great greandfather had left Holland after a divorce in which he left behind his ex-wife and young son. Unfortunately my grandmothers half brother had already died, and it was his son that had contacted us.
Subsequently they have visited us in South Africa on a few occassions and we have visited them in Holland. It has been a very exciting time to meet our Dutch family and to reconnect with people we didn’t even know existed. We now have a wonderful relationship with them and it’s great to have learnt aboyut them. I’m just sorry for my grandmother, great aunt and uncle that they never had the opportunity to meet their half brother.

I would say, go for it. Write him a letter with all your contact details and take it from there. Chances are he’ll be just as keen as you to learn more about his American family and I think all your lives will be enriched by the experience.
Good luck.

I called my brother’s publisher…because that publisher had a couple of addresses on the web. I EXPECTED to talk to a receptionist who would just confirm the address. Of course that would be too simple! Anyway, a man answered, and when I asked what their mailing address was…and he asked too whom I was writing. I was kind of taken aback…and said I wanted to send a personal letter to one of their authors. He demanded to know what author. I said my brother’s English and Chinese names…and it turned out that the man that answered the phone was the actual PUBLISHER, and co-authored some stuff with my brother. He demanded to know what I wanted with him…he is working on a project for XXXX and is very busy right now.

Now, when I was younger, I could lie at the drop of a hat! If you asked where I spent the afternoon, I would say at a museum, even though I spent it at a library. But then I gave up lying…and became incurably honest. Honestly, it is kind of a drag.

So…I opened my mouth to say it was a Private Family Matter…but I live in a small place, Napa CA. Everyone knows everyone, and if you don’t know them, you probably have many friends in common. So, I suddenly didn’t want to say Private Family Matter…because that sounded ALARMING to me and it occured to me that Taiwan might be more like Napa CA than New York City. I said…“I think I might be his sister.” THEN…the publisher…who was also a friend say…OH! XXXX has an American father! He told me to email my info and he would get back to me. I sent the link to my father’s obituary and some information about myself.

The publisher who wrote back saying that when people want to get ahold of my brother, they have to fax a request to his private FAX number and he will call them back…eventually. He said that my brother speaks average English, doesn’t read English well, but his wife speaks and reads excellent English and Spanish…so translating a letter is unnecessary. The publisher also gave me his email and said he doesn’t check it much. The email is in the wife’s name, I believe.

I wrote back wondering if I should just drop the whole matter…we didn’t want to upset my brother or his mother in any way. Publisher/friend said my brother always wanted to know about his American father and that I should CERTAINLY contact him. His mother died three years ago.

Meanwhile…our family dynamics HERE are in total Melt Down. All relationships have changed…the whole thing is so freaking WEIRD. My psychologist finds it very interesting to watch the meltdown! For some reason, everyone is running around saying that we all just can’t write a letter and sign our names and addresses to it…we have to chose a Spokesman to write THE LETTER. To which I said, “Who is WE white man?” Of course the nominated spokesman is the most evil member of our family…who’s path of distruction is legend! But she has changed…and besides, she adopted a Chinese daughter 4 years ago, so she is expert. Right?

Honestly, I don’t know why anyone would anything to do with us…and am sorry I ever found the poor guy. My shrink says that I think our family and our history is worthless because I actually have it. She says it is unfair, especially to a male, not to have a clue who his father’s family was. We do have a kind of cool family history in California…but, frankly, I go by and kick the family tree (in a binder) every time I walk by it. But it is interesting to me to see that my brother is involved in an outreadh for depressed youth.

My stepmother says we should leave him alone…let sleeping dogs lie. I pointed out that my Taiwanese brother has a right to an American passport and citizenship, if he wants it, and it is doubtful that my father trotted down to the embassy to register his birth…since that is where he worked! My stepmother said, “Why would he want an American passport anyway. Why would he want to move here?” I said, “I don’t want to move to France, but if I had a right to, I would want to decide…not have a bunch of people I have never met decide.” Then my stepmother asked why I would want to preserve my right to move to France…and I shouted…“BECAUSE IT IS MY RIGHT, it is mine and you can’t have it!” Discussion goes downhill from there! Then the teenage daughter, who is a fiend for my brother’s particular form of art walks thru saying, “Mom, a quick way to starve, if you do XXXXX is to come to America.” Then I point out it doesn’t matter anyway, perhaps he wants to take an extended tour and the tourist visa won’t suffice.

Anyway, I am glad to know that it isn’t just MY family that rearranged itself at this news. The funniest thing is that most of the consequences have little if anything to do with my Taiwanese brother…it is all old stuff that has come to the surface!

Meanwhile…I assume that my brother’s publisher has let him know I contacted them. But maybe not? If the publisher I talked to was an American woman, my brother would have been notified in about 30 seconds and will have been waiting for MONTHS for his wretched American family to contact him.

[quote=“KMW”]I called my brother’s publisher…because that publisher had a couple of addresses on the web. I EXPECTED to talk to a receptionist who would just confirm the address. Of course that would be too simple! Anyway, a man answered, and when I asked what their mailing address was…and he asked too whom I was writing. I was kind of taken aback…and said I wanted to send a personal letter to one of their authors. He demanded to know what author. I said my brother’s English and Chinese names…and it turned out that the man that answered the phone was the actual PUBLISHER, and co-authored some stuff with my brother. He demanded to know what I wanted with him…he is working on a project for XXXX and is very busy right now.

Now, when I was younger, I could lie at the drop of a hat! If you asked where I spent the afternoon, I would say at a museum, even though I spent it at a library. But then I gave up lying…and became incurably honest. Honestly, it is kind of a drag.

