Chinese boy goes missing as mother plays mahjong

A woman in southwestern China who became so tied up in a mahjong game at a banquet did not notice that her four-year-old son had gone missing and was asleep in a car park across the street, mainland media reported.

On Monday afternoon, Dazhu district police in Chongqing were told that a boy had been sleeping alone on stairs at the car park for at least an hour, news website Thepaper.cn reported.

An officer found the boy, in a yellow shirt and blue jeans, sleeping with a toy by his side. The policeman asked for the child’s name and address and the boy pointed across the street.

The officer decided to take the boy to the police station. During the time the child was missing, there were no alerts, raising concerns that the boy had been abandoned, the report said.

That evening, a man arrived at the station and told police he was the boy’s father. The man said his son had gone to a banquet with his mother. The child had played in the banqueting room for a while, but saw a street vendor selling toys and ran outside.