No one chooses to fall ill, to become someone unable to fulfill their responsibilities, embrace their work, or connect with the world. The relentless cycle of medication, with no lasting results, an environment that doesn’t allow me to live fully, and the loss of mental clarity—all of this has been my reality. My daily life, ravaged in both body and mind, leaves me without the strength to even organize coherent thoughts. When I look back at my old notes, they are full of repetition, without logic, as I try to piece together what I have lost.
Then came the moment I decided to stop the medication. The withdrawal symptoms that followed were overwhelming. My body, filled with pain, seemed to escape the grip of time, finding an eerie stillness, almost eternal. At the same time, without the suppression of the medication, my nervous system came alive with powerful feedback—memories of trauma and complex emotions awakened. Every painful sensation became vivid, sharp, and real.
My attention scattered, my ability to act was lost, I couldn’t even understand what I read, and words became jumbled in my speech. Simple tasks became unmanageable. The world around me became indescribable, flashbacks were relentless, and my body signaled danger at every turn. Gradually, I stopped trusting my thoughts entirely.
Without the labels and “medals,” I finally saw myself for who I am: the one who silently weeps, the one whose existence feels worthless when I cannot bring value to it, the one who punishes herself more severely than anyone else could, the one who constantly criticizes and mocks herself.
I have been hurt, a crucial part of me has been shattered—my life’s truths. Yet, on the other side of all these truths, there is still a part of me that can become, connect with, and support others. As long as I can express myself through words, images, music, stories, or even abstract symbols and imagery, I have not lost the soul of living.
Suffering requires strength, but it also requires self-care. Even when I have lost the words to speak, I still find other ways to express my pain and struggles. Healing is not about finding a place to hide; it is about building a place of safety, a place where I belong.
Trauma forces us to confront our vulnerabilities and witness the cruelty of others. But it also reveals the incredible resilience we possess. I have finally come to realize that my life was never meant to be consumed by the fear of suffering. I will rise again, with the strength of love, to bring that love into this world.
因此，我决定为自己发起“彩虹能量”收集活动。
Therefore, I have decided to initiate the ‘Rainbow Energy for Strength and Healing’ Collection Campaign for myself
At this moment, I am emerging from the depths, breathing and adjusting. Though painful, I continue to breathe slowly, striving to extend myself outward and rebuild a sense of safety. Above all, I am learning how to take better care of myself. In this process, support from others has been so meaningful to me.
I invite those who are willing to participate to cheer me on in your preferred way.
I will organize these messages into a Rainbow Energy Series that represents different colors symbolizing various forms of support. Through the process of collecting, creating, and sharing them in stages, we will walk through this healing journey together.
你可以分享任何形式的支持主题，例如：
You can share any form of supportive message, such as:
You can share through any format you prefer, including: Text, Drawings, Audio or video expressions, Records of everyday moments, Beautiful things you wish to share with me……
如何参与
How to participate
邮件｜Via email
RainbowEnergy2025@proton.me
留言平台｜Via the padlet
情绪安全TIPS
Safety Tips
1. 这次活动暂时不涉及个人创伤故事的分享。等我恢复得更好时，我可能会考虑开启“创伤树洞”计划。
This campaign does not involve sharing personal trauma stories at this time. Once I am further recovered, I may consider launching a “Trauma Cave” plan.
2. 如果你在阅读我的分享过程中感到不适，请暂停，先保护自己的情感安全。
If you feel discomfort while reading my shares, please pause and protect your emotional safety first.
3. 每个人的参与都是自愿的，无需强迫规范自己一定要如何说话。
Participation is voluntary for everyone. There is no need to force yourself into a particular way of speaking.
4. 以你认为安全的方式，可以匿名。
You are welcome to remain anonymous if that feels safer to you.
5. 我可能现阶段没有精力以邮件或者平台回复你的留言，请谅解。
At this stage, I may not have the energy to reply to emails or comments, so I ask for your understanding.
Lastly, I’d like to express another feeling behind launching this activity. Over the past year, witnessing various situations in my circle, I often wonder: when addressing differences or problems, can we refrain from using the words, labels, methods, and systems that have caused us deep pain and even great sacrifice in our rebellion? Can we avoid building another world with the same essence of personal attacks, oppression, division, friction, and authoritarian shaping? What exists around us is not just hatred, but flesh and blood.
I’ll start with a New Year’s story. On the first day of 2025, I was trying to order on Taobao a custom-made cartoon avatar of me and Xu Zhiyong. As soon as I uploaded a photo of us together, the Taobao system auto-deleted the photo and gave my account a 7-day ban. When a female friend tried including my photo in a video, the AI informed her that the uploaded image contained sensitive content.
I recall how you would cause beeping at security checkpoints wherever you went, when your ID card was scanned. For that I called you a “walking bug” and you asked me, “what’s a ‘bug’?” You were so happy when I took you to see Meng Jinghui’s play. You kept repeating those lines from the play: “A person who has lost everything still has the weapon of laughter. We who possess nothing are the biggest ‘bugs’ in the system. I want to gain the freedoms of sunlight, air, water, and to be without fear. At night, I don’t feel alone, for in the darkness of the earth I am the people, countless people.”
See? After five years, you’re still 100 percent “bug,” and I’m maybe around 50 percent, even though I don’t particularly like this “badge of honor.”
You never met the old me. My only talent was to disregard everything. I loved the mountains and the wind passing by my earlobes, enjoyed the ice and snow, and watching the pedestrians walking like ants under the scorching sun. I longed to disappear from my familiar surroundings and leave those I love behind. I was always in search of abstract words, and no matter how devastated I felt, I cared no one’s comfort.
But the chain of tribulations I later faced made me lose all confidence in myself. So, when we met for the first time, what you saw in me was like a crushed dry leaf on the ground, or a white plastic bag blowing in the wilderness. At one point, I thought I was the person most unworthy of love in all the world. Do you want to know my first impression of you? After I went home, I wrote on social media: “Teacher Xu appeared at just the right time during my undergraduate years, making me realize the importance of thinking and action. But thought leaders always go out of fashion, so let him disappear in our era as we, the younger generation, take the lead role in activism.”
In June 2019, we became companions who relied on one another. Although we had both experienced dual blows from authority and in our intimate relationships before, you were someone who never learns from his lessons, who is always carrying forgotten scars. I, on the other hand, was like someone who had just recovered from a serious illness, constantly dealing with painful wounds. I often wondered at the time: Had this person really been behind bars for four and a half years? Because you were free in thought, independent in spirit, and full of life.
In fact, the moment I decided to become your girlfriend was because I saw something special in you that made me take the leap without a doubt, made me brave enough to speak my mind and go all in. That something gave me what it took to do many things I had never tried before, or thought I would never touch. You accepted the real me unconditionally, including my unkempt appearance, my quirky thoughts, my abstract expressions, and my grand but empty gestures……
I was always the “good girl” in the eyes of the adults in my life. I was harsh on myself, tried to please my elders, didn’t know how to say no, and always lived under the judgment of others. I wouldn’t express negative emotions nor dare to voice my needs. But you had the perception to see the real me behind the mask — someone long overwhelmed, exhausted, and emotionally drained. As I suffered in my depression, you shared my pain, and your gentle, thoughtful care helped me regain my sense of self-worth.
When I was with you, I saw the bright and vibrant version of myself. I am your girlfriend, but I am not your girlfriend; one day, I will become your wife, but not your wife. We are independent and pursue our own growth. We share each other’s love but don’t take it for granted. We always debate different ideas and viewpoints at the dinner table. I once told you: “Your beautiful beliefs are undefeatable, and I respect that. But if you try to force them onto me, I won’t be happy at all.”
Then the events at the end of 2019 completely changed the trajectory of my life. When you were courting me, you told me that you wouldn’t let me suffer the slightest grievance. But I soon realized the grievances were not “slight.” You also said you’d shield me from the wind and rain. But, my dear, your life had never really been sunny, no wonder you always appeared fearless in the face of storms. Back then, I didn’t know how to explain to you that, while I fell head over heels in love with you, my fear was just as boundless.
On my 29th birthday in early 2020, you sent me a message early in the morning: “Dear, I don’t like the photo you posted, it doesn’t show your gentleness.” I rolled my eyes and wrote on Facebook immediately: “straight males are truly incurable.”
After that year’s Valentine’s Day, we completely lost contact with each other. Although at that time, the physical distance between us was the closest it had been in the past five years. It was then that I found myself transported into Kafka’s Trial. Like K., I racked my brains in vain trying to understand why I had fallen into such a predicament, always fearing being executed “like a dog,” still lost in utter confusion even at the moment of my death.
For four months, during my secret detention, aside from rehearsing this script, I would silently recite the poems and lyrics I had memorized before, imagining that we could have a telepathic connection so that I could share these beautiful, romantic thoughts with you:
For example, having completely lost track of time, I would recite the lines by T.S. Eliot:
If space and time, as sages say,
Are things which cannot be,
…
So why, Love, should we ever pray
To live a century?
