Malaysian Woman Finds Biological Father After Over 20 Years With Help From Twitter Users
The only things Cinta ever had to remind her of her father were a few of his pictures with her as a baby.
When 24-year-old Cinta received a direct message on Twitter that someone found her biological father, she almost couldn't believe it
She didn't have much hope to begin with when she made a plea to Twitter users to help find her father whom she had not seen or heard from for over 20 years.
Her search began only recently when she suddenly felt curious about her father's whereabouts. She also really wanted to know what it would feel like to have a father.
Cinta was longing for that connection with him.
She told SAYS that she has been living in Petaling Jaya her whole life. After her parents got married, they had moved from Sabah to Peninsular Malaysia, where they raised Cinta and her two siblings.
Cinta said the last time she met her father was when she was just two or three years old before her parents separated, during which her father moved back to Sabah. The only things she ever had to remind her of him were a few of his pictures with her as a baby.
After several failed attempts to find him through Google and Facebook on her own, Cinta decided to go public with her search and try her luck on the bird app
"People say he was last seen in Taman Kosas Ampang," she wrote in the Twitter thread.
She also shared with SAYS that she thought his name or nickname was Junior and that he is Sabahan-Filipino.
Her post had over thousands of shares and likes on Twitter. One netizens even enhanced the old photo of her father to aid her in the search mission.
It took less than 24 hours, over 6,000 retweets, and 8,000 likes on her post before someone located her father
Cinta told SAYS that it was actually a stranger on Twitter who got in touch with her and connected her to her father. She also discovered that he is currently living in Beaufort, Sabah.
"I met him through video call. There were mixed feelings. I felt awkward to call him 'papa' and kept thinking, 'Is this real?'"
"I cried tears of joy. Happy, sad, there were a lot of emotions."
Cinta has already started planning a trip to meet her long lost father and other relatives whom she has never met, like her paternal grandmother. She plans on saving up enough money to make the journey there for Hari Raya Aidilfitri, at the earliest.
In an interview with SAYS, Cinta says she's happy and excited about reuniting with her father, but she also sympathises with others who want to meet their parents
"Never lose hope in finding your parents."
"Social media now is very powerful. One picture can be enough to find them, like how it helped me. God willing, you'll find them!"
