Finding Chi-wo: how a devoted father kept having to search for runaway son

Yip Kie-chun has spent months at a time, day and night, trawling the streets of Hong Kong searching for his mentally disabled son, only to see him run away yet again after he had found him.

Now aged 79, the retired fish hawker never gave up on his son, Yip Chi-wo, since the first time he went missing from their home in To Kwa Wan at the age of 17. Chi-wo is now 49, but he is described as having the mental age of a six-year-old.

Yip and his wife took turns manning their fish stall while the other went out to search for their son, not knowing it was the start of a pattern that would be repeated more than a dozen times in the years to come.

"We thought he was dead. He was gone for almost five months," Yip said.

It was only when Chi-wo was hit by a car and broke his leg that the family was reunited - when the hospital treating him discovered he was a missing person.

Chi-wo was then enrolled in a training centre during the day. In his two years there, he ran away more than 10 times. He often lost his temper, and Yip believed the staff lacked the experience to handle his son.

Each time, Yip would take to the streets to look for Chi-wo.