So…I opened my mouth to say it was a Private Family Matter…but I live in a small place, Napa CA. Everyone knows everyone, and if you don’t know them, you probably have many friends in common. So, I suddenly didn’t want to say Private Family Matter…because that sounded ALARMING to me and it occured to me that Taiwan might be more like Napa CA than New York City. I said…“I think I might be his sister.” THEN…the publisher…who was also a friend say…OH! XXXX has an American father! He told me to email my info and he would get back to me. I sent the link to my father’s obituary and some information about myself.

The publisher who wrote back saying that when people want to get ahold of my brother, they have to fax a request to his private FAX number and he will call them back…eventually. He said that my brother speaks average English, doesn’t read English well, but his wife speaks and reads excellent English and Spanish…so translating a letter is unnecessary. The publisher also gave me his email and said he doesn’t check it much. The email is in the wife’s name, I believe.

I wrote back wondering if I should just drop the whole matter…we didn’t want to upset my brother or his mother in any way. Publisher/friend said my brother always wanted to know about his American father and that I should CERTAINLY contact him. His mother died three years ago.

Meanwhile…our family dynamics HERE are in total Melt Down. All relationships have changed…the whole thing is so freaking WEIRD. My psychologist finds it very interesting to watch the meltdown! For some reason, everyone is running around saying that we all just can’t write a letter and sign our names and addresses to it…we have to chose a Spokesman to write THE LETTER. To which I said, “Who is WE white man?” Of course the nominated spokesman is the most evil member of our family…who’s path of distruction is legend! But she has changed…and besides, she adopted a Chinese daughter 4 years ago, so she is expert. Right?

Honestly, I don’t know why anyone would anything to do with us…and am sorry I ever found the poor guy. My shrink says that I think our family and our history is worthless because I actually have it. She says it is unfair, especially to a male, not to have a clue who his father’s family was. We do have a kind of cool family history in California…but, frankly, I go by and kick the family tree (in a binder) every time I walk by it. But it is interesting to me to see that my brother is involved in an outreadh for depressed youth.

My stepmother says we should leave him alone…let sleeping dogs lie. I pointed out that my Taiwanese brother has a right to an American passport and citizenship, if he wants it, and it is doubtful that my father trotted down to the embassy to register his birth…since that is where he worked! My stepmother said, “Why would he want an American passport anyway. Why would he want to move here?” I said, “I don’t want to move to France, but if I had a right to, I would want to decide…not have a bunch of people I have never met decide.” Then my stepmother asked why I would want to preserve my right to move to France…and I shouted…“BECAUSE IT IS MY RIGHT, it is mine and you can’t have it!” Discussion goes downhill from there! Then the teenage daughter, who is a fiend for my brother’s particular form of art walks thru saying, “Mom, a quick way to starve, if you do XXXXX is to come to America.” Then I point out it doesn’t matter anyway, perhaps he wants to take an extended tour and the tourist visa won’t suffice.

Anyway, I am glad to know that it isn’t just MY family that rearranged itself at this news. The funniest thing is that most of the consequences have little if anything to do with my Taiwanese brother…it is all old stuff that has come to the surface!

Meanwhile…I assume that my brother’s publisher has let him know I contacted them. But maybe not? If the publisher I talked to was an American woman, my brother would have been notified in about 30 seconds and will have been waiting for MONTHS for his wretched American family to contact him.[/quote]

Is a movie coming out soon? :slight_smile: I do think you are doing the right thing by the way. And I would think the publisher had immediately notified your brother.

Is a movie coming out soon? :slight_smile: I do think you are doing the right thing by the way. And I would think the publisher had immediately notified your brother.[/quote]

I know…isn’t is ridiculous? There is so much drama in our family, I have to do major edits even to tell anyone about the stuff that goes on.

I second the vote to continue with the contact. Since it’s your initiative, and with a dysfunctional family, were I you I would proceed with contact (since you’re already kicking the genealogy). If you don’t, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering why you didn’t. Let the step brother decide if or how to respond.

At the end of the day that person is your brother. Follow it up if that is what you feel is right. It would seem there would be no means of pleasing all of your family.

Carry on. Even if it’s just you initially. One sister and knowledge of that side of his family will be immensely important for him. On my father’s side of the family I have very little information. It stops with my grandfather. I know he had brothers and sisters, but I know nothing about them. I would give a great deal to just know.

Well, you guys gave me courage…so I went ahead and emailed him and have recieved a reply from my sister-in-law. Here is some of it…I won’t post their personal info! Thank you everyone!

First of all, this is a big surprise, a good one I must say! As XXX doesn’t speak English, so I will translate this to him.

XXX has been waiting for long long time for an answer; he gave up hope long time ago. Although we thought about hiring a PI to find his father, but we never took action…One of the reason is that XXX doesn’t know what to do once he find his father, and scare of what will happened after finding him; and he assumed his father might have family (Info that his mother never wanted to talk about), if nobody ever looking for him means nobody (except his father) knows about his existence, and XXX doesn’t want to hurt anyone who doesn’t know. But he was always wondering who was his father, what kind of person is he, what he did, what he likes, did he ever think about XXX? Thank you very much for info of his father and grandfather’s and attachments, it helps a lots!

I did google his father from time to time without telling him, I found your father’s name, your step mom, 2 siblings…but I couldn’t confirm it’s really his family…
We though about someone someday will come and find him, but that was always imaginary scene! Last night this imagination came true! and we are shocked! XXXX needs sometimes to digest all this information and to deal with upcoming emotions…<<<