From 1994 to 1999, Joanna Syson built a life in China. The Norwegian-British expat was studying Chinese in Beijing and working on a documentary film. In 1999, Syson returned to Norway to edit her film. Intending to return to Beijing three months later, Syson stored all her belongings with a friend. But the film editing went longer than expected, and Syson didn't return to China for six months.

"By the time I came back, everything had been lost," recalls Syson. "It was just gone. I went around trying to find out what happened to all of my belongings, but nobody knew. I couldn't find my friend either. He'd just disappeared. I was absolutely devastated."

Among her lost belongings were the original prints of her childhood and family photos. For 12 years, Syson thought her precious photos were gone. But Wang Weiguo, an actor with the National Theatre Company of China, bought them in 1999, not long after Syson lost them, at Beijing's famous Panjiayuan flea market. He's held onto them ever since.

"When I saw these photos for the first time, I knew they must have been lost by accident, because nobody would casually throw away photographs which record their lives," says Wang. "I thought the girl who lost them must be very worried. So I felt that I had to find her and return them to her."

Wang tried, unsuccessfully, for years to find the owner of the photos. It wasn't until China Radio International (CRI) posted the pictures on their English language website, that the mystery was solved. Someone recognized Joanna Syson's mother, the late Julie Ege, in one of the photos. Ege was a famous Norwegian actress and model and former James Bond girl.

Joanna Syson flew from her current home in London, England to her old home of Beijing to be reunited with the photos she lost more than a decade ago and meet the man who kept her precious snapshots safe, for so many years.

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