I had no choice but to sit still like a puppet. I would think: “After the butterfly died, I learned to be submissive. We are like puppets, controlled by strings. If we could look up and sense the strings’ control, we too could be free.”
Being long deprived of sunlight, I would sing Chen Qizhen’s song: “If there were a world as filthy as can be, I would fall madly in love with it. Forgive me for flying, for I once longed for the sun.”
In June 2020, I briefly regained my freedom, while you were held in a distant small town, vanishing without a trace. They even replaced your name with an alias. Did the sound of it not sit well with their ears? Did it burn or deafen their ears when they called you out by your name?
Although it was only half a year, it felt like I had walked a very long road alone. If you asked me if I was tired, I might cry. But, my love, besides fighting it out, do we have any better way? After you were taken away, fate has never left me alone, and the heavy blows, one after another, have never missed their mark.
On February 5, 2021, I said goodbye to my family and was, too, taken to the small town where you were. It was winter again, and the cold wind was howling. I felt so down along the way. If I could put my hands in my pockets, I wouldn’t have waved goodbye and said farewell.
They delayed handling my case over and over again. The days were so hard to endure. Suddenly, I remembered a song I once heard: “She just wanted to love, but almost went to the guillotine / People stop trusting in love once they fall down twice / May she not give up her romantic creed, may she not lose faith in her beautiful belief.”
We try to hold onto the little kernels of beauty we catch in our minds and share them with each other: the warmth of the winter sun, the breeze of the air conditioning coming from the hallway in the heat of summer, the little wildflowers in the corner, the big tabby cat sleeping by your feet…
On a winter dusk, I said to you, “Look, the sunset is hugging you!’
In the hot, humid summer, I prayed, “I hope the heavy rain in our story always falls on every unbearably hot day we encounter.”
On a snowy winter day, I vented my frustration: “Snow is snow, it’s not a flower. It’s so pure and white — please don’t be so cruel as to take away even its name!” (Note: in Chinese, the term for “snowflake” is literally “snowflower”)
An inmate of mine had a toothache and was crying in the bathroom. I joked with her, saying “I want to be born as a tooth in the next life. If I’m unhappy, there will be someone to suffer with me immediately.”
In April 2023, after a long wait, you were sentenced to 14 years in prison. I told you, “My love for you has never changed. I will always guard you.”
In December 2023, I faced my own moment of glory. Standing there on trial, I suddenly empathized with you. Facing indifference, mockery, and hostility, I stood alone, stood firm as I expressed my position.
My dear, in moments like this, neither love nor family could have given me the strength to survive against all odds, not even my favorite hotpot or milk tea could. Invincible courage ultimately must come from a firm commitment to myself, unwavering and unchanging, not shaped, coerced, or defined by any outside force — whether they are oppressing or supporting me.
What is freedom? It is the moment when you are certain that you cannot be defined.
In February and July 2024, I also received a sentence — the first instance and the second instance, respectively. Twice, I stood there, with a crowd of indifferent onlookers behind me. I turned into a multi-flavor spectacle: sweet, bitter, juicy, dry.
I stood there, repeatedly thinking of the poem “Threshold,” and of the Russian girl from Turgenev’s pen:
“‘You, who wishes to step over this threshold, do you know what awaits you?
Cold, hunger, hatred, derision, contempt, abuse, prison, sickness, and maybe even death?
Complete alienation, loneliness?
As a nameless sacrifice? You will perish, and no one, no one will even know whose memory they should honor?
That you may become disillusioned in what you believe now, perhaps realize that you made a mistake, and that you ruined your young life?’
The girl stepped over the threshold.”
My love, it was at that moment that I finally accepted their sentence of you with a calm heart. While you were being made into a prisoner, you were also being molded into a hero. But to me, a resilient soul doesn’t need such strong symbolic titles for recognition. Rather than the praise for “fighting against power,” I value more how you treat the “weak”; rather than the admiration for how you “face the machinery of violence,” I’m more concerned about how you view women; rather than the long list of “citizen ideals” that people associate with you, I’m more interested in whether, years later, you will still be vigilant about the boundary between yourself and the abyss, always practicing unity of knowledge and action, no matter which camp you are in.
In August 2024, I was released. Finally I could put my longing and concern for you to paper. But life is like this: it keeps stabbing me with a knife while blaming me for not being bladeproof after all these years! They just want to teach us a lesson: you think you can fight for yourself, but in reality, you can only wait for our charity or favor to come along. What? You’re not grateful? Finally, when reality keeps teaching me lessons, and I don’t have the ability to fight back, I no longer want to pretend to live normally. When the people around me keep collapsing, I still want to live out the true meaning of the identity I’ve created for myself.
In these five years, I have learned how to love. Love is not only about attachment and protection, but also about liberation and fulfillment. It’s not just about shielding you and helping you reject the cruelty of reality, but also giving you the confidence and strength to face that cruelty. It’s about granting you the freedom to make your own choices, freeing you to choose suffering voluntarily, supporting you in living your true self amidst hardship — having emotions and loyalty, being flesh and blood, having armor and weak spots. No matter how soulful a partner is, they can never truly share the suffering each one is bearing. But what transcends the prison walls, whether inside or outside, is free will and eternal love. Let our love go far beyond the hate of those who think they control our destiny.
My love, were it not for you, who knows how peaceful my life might have been. But I know that your significance in my life goes beyond the emotional dimension. How to live as my true self in the face of harsh reality, not merely as a hardened machine of resistance, is an unexpected surprise I learned from you. Once, sitting across from you, watching your earnest effort at mixing scrambled eggs with tomatoes into the rice for me, I thought, if all my ambitions turn out to be nothing but an illusion in the end, how would I face my failed life? But since that moment, I have no longer had such worries. How to be devoted to loving this land and the people living on it? How to be a hardened resistor but remain tender-hearted? How to be defiant but joyful? In fact, it’s our experiences — not the outcomes — that become our meaning.
I often envision this scene: the prison gates roll open, and you walk out. You lift your head and immediately meet my gaze as I rush toward you, holding you in my arms, “My love, I’ve come to take you home, back to our home.”
At about 11pm on 15 February 2020, I was busy with volunteer work related to the epidemic at Xu Zhiyong’sresidence in Changping District. A friend messaged me to ask about Zhiyong, saying: ‘I heard he’s been detained.’ I was also really worried about him, as we had not been in contact for eight or nine hours. At 12:26am on 16 February, I was about to go to bed but suddenly I heard someone banging on the door. At the same moment, a man shouted in a loud voice: ‘Open up! Safety inspection!’ Alone at home after midnight, it was terrifying to hear such banging. I rushed to grab my phone and, my hands trembling, texted a friend:
‘There are people banging on the door.’ After walking back and forth in front of the door in genuine panic, finally I hesitatingly opened it.
Two men in white protective suits first rushed through the door to do an ‘epidemic safety inspection’. They pushed me into a chair, told me to sit still, and made me put on a disposable mask. I was about to ask for their identificationwhen another man who had come in afterward, with no police uniform or ID, suddenly handcuffed me from behind and said:
‘We’re from the Public Security Bureau.’ Meanwhile, the two men who came in first took off their protective suits and murmured: ‘It’s so hot.’ Even though I had been followed by vehicles from the internal security service for a month and a half, I had still failed to anticipate such a home visit. By the time I calmed down, about ten men had entered the living room, none of whom were wearing uniforms or had shown their ID. At this moment I realised that I was still in mypyjamas, so I indicated my need to get changed. One of the men said: ‘Wait a minute. A female officer will be here soon.’I waited for another five or six minutes, seated the whole while, and then a woman in uniform came in, carrying a wearable camera. She took me into the bedroom to get changed.
After I had changed, I went back to sitting in the chair in the living room. An internal security agent from Haidian District, Beijing came in. I had met him previously when I was summoned on 31 December 2019. He showed me a summonsand then read it out without expression: ‘Li Qiaochu, you are now summoned on suspicion of inciting subversion of state power.’ Hearing this, I was completely at a loss as I tried my best to recall what conduct of mine could constitute this offence and pondered what would happen next. Waves of anxiety and fear about the future overwhelmed me. Then the internal security agent and two others began to search the two bedrooms of Xu Zhiyong’s home, while I was asked to remain seated in the chair in the living room with handcuffs on. They put items that they found in the living room into resealable bags, including mobile phones, USBs, laptops, and books. Then they asked me to sign a list of confiscated items they had prepared. Staff from the Aobei Residential Compoundmanagement office were also on the scene. During a brief break in their search, the internal security agent who had read out the summons asked: ‘Do you remember me?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied. He continued: ‘It appears that my previous warningsto you were useless.’ Having finished searching Xu Zhiyong’shome, they informed me that they would be going to TianzuoGuoji Residential Compound in Haidian District to search myown home. Just before we left, I asked if I could bring the little turtle and goldfish kept in the fishbowl (they wereZhiyong’s daughter’s favourite pets) with me. The internal security agent who had read the summons said, with a sort ofhelpless smile: ‘There’s no way we can let you take a fishbowl with you.’
