Latest / The Front / Cheng Lei: the wise, sweary, funny survivor of a Chinese prison

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Cheng Lei: the wise, sweary, funny survivor of a Chinese prison · The Front

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey. Three years in custody, isolation, psychological torture,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: deprivation of every kind. When Australian journalist Chung Lei was
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: imprisoned in China, wrongfully convicted of espionage, she was forced
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: by her captors to write so called self reflections declarations
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  Speaker 1: of guilt. It was all part of the torture and
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Lay had to comply expressing a guilt she had no
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: reason to feel. Lay was innocent. Now she's written a book,
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  Speaker 1: The Truth, this time on her own terms, accompanied by
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  Speaker 1: a documentary and a Ted talk on her harrowing experience.
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  Speaker 1: Her book for HarperCollins, A Memoir of Freedom, is released
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday. For June and her docors dum Entry. Chung
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Lay My Story premieres on Tuesday, the third of June
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  Speaker 1: on Sky News and sky News dot com Dot a U.
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  Speaker 1: I've got to know Lay over the past few years,
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  Speaker 1: and she's warm, funny, super smart and deeply kind. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you enjoy our conversation. In twenty twenty, Chung Lai
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  Speaker 1: was a glamorous news anchor working for a Chinese state
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  Speaker 1: owned TV station. You were living the life of a
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  Speaker 1: kind of rom com, this glamorous Beijing apartment, sort of
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: trotting into work in your shift dress and your year
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  Speaker 1: more Bridget Jones. She had an incredible network of friends
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  Speaker 1: and contacts, including her close friend Hayes, a Chinese who
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: was working for American news agency Bloomberg. One day, Lay
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  Speaker 1: sent Hayes a text. It was mundane the main points
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  Speaker 1: that would soon be announced in the Chinese premier's annual
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  Speaker 1: work report. The text said, no growth target GDP nine
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  Speaker 1: million jobs target. It's the kind of information journalists exchange
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  Speaker 1: all the time. Government agencies set embargoes on press releases
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  Speaker 1: or speeches, and if an Australian journalist like me jumped
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  Speaker 1: the gun and published early, I'd probably get an angry
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  Speaker 1: call from a media advisor. That'd be it. Unbeknownst to Lay,
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  Speaker 1: she sent that text to Hayes seven minutes before the
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  Speaker 1: news was allowed to be published under an embargo she
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  Speaker 1: didn't know existed. China said she'd revealed a state secret.
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  Speaker 1: For the next three years, Lay would be known only
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  Speaker 1: by her prisoner number two to one, double zero three.
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  Speaker 1: Lay writing the book about the music that was used
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  Speaker 1: to wake everybody up in the detention center. What was that?
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  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Beethoven, it was for release. Sometimes I would
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  Speaker 2: have been awake for hours already, just staring at the tiles,
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  Speaker 2: counting them again and again. And I hear that music
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  Speaker 2: and always sigh a little, because it's ruined it for
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  Speaker 2: me forever.
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  Speaker 1: And all my cell mates. Lay started out in solitary
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  Speaker 1: confinement Harris.
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  Speaker 2: Dell is the Chinese spelling for.
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  Speaker 1: Hell RSDL residential surveillance in a designated location all day
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  Speaker 1: and night. She was watched in a windowless room where
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  Speaker 1: the light was never turned off by officers constantly positioned
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  Speaker 1: within a meter of her. And then she moved to
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  Speaker 1: a detention center where she shared a cell with other women,
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  Speaker 1: also prisoners of the Ministry of State Security, also accused
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  Speaker 1: of crimes like espionage or sharing state secrets. Nobody was
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  Speaker 1: allowed to use their real name, just a number, but
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  Speaker 1: Lay and her cellmates gave one another nicknames. There was
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  Speaker 1: og for Ottawa, Grandma, a Canadian Chinese woman, Canto, a
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  Speaker 1: Cantonese speaker from China South, and Psycho Bitch, a prickly
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  Speaker 1: prisoner with whom Lay found herself trapped. They called her
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  Speaker 1: peeb for short. I've got a passage that I was
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  Speaker 1: hoping you would read for us, actually, and it's about
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  Speaker 1: when you were in a cell just by yourself with
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  Speaker 1: psycho bitch. Oh yeah, would you mind reading it? Thank you?
