Jay Lin was 17 when his sister Cindy began writing him letters from the other side of the planet.
He did not know English. Nor could he understand cursive handwriting. He was never able to reply to her, but he never threw away a single letter or photo: he kept them for more than 30 years, without knowing what they said.
In June 2026, now 42 and living in Taiwan, he used artificial intelligence translation tools to finally decipher those messages. He posted a photo of Cindy, aged 17, in a Gqeberha, South Africa Facebook group, asking for help finding her. Within hours, the community identified her. She, 46, thought it was a joke until she saw an intimate photo that she had never uploaded to the internet. Today they speak every day, with an automatic translator in between and 10,000 kilometers that no longer separate anything.