[Ba0bEi]

THEY started life together, then spent nearly a quarter of a century apart.

Mr Adrian Ooi and Ms Marika Chaulk, 26-year-old twins, were separated when they were 3.

Ms Chaulk didn't even know where Mr Ooi was, or if he was alive at all.

But the siblings have finally found each other, thanks to a report in The New Paper.

In November, The New Paper wrote about how Ms Chaulk and her mother, British nurse Kim Chaulk, 49, were separated from Mr Ooi and his father.

We later got an e-mail from one Mr David Chan, who lives in Kuala Lumpur, saying he is Mr Ooi's ex-school mate.

Through him, we reached Mr Ooi, who is also living there now.

Mr Ooi then faxed a photocopy of his Malaysian identity card to TNP.


LONG-DISTANCE CONVERSATION

And we put him in touch with his sister.

The two finally spoke, after more than 23 years early last month.

It was a long-distance telephone conversation between KL and Oxford, England, where Ms Chaulk lives.

Ms Chaulk said: 'We shared memories of each other when we were children, like the times when we played on our bicycles.

'We also updated each other on our lives. Adrian told me he has had a girlfriend for three years.'

The last time they were together was in a hotel room in Singapore, celebrating their birthday on 9 Dec 1983.

Their mother was present. And so was their father, Mr Robert Ooi Choon Hock.

The two, who were married to other people then, had met here in 1979 and had an affair.

Mrs Chaulk gave birth to the twins in a Hong Kong hospital.

The couple fell out when the twins were about a year old and Mrs Chaulk left with her daughter to live in Hong Kong.

There was an attempt at reconciliation when they met here for the twins' third birthday.

But it didn't work out. The twins' parents went their separate ways and never saw each other again.

Mr Ooi stayed with his father in Singapore, while both mother and daughter returned to Hong Kong, where they lived for about 10 years.

They then went to the US and stayed there for a year, before finally moving to England.

Mr Robert Ooi, a local jockey who won the Singapore Cup that year, died at 42 in a car crash in Ipoh in 1986.

Mr Adrian Ooi said he lived with his father's relatives in Malacca for some time. But he said he is not in contact with his stepmother.

When he was 22, he moved to KL, where he now works as a systems integrator.


WENT TO BRITISH HIGH COM

He also wanted to find his mother and twin sister. He told The New Paper: 'I went to the British High Commission in KL about three years ago to try to find out where they are,' he said. 'But the attempt to locate them was not successful.'

Ms Chaulk, a single mother with a 2-year-old daughter, lives near her mother. They plan to travel to Malaysia to meet Adrian.

Ms Chaulk said: 'Finding Adrian has made my dreams come true. I never thought I would get to know my roots. It's unbelievable.'

Source