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  Speaker 2: PB was turning the detention center rules into a joke.
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  Speaker 2: It became a cycle. The officers would discipline her in
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  Speaker 2: sensing her to the point of uncontrollable fury, which escalated
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  Speaker 2: the punishments and her retaliation.
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  Speaker 1: She seemed to get off on it.
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  Speaker 2: Even after screaming at the detention center chief earned her
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  Speaker 2: three days and nights of handcuffs. She said she was
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  Speaker 2: going to sue the detention center for discrimination and was
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  Speaker 2: going to report Canto's varied sins. It dawned on me
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  Speaker 2: that the world stepped back when you had no shame,
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  Speaker 2: no qualms about lying, and the loud voice that you
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  Speaker 2: used often. She was the Donald Trump of inmates. To
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  Speaker 2: combat this constant stress, I had to be my own
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  Speaker 2: coach first world problems. Think of people experiencing wars and famine,
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  Speaker 2: being brutalized. This is the best time in my life
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  Speaker 2: to read and study Zen Mantra. Life is full of suffering.
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  Speaker 2: Everything is in flux. Only if you stop grasping, can
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  Speaker 2: you have peace of mind? Each time she pisss me off,
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  Speaker 2: I'll do ten pushups. Imagine that she's my annoying little sister.
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  Speaker 2: I have to put up with her. This is temporary,
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  Speaker 2: and things could be worse. They have been worse. In
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  Speaker 2: my first six months, I had no sunshine, no TV,
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  Speaker 2: no conversations, and nothing I could call my own. I
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  Speaker 2: reversed the Eschylus quote that there is no pain as
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  Speaker 2: great as the memory of joy in present grief. I
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  Speaker 2: believed when I got out there would be no bliss
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  Speaker 2: so complete as the memory of suffering in present joy.
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  Speaker 1: Did that turn out to be true when you got out?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely? The counterpoint really helps us appreciate the smallest thing.
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  Speaker 2: Every time I put a cap on the toothpaste, every
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  Speaker 2: time I hang out washing, every time I put on
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  Speaker 2: a piece of jewelry and look at myself in the mirror,
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  Speaker 2: things like spotting a flower or feeling the breeze on
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  Speaker 2: my face. Without what I suffered, I will just take
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  Speaker 2: all this for granted.
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  Speaker 1: And is there anything that you've let go of? Conversely,
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  Speaker 1: you know, are there big and small things that don't
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  Speaker 1: annoy you anymore or not.
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  Speaker 2: I'm pretty chilled about almost everything. When people honk at me,
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  Speaker 2: I smile at them, And when I see something annoying,
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  Speaker 2: I'll remind myself that I'm so privileged to be able
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  Speaker 2: to have that annoyance. And I eat a lot and
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  Speaker 2: don't really fret about, oh, what I look like. I've
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  Speaker 2: only bought very little clothes because I went for three
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  Speaker 2: years and two months wearying, you know, two or three
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  Speaker 2: T shirts and all of my worldly belongings can fit
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  Speaker 2: into one little container. So now material things mean a
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  Speaker 2: lot less to me.
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  Speaker 1: What you've just described seems like a part of the
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  Speaker 1: Chinese philosophy of living too, you know, eating all parts
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  Speaker 1: of the animal, for example, not wasting a life. Yes
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  Speaker 1: that you've taken for food. It seemed to me that
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  Speaker 1: in prison you felt very Australian. What remnants are there
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  Speaker 1: of your Chinese personality? And where do you land now?
