Paris-based Singaporean host and actress Sharon Au embarked on a birthday trip recently – not for herself, but for her “Japanese papa”.

The 49-year-old star flew from the French capital – where she has been living in since 2018 – to the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa to surprise the patriarch of the foster family that had hosted her as an exchange student to Tokyo when she was 17.

In a video posted to her Instagram account on March 13, Au can be seen walking up behind the man, whom she affectionately calls T-san, while he is in the middle of a family meal. Holding a present, she eventually surprises him and wishes him happy birthday in Japanese. Taken aback by her sudden appearance, T-san, who turned 80 on March 11, let out an exclamation before hugging Au.

She wrote in the caption of the post: “Across continents, across time – Paris to Okinawa, a journey not of distance, but of devotion. To surprise the man who shaped my world on his 80th year, to see his eyes light up, to remind him that love, like the tide, always finds its way home.”

Au has kept in touch with T-san and his family since her exchange student days. She also stayed with them when she moved to Tokyo to pursue her undergraduate studies at Waseda University in 2005.

She is known to be very close to the family, regularly meeting them in Japan and posting photos of them together. She also refers to T-san and his wife, whom she calls Mama Yoshi, as her parents. She told local news outlet Shin Min Daily News in 2023 that T-san considered legally adopting her at one point, but faced legal difficulties doing so.

Au’s birth parents divorced when she was two and she admitted to having strained relations with both of them over the years. She was estranged from her mother, Madam Irene Ong, while growing up, until she moved in with her when she was 17.

Her father died in 2023 at the age of 74. Au lost regular contact with him in her last year of primary school. Although they reconnected over text several years before his death, they had not seen each other in over 20 years when he died.

This is not the first time Au has pulled off a grand gesture for her Japanese “dad”. When T-san turned 79 in 2024, Au reunited him with two other Singaporean schoolmates who were hosted alongside her as exchange students in Tokyo.

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