The man who tasked himself with bringing back the dead

TAIPEI — For Liu De-wen, who is from southern Taiwan, the weight of a life is precisely 12 kilograms.

On the third day of 2025, the 58-year-old from Kaohsiung boarded a flight to Nanjing in Jiangsu province, carrying two urns, each weighing 12 kg — one strapped to his chest and the other secured to his back.

Over the past 21 years, Liu has carried the cremated remains of more than 300 veterans from Taiwan back to the Chinese mainland, to fulfill their dying wish to return home.

They were among the soldiers who arrived in Taiwan with the Kuomintang in 1949 during China's civil war. For decades, as the two sides of the Taiwan Strait were trapped in protracted political confrontation, they were unable to return to care for aging parents or reunite with siblings or wives.

Many of the men, considered outsiders on the island, remained unmarried and childless.

Liu, a native of Taiwan's Pingtung county, did not know much about these veterans until 1997, when he moved to an old military housing community in Kaohsiung.

It was home to more than 4,000 veterans at its peak, and when Liu moved in, around 1,800 were still living there.

"They often sat for hours during Chinese New Year, gazing toward the mainland. On Tomb-Sweeping Day, which falls each year between the fourth and the sixth of April, they would perform rituals in the direction of their hometowns to honor parents they hadn't seen in decades," Liu says.

These scenes resonated deeply with him, and over time, he became their confidant, listening to stories of separation and longing.

Although the Taiwan authorities lifted the ban on visiting relatives on the mainland in 1987, many veterans were unable to make the trip due to age or health. Those who did mostly did not move back to their hometowns.

In 2003, an 87-year-old veteran originally from Hunan province surnamed Wen entrusted Liu with his dying wish. "Can you take my ashes back home to be buried beside my parents? I've never fulfilled my duties as a son," a tearful Wen told Liu.

After Wen's death, Liu honored his promise, delivering the urn to Wen's ancestral village in Hunan.

Word soon spread, and other veterans began reaching out for his help. As the requests multiplied, Liu began to devote himself entirely to this mission, undeterred by the physical and financial challenges it entailed.

"I don't treat the urns as luggage. They hold the veterans' souls," Liu says, explaining why he often bought seats or beds for the urns, treating them as if the deceased were still alive.

In later years, Liu began receiving requests from families on the mainland to locate the remains of relatives in Taiwan and bring them home.

The missions were often uphill battles. Liu has combed through military cemeteries, untended graves, and even abandoned temples across the island, piecing together clues from decades-old records and scattered memories.

The search for Chen Bi-shou, for instance, took months. Chen's family in Jiangsu had not heard from him since the early 1980s, and contacted Liu in 2018.

It was only through unwavering determination and meticulously checking cemetery records and archives that Chen's grave was finally located, 25 years after his death. Liu personally accompanied the veteran's ashes back to Jiangsu.

Liu has suffered from heatstroke while searching remote cemeteries, slept on train station floors, and once fractured his ribs after falling into a pit during a search. Yet, he perseveres.

"Doing good brings blessings," he says simply, attributing surviving the fall to the unseen support of the veterans.

The reunions he facilitates are often emotional. In Yunnan province, an elderly man whose father left for Taiwan when his mother was pregnant wept as he held his remains. "I finally have a father," he said, overwhelmed with emotion.

In Shandong province, a 90-year-old man knelt three times before Liu in gratitude for bringing his brother home.

In every case, Liu stays to ensure the ashes are buried properly. Having been to over 20 provinces and regions, with only Xizang autonomous region, Qinghai province, and Ningxia Hui autonomous region left unvisited, he has rarely taken the time for sightseeing, viewing his work as a solemn mission. "I am here to bring them home, not to tour," he says.

As technology advanced, he began documenting the graves, building a database and publishing the information online to enable families to locate lost loved ones more efficiently.

His efforts have garnered recognition across the Strait. Families on the mainland, once strangers, now call him "uncle" or "big brother".

"This is why I do what I do," Liu says. "We are one family, bound by the same roots and culture. Blood ties can never be severed."

He lives a modest life. His office, a converted shipping container, displays the motto: "Do good and keep a kind heart." Despite growing public recognition of his work, he continues to live frugally, saving every penny to fund his missions.

"I've learned the essence of humanity through this work," Liu says. "It's about bringing closure and peace to those who've waited a lifetime to go home."

As the veterans pass away and their stories fade, he races against time to complete their final journeys. Last year, he escorted 47 urns, the most ever. This year, he has already scheduled trips for more than 20 veterans.

"I have to walk faster," Liu says. "Their children are getting older too. They shouldn't have to wait any longer."