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  Speaker 2: You know? I love that question because it's one that
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  Speaker 2: I often ask myself. It is very conflicting to be
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  Speaker 2: ethnically Chinese, to try to separate what I feel for
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  Speaker 2: the country, whatever you call a country. It's almost because
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  Speaker 2: of the incarceration I find country, a nation, and state
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  Speaker 2: to be dirty words because there was me, an Australian
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  Speaker 2: Chinese citizen working for a Chinese company, well state owned company,
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  Speaker 2: thinking I was helping a Chinese friend who worked for
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: an American company, and they call it espionage. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: obviously they had to pin something on me. But the
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  Speaker 2: absurdity of the lines we draw on this planet. Instead
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  Speaker 2: of being nationalist, we should be earthist, universalist. We're not
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  Speaker 2: so different.
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  Speaker 1: One of the first times I met you, Yes, we
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  Speaker 1: met when we were both going to a big, fancy
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  Speaker 1: event where we were both going to be on stage,
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  Speaker 1: the Australian sixtieth Anniversary. We started talking about whether we
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: got stage fridle nervousness on stage, and you told me
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  Speaker 1: about a phrase that one of your TV mentors had
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  Speaker 1: taught you. That's right, what was it?
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  Speaker 2: BTFI beyond the fuck it. We've all had those fuck
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  Speaker 2: it moments. I've stuffed up many times on air off air,
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  Speaker 2: and if you can ride out that worst wave, you'll
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  Speaker 2: find serenity.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things I like about that is that
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  Speaker 1: it tells me something about you. You know, you like
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  Speaker 1: swearing for a stile.
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  Speaker 2: It's a you know, preworquisite of being Australian, I think
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  Speaker 2: and working in TV right, oh, definitely, Live TV.
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  Speaker 1: Language is very stressful, and you are you seem to
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  Speaker 1: me to be comfortable with being a flawed creature, being
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  Speaker 1: a human. You know you are open to revealing everything
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  Speaker 1: about yourself, and you.
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  Speaker 2: Don't take myself seriously.
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  Speaker 1: Your book is very revelatory. You have really gone there
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  Speaker 1: in every way about going to the toilet and having
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  Speaker 1: your period and everything that happened to you in prison,
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  Speaker 1: many things that other people might have glossed over. Did
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  Speaker 1: it occur to you to gloss that over? To present
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  Speaker 1: a version of yourself that didn't go to the toilet?
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  Speaker 1: I didn't have periods.
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  Speaker 2: No. I think it's a big part of being human
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  Speaker 2: to feel pain and discomfort, and if we can't acknowledge that,
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  Speaker 2: then what's the point of writing. I like to think
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  Speaker 2: that I've written an honest book, and it's just a
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  Speaker 2: big reversal from what China is about, which is hugely
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  Speaker 2: glossing over things, making up facts, pinning crimes on people,
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  Speaker 2: and then saying with a straight face, this did not happen.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things about writing a book a memoir
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  Speaker 1: is that you step back into the past very deeply.
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  Speaker 1: Did you have any moments of thinking, I kind of
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  Speaker 1: wish I hadn't come back into this moment, and I
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  Speaker 1: wish I was just moving forward.
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  Speaker 2: No, because even towards the end of my incarceration, I
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  Speaker 2: found peace inside and that meant I was no longer
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  Speaker 2: afraid of pain. I mean, I've written passages in that
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  Speaker 2: book where I was howling by myself, and I don't
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  Speaker 2: see that as a negative or a deterrent to writing.
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  Speaker 2: Pain is a counterpoint for happiness and pleasure. A lot
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  Speaker 2: of Buddhism is about not trying to grasp joy or
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  Speaker 2: avoid pain, but letting it all flow through.
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  Speaker 1: It's a remarkable book. It's one of those books that
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  Speaker 1: really takes me somewhere else, you know, the wonderful, magical
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  Speaker 1: thing that books can do. And when you're trying to
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  Speaker 1: teach children to read, the hope that they will get
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  Speaker 1: this idea that if you have a book, you can
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  Speaker 1: escape and you.
