Woman who was kidnapped aged four reveals how she tracked down and reunited with her father after 20 years
A woman known as Summer Maple online has been reunited with her father after being ‘kidnapped’ at four years old by her mother.
In a TikTok series, US-based Fuka, who goes by Summer Maple online, has been unravelling her distressing family history.
The traumatic journey began after Fuka discovered that her ‘abusive‘ mother lied to her.
She believed they had moved from Japan to America because her father had abandoned her.
However, she discovered that her mother, who has not been named, had covered up her murky past, and they had moved against their father’s will.
The chain of events began in 2022 when Fuka discovered she was still a Japanese citizen.
She flew to Japan and visited her birthplace for the first time in 18 years to see her maternal grandma.
After reconnecting with her grandma, she found a photograph of her biological father in her grandma’s house but had no idea where he was.
On a whim, she decided to share the picture on TikTok to try and locate him, which went viral.
In an exceptional effort, TikTok users located her father on Facebook. Fuka reached out and sent him a message.
Several months later, she received a response from her father.
She said: ‘The power of TikTok: I couldn’t find my father for 18 years and posted a viral TikTok about it and I woke up to this ..
‘I heard from a friend that you are looking for me. Of course, I remember. You’ve grown up. Are you in Japan?’
The pair reconnected and rang each other, which is when she realised her true family history.
She explained: ‘Before he told me anything, he did say there are two sides to every story, Your mum might have a different perspective, but this is how I feel.
‘My grandparents are Buddhist priests, and we have a Buddhist temple in Japan where the temple gets passed down to every generation, and it’s been in our family for hundreds of years.
‘So, my mum was going to take over the temple next, and so her husband, my father, went to go and get his temple certification and when he came back… we were gone.’
Fuka explained that her father came to America to try and get her back.
But, after a short time, their visas expired anyway, and they had to return for legal reasons.
When they got back to Japan, her mother and father officially divorced.
Fuka’s mother convinced her father to give her full parental rights, and her father compromised on the one condition that they remained in Japan.
Yet, her mother moved them back to the United States to live with her new partner and his family.
Fuka’s father took the mother to court, but the government would not give him parental rights.
She explained: ‘In Japan, divorces are really taboo and it’s difficult for a father to get equal parental rights after a divorce.’
‘He was fighting for us, it’s just that in Japan, they have very conservative views about the rules of mothers and fathers and men and women’.
‘My mother basically told my biological father to stop contacting us and said we have a new dad now and we don’t need him in our lives anymore.’
‘So, when I talked to my biological dad on the phone I asked him how he was able to cope with this and move on and he said for two years afterwards he would dream about us every night and he hoped that by sacrificing his parental rights that we would be living a great life in the United States.’
One thing led to another, and in an emotional clip, the family reunited in Kyoto, Japan.