After about half an hour we arrived at my place. I was handcuffed all the way there and did not dare to say a single word, but I kept wondering what heinous crime I had committed to deserve this treatment. Four or five officers went into my home to carry out a search. My home was notspacious, and they rifled through bookshelves, cupboards, areas under the bed and wardrobes. They found an unused mobile phone, a scanner, a recorder, as well as a ‘citizen seal’that I used when sending postcards to prisoners of conscience. Again they asked me to sign a list of confiscated items. As before, staff from the Tianzuo Guoji Residential Compoundmanagement office were on the scene during the search. I asked if I could take a painkiller, as I had got a migraine. Theinternal security agent responsible for the search poured me a glass of water. Before we left, I pointed to the cupboard andasked if I could take my anti-depressants with me. After some hesitation, the same agent put all the drugs in the cupboard into my handbag and said: ‘Don’t worry. If all this lasts a while we’ll get you a prescription.’ When I heard ‘if all this lasts a while’, my heart skipped a beat, as I realised that this summons was unlikely to be similar to the previous one. What would happen to me? How long would I be out of contactwith the world? All these were unknowns.
Half an hour later, I was sitting in a blue business vehicle, still handcuffed. Wearing handcuffs the whole time made my wrists hurt badly. I tried to adjust my posture, but this only made the handcuffs tighter. Soon the car arrived at theHaidian District Investigation Centre. The first time I was summoned I was also detained there but then I was released after 24 hours. So a thought crossed my mind: Would I be released after 24 hours again?
Having gone through a series of health check procedures, including a blood test and urine test, I was asked to sit in an iron chair in the investigation room, still handcuffed. Two plain-clothes officers who had not shown their ID sat across from me. The younger officer, who was tall and lookedstrong, glared at me, whereas the older officer lowered his head and did not even look at me.
Suddenly, the younger officer questioned me in a fierce voice: ‘Do you know why you were summoned?’
I replied: ‘No.’
He raised his voice to show his growing anger. ‘Did you postthings online that you shouldn’t have? And did you also dointerviews with foreign media?’
I was truly terrified by his tone, and my heart raced. But there was nothing wrong in what I had done, so I tried to calmmyself down a bit and not let my voice quiver. I replied: ‘I just posted a truthful account of my experience of being summoned. Some media outlets were paying attention and called me, and I simply answered their questions about my experience of being summoned. Is there anything wrong in doing that?’
He ignored my question and continued in a loud voice: ‘What have you been doing recently? Who have you met? You know it very well!’
Hearing this, I felt completely at a loss. Since I had returnedhome in handcuffs after the New Year, I had been followed by cars from the internal security service. Why were these agents, who were fully aware of all my activities, still askingwho I had met and what I had done? All my activities had been undertaken right under their noses.
Seeing that I was not saying anything, the older officer said in a softer tone: ‘You must have left traces of your activities. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have summoned you. You don’t have to answer our questions right now. We’re going to have plenty of time to chat.’
Hearing this, my heart skipped another beat. It was possible that I might be disappeared! I could not help trembling as I recalled the suffering of the 709 Lawyers that I had read aboutonline. It appeared that this interrogation was coming to an end, so I mustered the courage to ask: ‘How is Xu Zhiyong? Is he still okay?’
The kindlier officer walked over to my side, patted my shoulder, and replied: ‘I can assure you that he is healthy at the moment.’
When the interrogation was over, I was asked to sign the interrogation record. The younger officer was obviously reallyunsatisfied with my answers, and when he signed theinterrogation record he mumbled: ‘I don’t even want to sign this.’ Then I was sent to a temporary detention room in the Investigation Centre. I was the only person in the room. I sat on the cold slate, handcuffed the whole time. Fear, anxiety,and worry kept overwhelming me. Even worse, it was extremely cold in the room. I felt very sleepy, so I lay down on the cold slate, but at once I was frozen to the bone. I didnot sleep the whole night. Early in the morning of 16 February, I was given a vegetable steamed bun. I asked to take my anti-depressants, but the guard replied: ‘We can’t make that decision. You’ll have to wait unless you have symptomslike a fever or a cold or something.’
My time at the Investigation Centre was like torture. On the one hand, I kept trying to recall what on earth I had done to be suspected of ‘inciting subversion of state power’. At the same time, I was also worried about Zhiyong, with whom I had not been in contact for more than ten hours. Judging from the information I picked up from the interrogation, he hadprobably been detained. Had he been subjected to violence? Was he given sufficient protection against the epidemic? On the other hand, I could not put the volunteer work that was still underway in Wuhan out of my mind. Had any progressbeen made on the drafting of suggestions for preventing gender violence in Fangcang Hospital? Had the patient’s family whom I talked to several hours before already been admitted to hospital? Time passed as I was immersed in these complicated trains of thought.
In the afternoon of 16 February, I was taken to the main hall of the Investigation Centre. Five or six people, none of whomwore police uniforms or showed their ID, got out of a car outside the door. They took out a black hood and put it over my head. Suddenly I could not see anything. It was the first time I had experienced anything like this. I was so terrified that my legs were trembling and my mind went blank. I was carried by the arms by two people and pushed into the car.
I sat in the car, wearing handcuffs and the black hood thewhole time. I completely lost track of time and had no idea how long the car had been driving or where it was going.
When the black hood was taken off, I found myself in a padded room. There was a single bed, a desk, and two chairs in the room. Standing around me were four or five young female guards in uniform. There was also an older female guard who was standing right in front of me. In a stern voice, she demanded that I take off all my clothes, undergo an inspection, and change into the clothes and slippers they had prepared for me in advance. Next, I was asked to sit still in thechair in front of the desk, with my hands in my lap. Three guards surrounded me, all wearing walkie-talkies. They called me ‘the target’. They told me: ‘You’re not allowed to talk or move without permission when you’re here.’
My glasses were taken away and I was ordered not to look around. I did not dare to turn my head so I narrowed my eyes to try to examine the room out of the corners of my eyes. To my surprise, I saw a small window in the room, about the size of the palm of my hand. This brought me a tiny bit of joy, because I would be able to figure out whether it was day or night.
I could not help turning my head towards the window, only to immediately hear: ‘Target! Sit still and look forward! Who said you could move?!’ I was greatly taken by surprise. Theyoung woman in her twenties who was standing in front of mewas expressionless and her eyes narrowed while she stared at me. This was the first time I had seen a real person who behaved as if she was a robot. Only when they reported my subtle movements and changes of facial expression through their walkie-talkies could I feel that they were real livingpeople.
After dinner, I was asked to sit still yet again. Suddenly, there was some noise outside the door, and two figures appeared. My heart raced uncontrollably. Two plain-clothes men came into the room, holding employee cards. I could not read the names on the cards, and I did not dare to ask.
The taller man informed me that they were responsible for the preliminary inquest portion of my case and instructed me to call him ‘Officer Li’. He added that he had been the lead investigator in Ding Jiaxi’s ‘New Citizenry Case’ in 2013. Officer Li took out a piece of paper and started to read it out. It turned out to be the notice that I was being placed under ‘residential surveillance in a designated location’ on suspicion of ‘inciting subversion of state power’. While I was reflecting on the words ‘inciting subversion of state power’, he looked at me and said in a low voice: ‘The highest penalty for the charge of inciting subversion of state power is the death penalty. We’re going to monitor you as if you’ve been sentenced to death! Have you thought about how those guards looked at you?!’
Hearing the words ‘sentenced to death’ utterly terrified me. I felt like I could hardly breathe and my mind went completely blank. While I had been reflecting on ‘inciting subversion of state power’ a moment ago, now I could not think of anything at all. I have no idea what they said after that, but I did hear them ask me if I needed anything.
I took a deep breath in an effort to calm myself down a bit and conceal my feelings of helplessness and anxiety when sitting in a tiny, airtight room. I said: ‘I have quite serious depressionand have been taking anti-depressants for a long time. I request that I be allowed to take these as soon as possible. I also request that my parents be made aware of my situation.’
When I signed the interrogation record, I noticed that the detention centre was called the ‘Beijing Municipal TongdaAsset Management Ltd. Reception Centre’. Ah, so thiscompletely hermetic and strictly supervised little room was actually called a ‘reception centre’.
The second interrogation took place in the evening of 17 February. Officer Li told me that my father had been notifiedin writing of my situation, but that with respect to my request for my anti-depressants, they could not provide me with those at the moment, because the fever clinic at Xiehe Hospital where I had gone previously could not find my medical records.
However, it was only after I arrived back home on 19 Junethat I learned that since 16 February, when I had been incommunicado, my father had first contacted DongxiaokouPolice Station, which was the local station for the area of Xu Zhiyong’s home, and then Beixiaguan Police Station, which was the local station for the area of my own home. The police at neither station gave my father any details about my situation. He then called the municipal Public Security Bureau, but after receiving two phone calls from my father they stopped answering the phone. After a day or so, my father was told, without any legal formalities, to go to YuqiaoPolice Station in Tongzhou District. There, he met internal security agents from the Beijing municipal bureau and Tongzhou District. Without any preamble, these internal security agents showed my father one of Xu Zhiyong’sarticles and asked him what he thought about it. My dad was perplexed: ‘It’s my daughter you’ve detained. Why have you asked me to read Xu Zhiyong’s article? Wasn’t my daughter detained because she wrote some articles herself?’