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  Speaker 2: Start to channel the spirit of the writer.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, I've always I felt like I was in there
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  Speaker 1: with you, in that cell with Og and Psycho, Bitch
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  Speaker 1: can Doo and Skinny. Yeah, as a cell mate. Were
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  Speaker 1: you conscious of trying to be a good cell mate,
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  Speaker 1: or were you just trying to get yourself through it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, to do one, you do the other. I think
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  Speaker 2: I came through relatively okay because I felt each day
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  Speaker 2: I was going to teach them some more songs. We
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  Speaker 2: were going to sing a bit more without getting into
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  Speaker 2: too much trouble, and share books, and I was going
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  Speaker 2: to make up new games, and we're going to have
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  Speaker 2: some laughs, and each day it's going to be a
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  Speaker 2: little bit of fun. Otherwise it's just too dark and
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  Speaker 2: too utterly dull. One partying phrase I love to leave
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: people with is have fun. Life's too short to take
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: yourself too seriously or to stress out about small.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Stuff coming up. More from my interview with Chung Wi.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Random detention of people is such a powerful weapon in
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: silencing people. There's a theory that you were collateral damage
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: in the Australian government's criticism of China over the origins
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: of COVID. If the price that foreign governments pay for
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: speaking up about China is the potential detention of a
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: citizen and effectively the torture of a human being, is
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: it still worth it for foreign governments to speak up?
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Well, we have to better protect our citizens, like the
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Alliance that we created led by Kylie Moore Gilbert and
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: co founded with Sean Turnell. We think if there was
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: a specialized Envoyd role for victims of hostage diplomacy, then
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: it's a stronger deterrent. But I also think by my
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: speaking out after what happened, it's a deterrent to China
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: incarcerating more journalists, more Australians, because if you don't change
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: your ways, then people are going to find out more
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: about your secret prisons, and China is ultra secretive about
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: its state security incarceration.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Do you have any hope that anyone in China will
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: see you or read your words.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not hopeful that that would happen unless they
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: went overseas. I by mistake, clicked on some Chinese articles
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: when the press release about my book went out in February,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: and the hateful comments under that all of them were
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: hateful that I was a foreigner loving slut. Of course,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: you know, the whole sexcess thing comes out. I should
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: be put back into jail. I should never been let out.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: I should be shot on the spot. I don't deserve
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: to have my children with me because I'm such a
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: bad role model, and on and on, and as upsetting
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: as it was to read it, it motivates me to
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: speak up even louder because that's what they want. They
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: want you to feel shame and guilt for being human,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: for telling the truth, and that's not going to happen.
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  Speaker 1: And just finally, the colleague working for an American company
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  Speaker 1: who you sent the text message to which was the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: pretext for putting you in prison, Yes, Hayes Farm. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: she was also detained but was released on bail before
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: you were released. How do you feel about her now?
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  Speaker 2: I'd love to talk to her, very forgiving person. I
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: don't do anger, I don't do hate. I like to
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: talk and find out what happened to her.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Well, you often talk about feeling that you don't deserve praise,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and maybe that's the Australian part of you, or maybe
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: it's the Chinese part or just the human part.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: No, it's having a very strict dad.
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  Speaker 1: But if you were ever in any doubt, now you
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: have created a work of art in the book that
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: is going to change other people's lives. And you know
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: we'll make everybody's life better, including people who are in detention. Well, congratulations,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. Don't want to embarrass you by
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: praising you, but I'm grateful. I'm grateful to be Australian
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  Speaker 1: and to be free. Each day I reflect on.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: The kindnesses of our people as a whole, and I
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: just want to do so much more to make it better.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Chung Lay is an anchor on Sky News Australia. Her
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: book for HarperCollins, a Memoir of Freedom, is released on
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Wednesday for June, and her documentary Chung Lay My Story,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: premieres on Tuesday three June on Sky newsand sky News
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: dot Com dot a You. This episode of the Front
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: was hosted by me Claire Harvey and co produced with
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Jasper League, who edited the episode and also wrote our theme.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on the Front this week. Our
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: team also includes Kristin Amiot Leat, Sammaglu, Tiffany Dimac, Josh
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Burton and Stephanie Combs.