Lei Cheng

You can't comprehend the vastness or the preciousness.

So how do you make freedom count when you're lucky enough to have it?

To start, what it felt like to be not free.

In RSDL, I had two guards glued to me front and side at all times.

I was made to sit for 13 hours straight each day.

I had to request permission to make the smallest movement.

And you know what I wanted to do the most?

I wanted to run.

And usually I hate running.

I couldn't talk, which to me is major torture.

I wanted to talk to anyone.

But in real life, I have sometimes worn ear pods to shut people out.

And I would have done anything to learn.

except when I was outside, I wasted the chance.

I was too busy.

Then I moved to detention.

I had three cellmates, and that already felt like freedom paradise.

Nobody in the cell regrets things like money or assets, but we were kicking ourselves over the travel we didn't do, the love we didn't show, the risks we didn't take.

Imprisonment is like a mini-death.

It's a taste of the real thing.