The internal security agents then asked my father to sign a notice but then they took the document away once he had done so. My father, greatly distressed, did not even clearly seethe document he had signed.
Later, my parents were questioned by an internal security agent at the Beijing municipal bureau named Sun, and it wasonly then that they found out that I was suspected of ‘inciting subversion of state power’. My mother asked him: ‘What on earth did my daughter do to be suspected of inciting subversion of state power?’ Sun refused to answer on the grounds of ‘state secrecy’. My mother inquired further: ‘Is it like how we teachers mark subjective questions on an exam? If we think they’re correct, then they are? If we think they’renot, they’re not?’ Sun replied: ‘You can understand it like that if you want. We’ve just been handling this case in accordance with the law.’ This ‘disappearance in accordance with the law’is certainly one of the strangest experiences a person can have.
In this tiny ‘residential surveillance in a designated location’room, the dazzling white light above me was kept on around the clock. For the first month and a half, I had to sit still for four hours straight in the morning and again in the afternoon. I could take the opportunities presented by mealtimes and tripsto the toilet to move around a little. Sometimes, I would ask for water several times just so I could get a chance to change posture. Sitting still for eight hours every day made my entirebody stiff, as if the blood in my body were no longer circulating.
As for the three robotic female guards who stood beside me, would their experience of monitoring ‘a prisoner sentenced to death’ be enormously beneficial to their lives? When theywere closely observing me sleeping, showering, or going to the toilet, what were they actually thinking about?
For the two and a half months that followed, there was one less robotic guard, and I was allowed to move around for twenty minutes after every two hours of sitting still. (During my interview with the internal security service on 9 September, Officer Li specifically emphasised: ‘I was the onewho made sure you got the opportunity to stand up and move around. How can you only talk about your suffering during your detention? What about the times when we treated you nicely? Isn’t it important for upright people to have a clear conscience?’)
Because I was required to sit motionless for long periods of time, my calf muscles began to atrophy, and after I was released I could not walk properly. Every night when I was going to sleep, I had had to face the bright light above my head directly. I had already been prone to insomnia and nervousness, so at the beginning I could not fall asleep at all. As soon as I used my hand to cover my eyes, guards would scold me and sometimes even push my arm down violently.Then I realised that there was even a specific posture for sleeping at the detention centre. I had to lie on my back, and my hands, shoulders, neck, and face all had to be uncovered and visible outside of the quilt. Even if I changed my posture after falling asleep, I would be poked awake by the roboticguards.
I gradually learned the ‘rules’ that needed to be obeyed at a ‘residential surveillance centre’: always obey orders given by guards; raise your hand to report any issue you have, and thensecurity guards will report to higher-ups via walkie-talkies, and you can only do anything when permission is given; talking to guards is forbidden; you are not allowed to look around when someone enters the room; when you walkaround inside the room, always move slowly and maintain a certain distance from the window and walls; keep your personal belongings organised and tidy, and you will be monitored by guards even when you go to the toilet or take a shower. If you do not follow the rules, you will be scolded by the guards and the correctional officers, and they will threaten that your daily activity time, already restricted, will be restricted further.
I was deprived of everything. Everyone who appeared beforeme could scold, threaten, and lecture me. The correctional system has granted itself unlimited power in the name of ‘national security’ and exercises its absolute power to the maximum. This is a correctional system that drains vitality and attempts vainly to transform people under surveillance into ‘obedient machines’. Living is just being ceaselessly interrogated.
Where was this place? What was its purpose? Sitting in my hermetic room, I had absolutely no idea. But my hearing and memory were unusually keen during this period: every day I could hear the roar of planes taking off and landing at various times, and every evening I heard the sounds of military exercises and military slogans being shouted. With the door of my room behind me, interrogators would open it and walk to the chair opposite in about five or six steps. From the chair near the door to the toilet on the right side of the room was about eight steps, and from there to the bed board was less than ten steps. I could not get close to the window beside the bed, and anyway it was blocked by thick curtains. I understood more than once the human longing for sunlight and fresh air. By grasping certain patterns—the robotic female guards changed every two hours, every half an hour flex staff brought me a small paper cup of water—I figured out how to calculate the passing of time, and figuring that out was just to encourage myself to take a bit of a break when sitting in a fixed position for the entire day.
I found the daily walking exercise pretty depressing: with a robotic guard setting my pace behind me and three guards watching me, in the brief time in which I could move around I was pressed between two of the robots, one in front of me and one behind about ten small steps apart. I had to take slow, small steps with the guard behind me matching my pace exactly. She would regularly tread on my slippers because she was following me so closely.
I already suffered from moderate depression and anxiety. About five days before I was detained, access to my depression medication had been interrupted, and following this I experienced heart palpitations, anxiety, insomnia, headaches, and other pretty serious physical and mental reactions. After that, internal security went to the XieheHospital where I had gone before and retrieved all my medical records. My parents went to the hospital regularly to fill my prescription, and I was able to continue taking my depression medication. Every morning, two people in white lab coats who called themselves ‘doctors’ came to do rounds and ask about my physical condition. Before this, I had always thought that doctors and ‘the angels in white’ [nurses] were the same, but in a hellish environment like this, can there really be angels?
Their daily inquiries were so cold and mechanical:
‘Doctor, I’ve been suffering from insomnia, palpitations, and headaches.’
‘There’s nothing to be done. The environment in here is just like this. It can’t be changed. If you really can’t sleep, we can give you some drugs for that.’
‘Doctor, I’ve been constipated for three or four days.’
‘We can give you something for that, and increase your constipation medicine to four pills a day.’
‘If I take that much, I get cramps. It’s really too painful.’
‘There’s nothing we can do about that. Otherwise, you’ll just have to have a glycerine enema once every three days.’
When I’d been held in detention for about two months and the environment was making my depression and anxiety worse and worse, my interrogators told me that they had requested that a clinical psychologist come to see me specifically about my depression, to take a look at me and to adjust the dosage of my medication. One afternoon, the psychologist entered my room accompanied by another doctor. He asked the robotic guard standing beside me to leave the room temporarily, indicating that this would create a slightly more relaxed environment for me to be diagnosed in. During the hour in which the guard was not in the room, the psychologist asked about my emotional state, observed the facilities in my room carefully, and acquainted himself with my previous medical history and my specific past experiences with illness. The mechanised system of management that I had been subjected to for such a long time meant that I was incredibly pleased to encounter a bit of humanity and wanted to carry on talking to the psychologist, even to the point that I mistakenly thought that I was in the treatment room at Xiehe Hospital. The hour passed quickly, and the psychologist recommended that I take mood stabilisers twice a day, instead of taking them irregularly when I urgently needed them like before (because long-term use of mood stabilisers can easily cause memory problems and addiction).
In the following two months, besides medication, I learned that vomiting after a meal also relieved my fear and pain. Every day after breakfast and dinner, I would raise my hand and ask to go to the toilet to vomit. I would squat helplessly next to the toilet, feeling overwhelming waves in my stomach, and by means of this abusive self-torture, I could release the anger and pressure that I had nowhere to vent. But then I would hear a guard speaking to someone through a walkie-talkie: ‘She’s vomited up the medicine she just took. Send over another dose.’ ‘Tell the doctor to give her an antiemetic.’A few minutes later, the doctor would stride into the room and give me one.
My frequent vomiting after meals was troubling to the guards in the detention center. Once after I finished vomiting I sat on my chair and a guard walked into my room in a rage and shouted: ‘Have we treated you too well? We’ve given you fruit now and then, let you have some free time, reduced the number of guards to two. And what do you do? You’re constantly giving us trouble! If you continue on like this, we’ll go back to the previous arrangement. Does sitting motionless in a chair all day feel good? Do you like having three guards surrounding you?’ In that moment I was utterly frail and helpless. Unexpectedly, I thought a bit about whether the self-abusive means I’d used to vent my emotions had been troublesome to others, and I lowered my head and apologised. The guard went on: ‘If you consider suicide in a place like this, it can only be because life is better than death.’
I did not just abandon my appeal for the rights corresponding to my status. I even identified with the value system of seeing rights as special benefits or rewards that I was given like charity. If I wanted to survive a little more comfortably here, I had to cooperate and I had to obey. Sometimes I would feel physically satisfied because I could eat a little more meat, or because I got some extra time for physical activity, or if I had the chance to bathe a little longer. I dreaded hearing the guards or the interrogators say things like: ‘You’ve been behaving well lately, we’ll let you have some more physical activity’ or ‘Your behaviour’s been better so we can give you some meat’ or ‘You’ve been more cooperative so you can take a bath.’ This distorted system crushed and tore at the principles I lived my life by and stripped away my human dignity.
Meanwhile, I got headaches, palpitations, constipation, stomach problems, urinary tract infections, and other problems continuously, one after another. When my body and my mind were in an extremely bad state, I could take up to a dozen drugs for ‘parallel symptoms’ in a single day. A pretrial interrogator once said to me, like he was making a joke: ‘This is because you have a problem with wanting to take your medications. It’s not like we forced you.’
