TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- A Brazilian woman has moved to Taipei to search for her long-lost Taiwanese father, who abandoned her mother before she was born.

Monica Lin, 30, a masters student in Asian-Pacific Studies at National Chengchi University, was born and raised in a city near Brasilia, Brazil's capital, called Samambaia Sul.

Monica's father, Lin Young-Shyoung (林鏞雄), also known as David Lin, went to Brazil in the early 1980's and met her mother, Maria de Jesus Miranda de Souza, in Brasilia. The two met at a school where her father was studying Portuguese. Her mother believed that her father was an official representative of Taiwan in Brazil.

After the two-year relationship, her father fled when he learned she was 2 months pregnant, never to return again.

When Monica was one year old, her mother tried to call her father, who was still in Brazil at the time, but a child answered the phone saying her father was not there and Monica's mother asked to talk with the child's mother, discovering that she was his wife and mother of two other daughters. The two arranged a meeting, and Monica's mother presented her while still an infant to his Taiwanese wife, who took several photos in order to gather evidence to later divorce him in Taipei.

Monica did not hear from her father again until he sent her some letters from Taiwan when she was 8 years old, but the return address was only a PO box.

Nearly 20 years later, in 2012, at the age of 25 Monica sent a letter to her father's PO Box asking him to add her Skype account. He added her on Skype, and she tried to have a video chat with him, be he refused to show his face, only enabling the voice function. She then was able to acquire his email and phone number from his Skype info and a regular email correspondence followed.

However, after Monica wrote to that she was planning to move to Taiwan in 2015, he ceased communication with her.

Monica chose to pursue an advanced degree in Asian-Pacific Studies and selected Taiwan to have the opportunity to spend time to locate her father. She arrived in Taiwan in August of 2016 and first got her academic issues settled before beginning her search.

Key information:

Father: Lin Young-Shyoung (林鏞雄), also known as David Lin, born Feb. 16, 1951.

Mother: Maria de Jesus Miranda de Souza, born Jan. 23, 1960.

Daughter: Monica Lin, born Nov. 14, 1986.



The last message Monica received from her father in 2015.



Lin Young-Shyoung (林鏞雄) in the 1980s



Lin Young-Shyoung (林鏞雄) in the 1980s



Lin Young-Shyoung (林鏞雄)



Most recent photo of Lin Young-Shyoung (林鏞雄)



Monica being held by her mother as a baby.



From left to right, Monica, grandmother, mother and half-sister (Brazil, 2014).



Monica in Taipei.

After 30 long years without seeing her father face-to-face, Monica is determined to finally meet him: "I am taking the risk of exposure because I traveled the whole world to find him. To find my father will be a way to recover part of my history that I never knew about. It will help me to know myself better."

If you have information about the whereabouts of Lin Young-Shyoung (林鏞雄), please contact Monica Lin via her Facebook page or her email.