We followed Ah Man to record her journey before and after her boyfriend’s release from prison.
T (pseudonym), a graduate student of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was sentenced to 16 weeks in jail for illegal assembly earlier this year. T was finally released from prison recently, and we followed her to record her sorrow and happiness before and after her boyfriend’s release. (Liu Shaofeng reports)
T, a philosophy graduate student at CUHK, was one of the first people arrested for “anti-China sending”, and was charged with “illegal assembly” on June 9, 2019. -The interview was conducted at CUHK.
Becoming her boyfriend’s “secretary” outside the walls
The two of them usually go out to dormitories, libraries, rooftops, etc., just like any other college couple. On the day of the interview, Wen took the reporter around the CU campus, her pace is very fast, even the photographer could not catch up, she said, laughing, used to walking fast, “because her boyfriend has long legs, her feet are short.”
The reporter first met with A-Man earlier this year, when T had been imprisoned, A-Man in Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre to go out and get supplies for him. Four months after the incident, Ah Wen laughs, unknowingly became T’s “secretary”, “everyone who wants to find him, or about his affairs will come to me.” The company’s main focus is on the development of a new product.
Aman’s boyfriend T was imprisoned earlier, and she became the “secretary” to take care of everything outside the walls. (Deng Yingtao photo)
The three years of 18 scholarships in prison to urge his girlfriend to continue self-study
T is a high achiever and has won 18 scholarships in three years of college. On the day of the trial, including CUHK Vice President Wu Ji-pei, wrote a plea letter for him, describing T as “one of the best student leaders I’ve ever seen”. During this period, T continued to read books and articles for self-study, and academic discussions with inmates, including abortion and other topics; at the same time, he was not busy urging his girlfriend who was visiting him to study, which Ah Man laughed and said she was ashamed. She said that T is very knowledgeable and broad-minded, and she admires him from the bottom of her heart.
He said he would read books every day in prison, I know, he said every day there are reading articles, he told me to quickly read the article, write a letter out “you have to be good, to read the text”, he knows that I often avoid homework and responsibility, I did not seriously look at the text, I’m sorry.
After CU student T was sentenced to prison, Wen sent him books to the prison for self-study. (Photo by Chang Chin Ho)
“I’m not used to it, but I have to do it the hard way.”
During the period when T was in prison, Ah Man was alone everywhere she went. She took the reporter to a dining hall at CUHK to eat fried chicken, that is where she and T used to come, but during this period she was always alone, one less person “to support the foot”, said Ah Man, every time you eat fried chicken will think of T, he was not around, Ah Man said: “not accustomed to not accustomed to, have to top hard on. “
Arwen said: at first it seems as if nothing happened, friends about me, ask me how you, will answer them, there is no problem, all should hold up …… But later it was found that in the behavior reflected to, in fact, I can not hold up.
T was sentenced to four months in prison, the sentence has been less than half of what A-Men expected, but the waiting time seems particularly long, the process A-Men had insomnia, crying, emotional breakdown, she had to try to fill their own sense of emptiness.
Arwen said: for example, about a lot more friends drinking …… The only way to get out of bed is to try to fill the void. Try to fill their own sense of emptiness, but it seems that, whether doing a lot of things, how I can then escape or not, I can not escape my own (collapse) state.
During the period when her boyfriend was in prison, Wen felt alone. (Photo by Deng Yingtao)
The couple is separated by a stone wall.
The couple was separated by a stone wall, and both sides felt tormented by the tug of war. On Valentine’s Day, T, who is in jail, asked a friend to prepare a bouquet of dried flowers and put it at Man’s doorstep, saying she had not expected her boyfriend to prepare it seriously.
Before T was sent to prison, they would occasionally write letters and talk on the phone every day. Nowadays, Wen visits the correctional facility every month, and usually, the two rely on letters to maintain their relationship, and what used to be a daily phone call becomes a letter written in words. However, Shizuku was concerned that the relationship was not going as well as expected.
Shizuku said, “What will become of my relationship with him afterwards? I don’t know, but I was always in love with him in my imagination, not with the real him, and the letters I wrote were probably only one-sided reports of good news but not bad news, not seeing the whole person.
After 4 months of separation, the two embraced each other tightly. (Photo by Deng Yingtao)
Being arrested and imprisoned are not personal
“There’s a lot of instability in this tumultuous time, and his release from prison seems to be the only thing within that time that can’t be said to be the same, but a major thing, something to rejoice in and look forward to.”
Two days after the visit, T was released from prison. The reporter followed Ah Man to the Tong Fuk Correctional Institution on Lantau Island, where a large number of friends were waiting. Man said she had a hard time sleeping all night, like “a child preparing for a trip. The moment T stepped out of the prison van, Wen ran up to her and T hugged her tightly.
T said, “I’m back.
Wen said, “Welcome back.
A total of 422 people were imprisoned last year because of the anti-revision movement. As of February this year, 10,242 people have been arrested, and there is still a huge backlog of cases. As someone who has been there, Wen said, “Arrest and imprisonment are not a personal matter, but a matter that connects the people around you who love you and the people you love,” which requires the entire family and community to face together. She said, “Don’t think too far ahead in everything, live each day to the fullest, consume each day, enjoy your life more than others and enjoy it better, that’s enough.”
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