After my release I applied for disclosure of information from the Haidian District Public Security Bureau, asking for the qualifications of the doctors who had visited me, done daily rounds, and written my prescriptions during my detention, their units, records of my use of medication, and so on. During one discussion of my release under supervision, Officer Li, who was in charge of my case, said: ‘At first, we had hundreds of reasons not to give you your prescriptions. We took a huge risk letting you fight for your right to continue taking antidepressants, but then you didn’t take them properly and blamed us. Do you not have a conscience? What do you say about that?’
I never had a chance to talk to the robotic female guards in my little room. One afternoon, I was sitting properly on my chair when one of the guards standing beside me fainted because she was unwell. Without even thinking, I stood up to help her and asked her if she was okay. Her companion standing opposite me roared: ‘Target! Who said you could move?! Sit down with your mouth shut!’ I explained: ‘She fainted and I’m just trying to help her.’ ‘Just sit down! Don’t talk to me!’Only after she had finished reprimanding me did she help her dizzy companion into a chair and use her walkie-talkie to ask one of the flex staff to come in and stand in for her for a while.
In these sealed off and closely supervised rooms in which people are kept, even elementary interpersonal concern is forbidden. They are saturated with strict behavioural controls and baseless reprimands. In such an environment, conversing and building relationships with my interrogators was my only opportunity to speak and communicate with others. This way, through saying things like ‘You are only allowed to talk to us,’ ‘During this interview you can sit in a more relaxed manner or stand up and move your limbs,’ or ‘We brought you some snacks,’ a convict’s sense of psychological dependency on my interrogators was built up, to the extent that the rights I ought to have had were transformed into favours and rewards. I fell imperceptibly into Stockholm Syndrome. One day, in a kind of automatic state, I wrote: ‘The police patiently instructed me. They didn’t torture me. They gave me opportunities to try to get my prescriptions and engage in physical activity. I deeply regret the insolent things I said about them on Twitter.’ That night in my dreams I saw my own lifeless body.
From 16 February to the end of April, with the exception of a trip for a preliminary hearing, I was questioned for at least two hours every evening. They told me that I was suspected of inciting subversion of state power for the crime of posting Xu Zhiyong’s ‘inflammatory’ article on the Internet. Later, they brought me dozens of printed articles by Xu Zhiyong one after another and made me read them page by page, and after I hadfinished I would ‘criticise’ them. That feeling of humiliation followed me for a long time. It was like biting off my tongue to try to commit suicide, but failing, and then ultimately still having to use the stub of my tongue to mimic their language. I was told to write a ‘statement of repentance’ about my ‘crime’. Again and again, they prompted me to write ‘forcefully’. I didn’t understand what that meant, so they said: ‘You have to write about how you have rethought and criticised Xu’s thinking. You realise that by helping him publish his article on the Internet you’ve handed a knife to foreign powers who want to attack the government of China. How do you wish to amend your conduct? Do you wish to draw a clear line between yourself and subversive thinking and foreign powers?’
To what degree did my statement of repentance determine the criminal charges brought against me? I have my suspicions. But in the process of demanding that the statement of repentance be revised again and again, the interrogators and the internal security agents achieve complete control of a person’s body and spiritual will. From acts of revolt to the consciousness of revolt, from the ability to think for oneself to one’s aspiration to think for oneself, this made obedience, cooperation, and submissiveness come from my own mind, so that the humiliation and trampling of my character was achieved together. Whether they were arresting me, interrogating me, guarding me, or even maintaining my stability, their existence meant that I could never escape the disaster of being labelled a ‘prisoner’. ‘I am too weak and yielding,’ I wrote in my statement of repentance, ‘I deserve to be humiliated.’ Even after I was released, I continued to persecute and deny myself: ‘Didn’t you admit your guilt regarding unlawful acts and show repentance? Didn’t you say that you wished to draw a clear line in your thinking?’ Those who had restricted my freedom and placed me in a state of total isolation spoke to me of ‘commitment’ and ‘morality’. They used the statement of repentance to humiliate me in interview after interview, so that I continued to experience shame and fear even after I had left the detention centre.
During my trial, they attempted to persuade me to convince Xu Zhiyong to confess his guilt. At the same time, they asked me whether Xu Zhiyong had any defects of personality. After not receiving an answer, they said among themselves: ‘Every day now Xu Zhiyong asks about the epidemic in the United States, and he’s especially worried about his daughter’s safety. We can give him this as a way out: if he is willing to confess his guilt, we can make sure his daughter is safe and sound.’
In a situation of 24-hour video surveillance and real-time reporting by the guards, even my facial expressions belonged to the state apparatus. I did not dare to laugh. I did not dare to furrow my brows. There were times when I would quietly cry because I suddenly felt awful, and the robotic guard would expressionlessly pass me a tissue, and then the same evening the interrogation would be ‘comforting’ in tone and concerned with analysing my crying. I remember one day, an officer who had interrogated me several times before came into my room to talk to me. As soon as he walked in and saw me he said:‘Why do you have such a stupid expression on your face? Have you become an idiot? Has your brain stopped working?’
As a woman in detention, going to the toilet, bathing, and changing your clothes must be done in front of female guards and surveillance cameras. Personal privacy? A sense of shame? Evidently there is no right to talk about that there. I was not permitted to tie my hair back, and I felt so embarrassed thinking about the messy appearance of my dishevelled hair. Toward the end of my custody, I finally successfully applied for a black rubber band to tie my hair back. I was not allowed to wear underwear, and whenever I was confronted by male interrogators I would always subconsciously make sure that my clothes were not clinging to my body.
Officer Li would occasionally say things that were sexually humiliating. On one occasion, they were going to be away on other business for a few days, so they came to tell me that there would be no visits to court for a while. Officer Li said, half in jest: ‘Even though it’s only going to be a few days, I’ll be sad to be apart from you.’ When we discussed my relationship with Xu Zhiyong, he constantly belittled and humiliated me: ‘Have you heard of living people being buried with the dead? Do you feel like you’re important? You’re nothing more than a burial object for Xu Zhiyong.’ ‘You don’t intend to wait until Xu gets out so you can live together happily, do you? Don’t you want to have your own children? Look: he’s really old, but your land is still rich and fertile.’‘Do you think Xu is a hard man? Of course, I have no idea if he’s hard in bed or not.’ I can’t remember my expression or my reaction at the time, but I remember these words extremely clearly. Through sexual humiliation they tried to make me feel like I ‘only received this treatment when I mistakenly rejected a compliment.’
During my detention, my interrogators continually reinforced my solitude by saying things like ‘You’ve already been forgotten by the outside world’ and ‘Besides your parents, no one cares about your situation.’ During that period, I regularly thought: ‘If they just dug a hole and threw me into it, maybe no one would even know.’ One afternoon, Officer Li brought me a letter my mother had written and spread it out in front of me. I recognised my mother’s handwriting. It said: ‘You have to cooperate with the police comrades. No matter what you do, you are Mom and Dad’s child.’ My heart hurt like it was a needle cushion. I was utterly filled with guilt because my parents were suffering on my account. I lowered my head and said nothing. Officer Li said: ‘Every day now your parents are in tears at home. Would you like to write a letter to tell them that you’re safe? Your parents’ worries may be based on their being deceived by foreign powers. You have to warn them in your letter not to casually be in contact with the outside world.’ I was so conflicted: if I did not write the letter as demanded, my parents would not receive any information about me. They would continue to worry about my health and security and continue to work on my behalf. Would writing a letter and letting them see my handwriting relieve their worries? So, I wrote a letter to my parents as demanded. ‘Dad, Mom, I’m so sorry for making you anxious about me. Everything is fine here, my rights are safeguarded, and I have not been maltreated. Don’t be in contact with the outside world, and please just wait for me to come home.’
After returning home under supervised release in June, I learned that my parents had seen the letter I wrote and were relieved about my situation in detention. They were also convinced by my warning that they should not be in contact with the outside world. After that they refused to do so, and only communicated with a lawyer who wanted them to sign a power of attorney agreement and maintained contact with the prefectural and municipal internal security offices. With the approval of internal security, they prepared clothes and books for me, thanking them effusively for that.
My interrogations continued until the end of April. After that, the interrogators brought in Officer Guo from Haidian District to ‘help me return to a normal life’ and to stay in contact with me about life problems after the modifications in the compulsory measures I was subject to.
