After five years without any contact, Shufang Zhong, a 71-year-old Chinese shoeshiner, was reunited with her daughter thanks to the power of the iPhone and social networking.
Zhong spotted an iPhone user in the street and begged him to take a photo of her to be sent to her daughter, who she hadn’t seen in over five years since she left home.
After uploading the image and a contact number to Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter, the message went viral within just a few hours and was retweeted over 100,000 times.
Its popularity sparked the interest of several news channels and celebrities, and just three days later, Zhong’s daughter stumbled across the picture of her mother online. She called the number accompanying the image and the pair had their first conversation in over five years.
This heartwarming story is a testament to how today’s technology, which many of us take for granted, can achieve the most wonderful things that we wouldn’t have dreamt would be so simple just a few years ago.
[via Gizmodo]
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
