Yi-Jien MIA

Oh FUCK. They're scaling back the search for Yi-Jien.

My cousin Hwa Yi-Jien (or Yi-Jien Hwa, depending on which country you're in) went for a hike in Glacier National Park while his wife was in Hong Kong visiting relatives. Solo. Jien can be pretty stubborn sometimes about doing dumb things - like "wandering around Queens with a camera at 2am" (during a trip to NYC a few years ago).

This is different though.

We've been keeping this among family and friends for the last few days, but as of today it's been a week since he was supposed to report back, and 15 days since he was actually last seen. Anyway the story's finally broken in The Star after being in the American news for several days.

Jien is a student at Asbury Theological Seminary, along with his wife Lau Siu Yin from Hong Kong. When they got married in '06 it was the first - and so far only - Hwa wedding of our generation. His younger brother commented that he'd found a woman with "a difference of 10 years [older] and 10 inches [shorter]". Siu Yin and his mum have flown to Glacier. Aunty Kim Guat is a well-loved person in Christian youth work in Malaysia. She's one of my "cool aunties". Her husband, my father's brother, and the father of Jien and his two siblings, was the President of the Trinity Annual Conference (English-speaking Methodist churches in Malaysia) before he got hit by a lorry and died in 2001.

So you can see why we're all hoping this is just going to be another "funny Yi-Jien story" in the end, but...

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• Jien's public Facebook page.
• Family friend Karcy's LJ entries about the search for Yi-Jien.