One day in early May, Officer Li came into my room carrying some papers, and asked me loudly in an inquisitorial tone:‘Did you sign a power of attorney letter for a lawyer before February?’ I was really puzzled by this so I looked up and asked: ‘Do you really mean that I don’t have the right to engage a lawyer? I remember that the law states that I can engage a lawyer on my behalf, and that my lawyer can apply to visit me.’ Officer Li replied: ‘Does it really make sense for you to request a lawyer in your situation? It’s not possible for you to meet with him.’ Next, he pushed the papers in front of me, pointed to them, and said: ‘Someone used their status as your lawyer to spread lies on the Internet, to say that you were missing and that they didn’t know if you were alive or dead, and to take advantage of you to attack the government of China. Now you have to write something to clear your name and make clear whether you’re colluding with human rights lawyers and foreign powers. You were going to be getting out in a few days. If you’re going to blame anyone, blame the people on the outside who are appealing on your behalf. If we feel that people are still taking advantage of you after your release, we’ll take you back into protective custody for a while.’ I was astonished at this, but in the three months I had been locked up, this was the first time I had learned in this way that there were people in the outside world paying attention to me and looking for me. I realised that I had not been forgotten, and this gave me the desire to survive and get out of that place, to give myself the chance to speak.
In the environment of the detention centre, I found ways to survive. I learned to meditate on the movies, poems, and novels I had watched, to fill up the long periods spent sitting in my chair. Those precious memories allowed me to gradually filter out the contents of all the brainwashing, to preserve my vitality, and to keep myself from being transformed into their disciplined machine. Doing this took all the energy I had.
The great power that sustained me there was the knowledge that these few months would be the closest I would be to Xu Zhiyong in the coming years. I longed for some kind of special abilities, like telepathy, so that I could converse with him. One interrogator showed me a photo of the two of us together on my computer. I did all I could to imprint that photo in my mind. I thought constantly of the daily life we had together, and these details would also appear in my dreams.
On the morning of 19 June, when an internal security agent read out the ‘Notice of Decision Concerning Supervised Release’ to me, I sat in my chair numbly, unable to feel joy that I had regained my freedom. More than this, I was confused, and I did not know how to keep going along my solitary road once I was out. On the second day after my release, I tried to sort through my experiences on the inside, but I had no memory of some of the most difficult parts. The realm of public opinion constantly emphasises a person’s efforts and strengths, their defiance in the face of tribulations, and showing one’s weaknesses is discouraged. Even more attention and publicity is given to learned or heroic subjects, but psychological trauma is ignored or stigmatised by so many people.
In the days immediately following my release, I had panic attacks, nightmares, insomnia, an inability to focus, heightened alertness, traumatic flashbacks, trembling limbs … At the same time, I also became a ‘semi-underground worker’ and when I met with friends we would speak very quietly and examine our surroundings carefully. Meanwhile, my parents worried about my safety to an almost neurotic degree. They engaged in constant self-examination. They worried every time I left the house, worried that I was talking too much, worried that there were informers all around me, and even worried that internal security would form a bad impression of me. I felt like my whole family was suffering from a kind of ‘investigative mania’.
I often dream about the circumstances in which I wrote my statement of repentance. The feelings of guilt and humiliation never stop tormenting me and I never stop blaming myself: Why did I just stand there submissively, watching them rifle through my things and letting them put me in handcuffs and cover my head with a black hood? Why would I obediently wish to sit on only half of my chair? Was there any part of it I could look back on fondly? Isolation and helplessness, the fettering of my strength and determination—all of these experiences control me. We are restricted by the system. Each of us has contributed in different ways to the formation of this system, and in the end we lack even the ability to engage in passive resistance. Our submission allows those who actively work for the system to do as they please, and an evil space takes shape. How can we escape it?
Obviously, the internal security agents knew how to exacerbate my fears. The greater my fear, the easier it was to control me. If I opted not to say anything at all, they would communicate my fears to even more people. Recording the specific details of my experiences in detention is my way of resisting those fears. Rage and indignation are easily dispelled with the passing of time, but the truth is unchangeable. Even if everyone forgets about it, it is its own witness, and regardless of how it is suppressed or threatened, even if black and white are totally confused, it can no longer be concealed or silenced.
Even if the price of speaking out is losing my freedom again, I do not regret writing about my experiences, because I know that the moment I summoned the courage to tell the truth, the feelings of humiliation and fear the internal security agents tried to produce in me were easily broken. If you cannot speak courageously, you cannot act freely. We must speak directly and in a way that does not avoid problems. We must talk about the details, our traumas, and our weaknesses. Our doing so is what those who avoid such things, those who maintain secrets, are afraid of.
我第一次来到阿尔弗雷德是2000年8月。订机票时，我把地图放大了好几倍，才在纽约上州罗彻斯特附近找到了这个只有五千人口的大学城。我在阿尔弗雷德大学跟随Dr. Linda Jones读材料科学研究生。毕业后在阿尔斯通公司工作了一年后，2004年我带着两个女儿回到中国。2013年在家喜被捕后不久，我带着两个女儿再次回到阿尔弗雷德，在这里安家、工作、生活到现在。阿尔弗雷德是我在美国唯一住过的地方。这里是我的家。
A Note at the Beginning: As we set out to document our personal histories through words and images, when the year 2020 is recalled in the future, my story will be one of vulnerability and struggle. It will be a tale of holding on to love through separation, of the solidarity and mutual aid within our community, and of the sordid faces of those who do harm… They may try to silence us, to suppress what we say, but what we’ve lived through, what we’ve remembered, remains beyond their control. When the time comes to fight again, let us not forget to keep a smile on our lips and a song of freedom in our hearts.
Painted by Li Qiaochu in August 2019
June 19, 2020, was the day I was released on bail awaiting trial, and also the day Xu Zhiyong was officially arrested and transferred to Linshu County Detention Center on charges of “inciting to subvert state power.” As the national security vehicle carrying me approached the spot where my parents were waiting to pick me up, just a few hundred meters away, they removed the cloth from over my head. Four months later, when my parents saw me again, they found me trembling uncontrollably as I got out of the car. My mother held me and cried for a long time.
From the “small prison” back to the “big prison,” the one person I cared most about had not regained his “freedom.” On that day, I was deeply saddened that I could walk out, but he was being sent off to Shandong. Ahead of me lay a lonely and dark path, and I stood at the crossroads, all alone.
Today marks 100 days since June 19th. Protest and public expression are a process of self-empowerment. What has kept me going is my understanding of the concept of “citizenship,” my feelings for my partner, the support of friends around me, and the question I ask myself every time I overcome fear: “Can I move forward just a little more?” Though my steps may be shaky and ungraceful, I firmly believe that one day, things will turn around.
Handcuffed, Crossing Into the New Year
Question: “Has there been any change in yourself in 2020?”Answer: “I’ve become a little braver.”
In the summer of 2019, I was on the subway when Xu Zhiyong got into a dispute with a security officer over an ID check. I stood at a distance, nervously thinking to myself, “Please don’t let them take us to the police station.” At that time, I was the kind of person who would shrink away in a crisis. I never could have imagined how different my life would be just half a year later.
Back then, I had just been diagnosed with depression and had started medication and counseling. Most of my spare time outside of work was spent with Zhiyong, following the ongoing public events and trying to make a difference in whatever small ways we could. I remember the details vividly:
June 28: Li Wenzu, after four years of searching for her husband, visited Wang Quanzhang in prison for the first time.
July 4: Zhang Baocheng, who had been detained for over a month, was formally arrested — his sixth time in prison.
July 23: Lawyer Wu Lei’s license was revoked; he was the quiet figure who exited as the curtain rose on a new stage.
July 24: Three public welfare workers from Changsha were arrested, and I helped translate breaking news in the volunteer group.
July 29: Huang Qi was sentenced to 12 years in prison, where he would remain a voice for freedom and conscience.
August 12: Zhang Jialong was taken from his home and formally arrested a month later.
September 19: Chen Yunfei was detained for expressing concern over Hong Kong.
October 17: Xueqin was detained by the Guangzhou police, later placed under residential surveillance.
October 31: Qin Yongpei was arrested in Nanning.
December 17: Xiangzi was taken away and administratively detained.
During that period, I learned how to use WordPress and GitHub. Zhiyong and I compiled his more than 200 articles and the major events of the civil rights movement, creating the “Beautiful China” website: https://cmcn.blog/. He joked, half-seriously, “If I ever get arrested, let people get to know me through this site.”
I can’t recall the exact date Zhiyong left home, but I remember it was after the first snow in Beijing. He kissed me goodbye as usual and went out. A while later, he sent me a message saying he’d managed to shake off the tailing state security and got on the subway. I asked him how long it would take before he could return, and he reassured me he would be back before my 29th birthday.
On December 27, I suddenly saw news online about the arrest of lawyer Ding Jiaxi and three other citizens. My heart tightened. Soon after, I received a message from Zhiyong: “Honey, I may have to lie low for a while. If something happens to me, go find my sister and sign the lawyer’s power of attorney. Take care of yourself. I love you.” I was stunned, not knowing how to respond or what was happening. Slowly, I typed a few words: “Stay safe, I’ll always be here.” After that, we lost contact.
For the next few days, I spent hours scrolling through Twitter and Facebook, trying to understand what was happening. The only indication I had that Zhiyong was safe came from his social media updates. I couldn’t sleep all night, crying as I stared at my phone, feeling helpless and uncertain about what I could do or who I could turn to.
