By CLARA CHOOI

IPOH, MALAYSIA - In all her 44 years, factory worker Nani Ahmad has never known her biological parents' names let alone met them.

The only information she has of them is that her mother was a housewife and her father, a tall and skinny odd-job worker, was partially disabled, walked funny and had a tattoo.

Besides that, Nani also knows that her parents were Chinese and not Malay, and that she was the youngest child in the family of 12 children, all born in Kampung Abuk-Abuk, Rahang, Negeri Sembilan.

Armed with only that information, Nani has been spending the past three years on an unrelenting hunt for her family members.

However, without basic information like their names, the hunt proved fruitless.

'The place where my real family used to stay has already been bulldozed to the ground and replaced by a highway. The people still living there have no idea who I am or who my parents were.

'Those who do know have probably already passed away,' she said, at her home in Kampung Kuala Pari here yesterday.

Nani said that she was adopted by Ahmad Bachik and Maryam Ali the very moment she was born.

'My adoptive parents stayed in the same village as my real parents. They were neighbours and friends.

'However, since we moved around a lot, they eventually lost contact with one another,' she said, adding she only found out that she was adopted when she returned home for Hari Raya in 2006.

'By that time, my adoptive parents had already passed away so I could not ask them who my biological parents were,' she said.

Nani said her adoptive sister did not have much information about her real parents except for the fact that her father used to work as a security guard at the railway station, a lorry driver and a tau foo fah seller.

'She also told me that my father was thin and tall, had a tattoo on his back and was slightly 'cacat' (disabled) so he walked a little 'senget' (sideways).

Nani added that the news had hit her badly for she had truly believed all her life that Maryam and Ahmad were her real parents.

'I did ask my adoptive mother a few times because as I grew up, I began to realise that I resembled none of my three siblings. But she never admitted it.

'According to my adoptive sister, she could not bring herself to tell me the truth,' said Nani.

Today, Nani is living with her husband Raja Abdul Rahman, 47, in a small, rundown home at 14-B Jalan Raja Arif Shah.

The childless couple work at a plastic factory in Lahat nearby. Anyone with information on Nani's family members can contact her husband at 016-5959025.