For all of her short life, a 9-year-old girl in China has been missing her parents, and for half of her life, she's been trying to find them with a handmade sign at a street stall where she also sells vegetables, reports the Times. "I am quite healthy now, mum and dad, can you take me home?" reads her sign. That's because the girl, nicknamed Mao Mao, was left on the stoop of an elderly neighbor when she was a sick one-month-old and her parents were leaving to visit their hometown of Wenchuan. The woman, who has cared for her since, says her parents called several days later promising to return, but Wenchuan was destroyed by an earthquake two days later, killing nearly 70,000 people, reports GB Times.
They were never heard from again, though their fate remains unknown. Their daughter showed up at the Lianhu market in Tangxia Town, Dongguan city when she was 4 and has gone every day since, selling produce and hoping her parents will find her. "If they are alive, I hope they can take her home. I am 70 and too old to raise her," says the woman who's been raising the girl for almost a decade now, per ECNS. The girl's story has gone viral on Chinese social media, and four county officials who've read her story have now vowed to help her. (This orphan went to a church in Florida to plead for a new family.)
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