December 30, 2019, I finally received an email from Zhiyong. He said he was still safe and sent me the completed “Beautiful China” anthology, asking me to upload it to the website. I went to a quiet café and began entering his articles on the site, tears flowing uncontrollably. Later that afternoon, while browsing the news, I was shocked and saddened to read that Pastor Wang Yi had been sentenced to 9 years in prison. It felt like a dark cloud had suddenly swept over me, completely engulfing me. After that, I wrote Zhiyong in an email: “If it comes to the point of a verdict, can we apply to get married? I can’t bear the thought of not being able to see you for such a long time.” He replied, “I also really want to marry you, but we must prepare ourselves for the fact that the application process may be very difficult.” Reading his response, I burst into tears, then smiled through the tears. In that moment, I felt that was enough.
December 31, 2019, in the morning, the state security began raiding homes and summoning people. I experienced firsthand how vast the gap is between the law and reality. “Disturbing the peace” can be stretched to mean “guilt by association.” I was locked up in a case-handling center, officially listed as a “Jane Doe.” There were even instances where state security, during interrogations, mentioned my name, as if they had a list of things they planned to search for in my house. One of them mocked, saying: “You’re someone who studied economics management. How would you understand these things? It’s clear you learned it from Xu Zhiyong. Even if we didn’t have the proper papers, what could you do about it if we just wanted to question you?”
On the day of the summons, the state security officers kept taking photos of the stickers on the wall
From January 1, 2020, my life turned into a daily routine of being followed and watched. In the first few days, I recorded my feelings of despair and helplessness on my phone: “Today, the national security agent following me is a huge guy, he looks so fierce,””How dare they follow me so openly? They don’t even feel guilty,” “I can’t let myself get used to this life. This is not what a normal country or a normal citizen should have to endure.”
On January 9, after discussing it with Zhiyong via email, I finally gathered the courage to publicly disclose the details of my summons and the reasons behind it, in a post titled “Handcuffed, Crossing Into the New Year.” I felt the need to step into the light, to use the truth to fight against the oppression and harassment.
Fighting With You, I Am Happy
Love is a daring adventure that insists on holding on, a belief in true democracy and freedom. It’s about loving this land, acting in the face of the impossible, standing against the powers that be. Thank you, for always keeping your head held high.
In early January, the state security tracked me down through the project team at the Sociology Department of Tsinghua University, and soon after, I lost my job. From then on, my daily routine became: checking emails, writing emails, updating the website with articles, supporting the four citizens under residential surveillance, and publicly sharing the oppression and surveillance that were ever-present in my life.
Through emails, Zhiyong and I exchanged thoughts on the unfolding public events, how to support the detained citizens, and expressed our longing for one another, sharing the status of our lives. He would always ask about my emotional well-being and the status of my therapy. His comfort, optimism, and calmness helped me hold onto a sense of inner peace, even in such a cramped, tense environment. I think that gentleness is like a nerve—once severed, it can’t be sewn back together. Despite the pain and violence he endured, Zhiyong survived—and kept his gentleness intact. It’s a rare feat. With his encouragement, I gradually overcame my fear of being followed. Eventually, I began taking pictures of the cars tracking me and even learned some specific skills—like identifying if I was being followed and how to shake off the agents trailing me.
Taking pictures of the car that was following meResisting suppression through image designHealing through painting
On January 23rd, the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, and Wuhan was locked down overnight. In the grand narrative of a “great nation,” the people seemed so “insignificant.” Behind the cold numbers of death were individual stories of families torn apart: a woman in Hanyang, Wuhan, used a basin on her balcony to “bang a gong to save her mother,” crying out for a hospital bed for her critically ill mother; a 70-year-old dialysis patient, suspected of having contracted COVID-19, was unable to receive treatment at the hospital and couldn’t wait for a community-arranged nucleic acid test, ultimately jumping to his death… From that day on, I also became a volunteer, providing online assistance to the families of COVID-19 patients in Wuhan. During this period, Xu Zhiyong’s writings also related to the pandemic. Since he had limited access to the internet while in hiding, I would, in between my volunteer work, gather and send him the relevant news of the day.
Xu Zhiyong and I exchanged emails to convey our longing and care for each other
Every day, I worried about whether he was managing basic survival during his time in hiding. Exile in one’s own homeland is never as “romantic” as it may seem on paper. I am so grateful for friends like lawyer Yang Bin and others, whose help allowed him to maintain some dignity during that bitter winter of escape. Thanks to their support, he was not left in an undignified state, even when he was taken away, still well-dressed and composed.
Before the New Year, I dug out my “citizen” T-shirt and rushed to the photo studio. This was my New Year’s gift for Xu Zhiyong
On February 14, Valentine’s Day, Zhiyong sent me a video he had recorded for the occasion. Even in the midst of our busy work, we made time to send each other blessings. That was the last email he sent me before his arrest. On February 15, a friend contacted me saying Zhiyong had likely been detained. After finishing up work on a ventilator connection project, I sent him email after email, crying alone in my room, helpless. I never got a reply from him. Instead, the state security came to my door in the dead of night to take me away.
My Period Under Residential Surveillance
The body is soft, but we are not cogs in a political or activist machine. How much we must struggle, just to live as we are—normal, human.
I have already publicly shared the details of my arrest and the summons at the case-handling center, and I will continue to do so. Here, I want to share my feelings about this period in my life.
My mind is filled with fragmented memories, such as:
The black hood and handcuffs, the closed room, the constant harsh white light;
The guards who watched me closely, the stern reprimands or the slightly kinder treatment, the white coats and the pills;
The fixed posture I had to maintain while sitting and sleeping, the 24-hour surveillance cameras and intercoms, the lukewarm tap water;
The longing for sunlight, the way I calculated time in my mind, the heightened sensitivity of my hearing, and the ability to capture even the faintest details…
My memory was unusually sharp during that time. I remember every interrogator’s appearance, their manner of speaking, their role-playing, even the sound of their footsteps… They told me I had committed serious crimes, and I often dared not speak for fear of falling into a trap. But the interrogation was the only time I could speak, and at times, the loneliness made me “look forward” to being called in for questioning.
I experienced Stockholm Syndrome: I thanked them in my “confession” for giving me medicine. I often vomited after meals due to emotional distress, and the guards, frustrated and angry, scolded me, threatening to increase the number of personnel watching me from two to three and cancel my time outside. I found myself apologizing for my vomiting, nearly begging them. When I cried, the guards handed me tissues to wipe my tears, and I thanked them. When the interrogators brought me oranges, chocolate, and crispy rice during questioning, I ate them all…
A huge part of what kept me going in that place was knowing that during those months—or even the coming years—those were the closest moments I would get to being near Xu Zhiyong. I longed desperately for some special power or telepathic connection to “talk” to him. The interrogators showed me our photos stored on their computers, and I tried my best to imprint those images in my mind. I replayed in my head the everyday moments we shared, hoping that these scenes would appear in my dreams.
I learned to meditate on the films, poems, and novels I had once seen or read, to fill the vast empty spaces of time while sitting in the chair. Those precious memories allowed me to slowly filter out the brainwashing content they tried to force on me, preserving my own vitality and refusing to let myself become the machine they sought to mold me into. I used up every ounce of my energy.
On the morning of June 19, when the state security read me the decision to grant bail, I sat there, somewhat numb, in the chair. There was no joy in being granted freedom. More than anything, I felt lost, unsure of how to walk the solitary road ahead. The day after I was released, I tried to process my experiences in detention, and I realized I had lost memory of some of the painful moments. Our social movement often emphasizes the need to be strong, to not fear hardship, and showing vulnerability is discouraged. The focus and publicity go toward grand, heroic themes, while the psychological trauma is often ignored or stigmatized.
In the days following my release, I struggled with fear, nightmares, insomnia, lack of focus, heightened alertness, traumatic flashbacks, and trembling limbs. At the same time, I became a “quasi-undercover” individual. When meeting friends, I would speak in whispers, constantly on edge, scanning my surroundings. My parents, worried for my safety, became hypersensitive, self-censoring their thoughts. They worried every time I left the house, feared I was speaking too much, feared I might be followed by “informers,” and even worried that the national security had a bad impression of me. I felt as though our entire family had contracted “paranoia.”
I often dreamt of situations where I was writing confessions. The guilt and humiliation tortured me endlessly, and I constantly blamed myself: Why did I obediently stand there, watching them search through my things and put handcuffs and a hood on me? Why did I sit obediently in that chair, positioned halfway? What did I have to cling to? Alone, helpless, my strength and will bound, that feeling controlled me. We are oppressed by the system, and each of us, in our own way, has contributed to building this system. But in the end, we are powerless to resist, even passively. Our obedience makes it possible for those actively serving the system to do as they please, creating a space for evil to flourish. How can we escape from it?
Breaking the Silence, Confronting the Fear
If we cannot speak courageously, we cannot act freely. We must not shy away, nor avoid the trouble of speaking out. We must share the details, the trauma, and the weakness—because what they fear most is exactly what we must do.
