Li Anlin sits at home with her husband crying for her missing 22-year-old daughter.
Relatives and friends try to comfort her, but this mother's sorrow - with no news from the beautiful college student Wang Ting caught up in the tsunami that hit Phuket, Thailand - is heavy in Li's Nanjing home.
"People living on our street have come to see me," Li said. "Although there's been no information, I still believe there's a chance... Wang Ting had a chance to survive."
About a dozen Chinese mainlanders remain missing in the tidal wave-hit areas.
Li's daughter was born in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province on November 2, 1983, and grew up a very pretty girl.
Wang Ting had been studying at a Bangkok University since she graduated from high school, where she had majored in tourism.
On December 24, together with her Japanese boyfriend, the couple flew to Phuket Island to spend a romantic Christmas getaway.
On Christmas Day, she called a schoolmate and said she was staying in a little beach house bungalow, just 6 meters from the beautiful surf.
Wang and her boyfriend have not been heard from since the terrible tsunami hit the next day.
Her family and friends have heard nothing. They have spared no effort to look for the young woman.
Her father Wang Shugui flew to Phuket and visited every hospital, every international organization and local government agency, vainly attempting to find his daughter.
Wang says he will return there if any information at all surfaces.
In the meantime, he and neighbors, colleagues and friends comfort his wife, Li, but sadness envelops their house.
(China Daily January 7, 2005)
