TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — After being stranded without any identification on a Spanish island for 40 years, Chen Chiung-ming (陳炯明) is returning to Taiwan with his wife and seven children.

CNA reported that when Chen was 17, he worked on a pelagic fishing vessel with his father. After a fight with his father, he got off the boat, which was docked at the island of Lanzarote, to party with locals and got drunk.

By the time Chen sobered up, he was all alone. He walked for hours to reach the harbor but found that all the boats were gone.

As Chen had no documentation on him, he was unable to return to Taiwan. He started a new life there and went from being homeless to working as a dishwasher.

Though his father had returned to Lanzarote to search for him a few years later, the two missed each other. Eventually, Chen became a chef and met a local woman, with whom he fathered seven children, the eldest of whom is now 30 and the youngest 11.

Now 57, Chen said he looks forward to finally seeing his homeland again and introducing his children to their roots. “After leaving Taiwan at 17, I never saw my family and my country Taiwan, where I was born,” he was quoted as saying.

Chen had given up hope of returning home until 10 years ago when another pelagic fishing vessel carrying a crew member from his hometown arrived in Lanzarote. Through the crew member, he got in touch with his family in Taitung.

However, his family encountered many difficulties applying for his identification documents and did not finish preparing everything until 2019. Then, his plans to return were postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nonetheless, he was able to apply for legal residency and marry the mother of his children after receiving his documentation via mail. He was cited as saying he is living a good life and will wait for the pandemic to ease up before coming home and reuniting with his family.