After I was released on June 19, I entered a period of “silence,” afraid to reach out to anyone, terrified of being taken back into detention. On June 24, I nervously posted my first tweet after my release. Although I only dared to post a subtle image, I was happy that I had taken that first step. Not long after, the national security officers called me, saying they were closely monitoring the internet to see if my voice appeared online, warning me to “disappear as if I never existed.” On June 25, I posted my first tweet with text: “They warned me to disappear, I’m so scared of being erased.” As soon as I sent it, I felt my heart leap to my throat, and every time the phone rang, I became tense. But I knew that no matter how silent, evasive, or compliant I was, the national security would still come to harass and monitor me. Since I couldn’t avoid it, why not fight for some space? Perhaps I could carve out even a little freedom.
On July 8, Xu Zhiyong’s second sister went to the detention center to deposit money for him. First, they said they couldn’t find his name, and then they said it had to be approved by the special investigation team. From that day onward, I began speaking out on Twitter about the illegal actions in the case procedures, such as using aliases for detention, denying lawyer visits, and restricting communication. On July 13, I started filing public information requests to the Linyi Public Security Bureau. A month later, I filed for administrative reconsideration, followed by awaiting administrative litigation. On August 27, I began filing requests for information about my rights violations. Every step, no matter how small, was worthwhile—if nothing else, to show people how incredibly difficult it is to protect one’s rights under the law in China. These actions mattered.
I enjoy designing my own advocacy images when posting on Twitter
As I continued to speak out and take action, national security officers began summoning me more frequently. The number of officers grew from two to three to four. Every time I received a call, my heart would race. During these interrogations, I often struggled to respond, usually just sitting in silence. But each time I returned, I forced myself to write down what happened and share it publicly. The most recent interrogation involved just two officers again, and their tone seemed to have softened somewhat. From the beginning, even just asserting my presence would get me reprimanded; now, it seems that I have gained some space to speak out and take action. Only I know the fear and caution I experienced throughout the whole process. I was so isolated, yet I had to speak out, even though I knew that at any moment, I could be silenced again. Who would take over if that happened? I still dare not imagine that outcome.
On August 19, I published my first detailed account of being placed under residential surveillance. On August 24, I published the second. After that, frequent threats and interrogations disrupted my plan to publish one article per week, but these interruptions inadvertently helped expand the reach of my words and attract more attention. I will continue to speak out. Rage and indignation can fade with time, but facts do not change. Even if everyone forgets, the facts still have their witnesses. We must continue to push for the truth and hold those who do wrong accountable. Whether it’s covert oppression, open threats, or attempts to distort the truth, we cannot be silent or tolerate it.
We need to recognize the kind of fear the authorities want us to feel. It is a fear of punishment, exile, and imprisonment—a deep, all-encompassing fear. We must have the courage to speak of this fear openly, for it shows the connection that binds us together in this struggle. We need to let go of the obsession with individual heroes, public intellectuals, or personal courage. We need to realize that we have the power to support each other, to create a world where fear has less of a grip on us. That is the effort we must make.
What I’m Fighting Against Is Not Only Oppression, But Also Depression
Depression is not an absolute disaster; it can also bring a strength beyond what I ever imagined. I continue with my treatment because, in the end, I still care about myself.
Throughout this struggle, my depression has been unpredictable, never truly leaving. I’ve had thoughts of suicides, and I’ve engaged in self-harm behaviors countless times. When Zhiyong was by my side, there were moments when I locked myself in the closet, holding onto a coat, inhaling the scent of the fabric, trying to feel like I was more than just a body. He would gently encourage me to open a small crack in the door, sitting outside on a chair with one hand reaching through the gap to hold mine. We would just sit there, quietly, together.
Photographed by Xu Zhiyong in September 2019
After the incident, my depression worsened. The doctor increased my medication, but because of my first experience with being summoned, I feared that if I were arrested again, the medication would control me. So, I often secretly reduced the dosage, ignoring the doctor’s advice, and the situation only got worse. At times, I felt like a puddle of mud, lying on the ground, unable to do anything. But in the end, driven by my deep love, admiration, and curiosity for this world, by my confusion, reluctance, and unwillingness to give up, and by that fragile, almost imperceptible hope for the future, I learned to accept my illness. I continue to walk with it—through this dark, lonely path—determined to see it through to the end.
I Am No Island
The fight continues because I do not want to leave my comrades behind. And by “comrades,” I mean not only the families of those involved in the same case, but all families of those caught in similar struggles, and all those who seek freedom and justice…
The appearance of the 709 families has become a standard for the fight of family members. Yet, I know that the current environment is still different from theirs. So, what should I do?
The first person to reach out to me was Sister Shengchun, the wife of lawyer Ding Jiaxi, who was involved in the same case. Day after day, I followed her on Twitter, witnessing how she “gave everything” to call for attention to her husband’s case. On the tenth day since Ding’s disappearance, she began making videos telling his story, calling for broader awareness. On the twentieth day, she posted videos in both Chinese and English, appealing to the international community. On the twenty-eighth day, she stood on the streets of Washington, holding signs. On the thirty-second day, she started making “one person, one video,” encouraging friends to speak up for her husband. On the forty-third day, she began collecting signatures and sending letters to the Minister of Public Security. On the 271st day, she appeared at the United Nations Human Rights Council to speak out for him… She sent a total of 15 letters to Ding, tirelessly filing complaints to relevant authorities to protect his right to communicate. Her relentless persistence always moved me. Whenever I felt powerless, just seeing Sister Shengchun still in action gave me the strength to keep going.
Cheng Yuan has been arbitrarily detained for over 340 days. He has dedicated his work to advocating for people living with HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B, and promoting reforms in family planning and the household registration system. Since his detention in July 2019 on charges of “subverting state power,” he has had no news. His wife, Shi Minglei, has withstood pressure and threats, speaking out for him and fighting for her own rights. Her gentle strength has been a powerful resistance against injustice. Through seeing Minglei’s perseverance, I came to understand what a remarkable person Cheng Yuan is. Recently, there were reports that the Changsha Public Welfare Three were secretly tried. On that day, I almost lost hope. But the next morning, I woke up to see Minglei holding her little Pea, fully recharged and ready to go back to the courthouse. I was moved to tears.
In addition, there are Chen Kun, the brother of Chen Mei in the Duandianxing case; Hong Bo, the girlfriend of Cai Wei; Liu Lijiao, the wife of artist Zhuihun; Xu Yan, the wife of lawyer Yu Wensheng; Deng Xiaoyun, the wife of lawyer Qin Yongpei; poet Wang Cang and his wife Wang Li; He Fangmei, the mother of the “vaccination baby”; Pu Wenqing, the mother of Huang Qi; and Zhang Zhan, the citizen journalist who has been on hunger strike for days… I think of so many people, many of whom I may have never met in person. But this is what it means to be part of a “community.” We are rooted in the same land, waiting together for the snow to melt and for spring to arrive.
And beyond the cases unfolding right now, my community includes all those who are fighting. They have stood by the families of those wrongly accused, by workers facing injustice, by petitioners suffering violence and persecution, and by migrant workers in urban villages facing eviction… But because of the filth and corruption in the iron tower, their voices have been branded as “crimes.” In an environment where people fear speaking of politics, they are marginalized and stigmatized.
Speech is Resistance
We must learn to approach life with a positive attitude, and, within our own abilities, perspectives, time, and burdens, explore richer forms of social resistance. Above all, we must strive to maintain a self that is “genuine, responsible, and dignified.”
I know I need a social support network, but what if there isn’t one readily available? Then I must start building it myself. I first formed a mutual aid group with friends who had similar experiences of being placed under residential surveillance. It gave us a space where we could express ourselves safely and feel understood, reminding us that we were not alone and helping me regain the confidence to keep going in life.
During the time I was out of contact, my friends showed their support for me through their artwork
But what if I don’t want to stop here? What if we want more people to understand the significance of our cries for help? What if we want more than just the fleeting attention of public opinion and seek a long-lasting social consensus? What if we wish to shift the understanding of the concept of “residential surveillance,” so that others need not pay the same price of suffering to have their voices heard?
I believe this is the meaning behind my decision to publicly share my own experience of being placed under residential surveillance. I hope it can encourage others who have gone through similar experiences to speak out about their own stories. Perhaps, there never needed to be a distinction between “us” and “the others.” In the face of such a powerful system, what we can do is preserve our dignity and autonomy, and reduce the crushing force and harm that power inflicts upon the individual.
Conclusion
Not long ago, I did a photoshoot in a wedding dress. I hope one day I’ll have the chance to send the photos to Xu Zhiyong, to let him know that the time spent together with him was filled with happiness, and that the life we fought for together was also a life of joy. During the times I was summoned, followed, questioned, or placed under residential surveillance, those experiences have always taught me how to grow stronger. But when I face known or unknown hardships, what I miss most is him, and I regret that, in my best years, he cannot be by my side.
Photographed in September 2020
Looking back, I may never return to the life I once knew. As I continue this journey, I’ve encountered more families, more activists, and along the way, I’ve come to rediscover the people I love, my own rights, and the kind of environment I want for future generations. I’ve come to realize that “being human” can be this way—one can choose to live with integrity, with authenticity.
As long as Xu Zhiyong is not free, I will not stop speaking out or taking action.
Freedom is not Free 