Transcription
I love China, so why did I leave? It was a sad day when I realized that in order to continue to be myself, I would have to leave China. Contrary to silly rumors floating around, the Chinese nationalists' fears that I was expelled or chased out of China are unfounded. I saw the writing on the wall, and I left. I could no longer consciously accept what was happening around me, and I had reached a point where stagnation and self-censorship were the only paths forward.
Let's rewind a bit. I want to talk about what drew me to China in the first place and why it is that I fell in love with the country despite all the negatives the CCP brings to the table. Growing up in South Africa, especially during the time I did, was not good for someone who looks like me. Being a young white South African professional meant that the opportunities really just weren't there. As an IT professional running my own business, I had a client who specialized in closed-circuit televisions, security cameras, and alarm systems. He was going to be getting a whole bunch of cameras from China, specifically from Shenzhen, but he wasn't sure if they would work back home with his systems and clients. So, he offered to pay for my plane ticket to fly to China with him to look at the factories, just so I could be there as a technical adviser and ensure that everything would work, so he wouldn't be wasting his money.
We flew into Shenzhen, and this was my first time in Asia. I had been to the UK several times in my youth, as I had family there, but I had never been to Asia. I had always had a fascination with Japan and Japanese culture, but I didn't know much about China. To be honest, I was just blown away by the vibe and vibrancy of the city, the crowds. Bear in mind, South Africa is not a very crowded place; you can go to certain areas where there are people, but nothing like what you see in China. I was just amazed by the vibrancy, and the three days I spent in Shenzhen on that business trip made my mind up. I had more fun in those three days than I had in a year back home. Just being able to walk around at night, seeing people having barbecues and beer on the streets, I could feel this youthful vibe of the city. I knew this was where I wanted to go and where I wanted to live.
So, I flew back home, sold everything, took all my savings, paid off all my debt, and booked a plane ticket back. I flew there and tried to make my way, and it's been a hell of a ride. I went from arriving there not knowing what to do, living in expensive hotels—which was a bad mistake because I didn't really know what the deal was—to just trying to explore and figure things out. I met a girl there, and things were crazy for the first couple of months, but I ran out of my savings and ended up losing everything, which led to me being homeless for about three days. It was quite a harrowing experience, especially during the flood season when the rains were coming down. I even spent a night in McDonald's with my suitcase because they were open 24 hours.
While I was on the street, my Chinese friend put me in contact with an agent who would take foreigners and give them jobs. I ended up sleeping on the agent's couch for about a month until another guy, a fellow South African, and I pooled our resources, put all our money together, and rented an apartment. That's how I started to get back on my feet. It's actually very easy in China to start fresh. From there, it just snowballed. I always had a goal in mind; I always wanted to improve. I got better jobs, bought a car, went through a failed marriage, and finally found my wife, who I'm absolutely in love with.
I more or less reached all of my goals. I was happily married, living in a nicer part of town, had a car, and a good stable job. Finally, I moved on to YouTube, which was even more of what I wanted because I could be my own boss, make my videos, and go out and film and edit. This brings us to the end of my Chinese love affair. I had reached a peak; China could no longer offer me any more goals, and there was nothing to strive for.
China simply could not offer me the following:
1. A safe place to have a family. Now, of course, people will try to tell me that China is safe, and I know that it can be safe, but it's not stable. If you're a foreigner relying on a changeable government that keeps moving the goalposts when it comes to visas and gives absolutely no rights to foreigners, Chinese citizens will always be favored in any sort of legal dispute. On top of that, it's not safe for children. As much as the CCP tries to stamp out and censor all the scandals—fake or expired vaccines, poisoned baby formula, mass stabbings in kindergartens, the unfathomably large kidnapping and child trafficking industry—not to mention the general lack of environmental health issues, you know you can't drink the tap water, and the air quality is appalling. Healthcare facilities are substandard; trust me, I used to train doctors. And let's not forget the education system, which demands praise of the Communist Party above all else. Suffice it to say, this is not a good place to bring up a child unless you have no choice.
2. On a more selfish note, I could not pursue any of my hobbies, as China does not accommodate them. Most people are too focused on making money to have any sort of real hobby, and those with money splash it on lavish designer brands, supercars, and fleeting entertainment—karaoke, spending a lot of money, and showing off to their friends in flashy restaurants. I could not wrench on old cars and do the things that I enjoy doing to relax.
But, you know, all that aside, there is a far more insidious reason for me to leave, and that is because I value my freedom. You see, freedom can be taken away from you in an instant in China for very arbitrary reasons. The rule of law in China is pretty much a joke; it is selectively enforced and usually out of convenience. The police will not stop or hassle you unless, of course, it's easy or in their interest. China has been slowly falling apart. The economy, which saw an incredible and meteoric rise, has begun to plummet drastically. Of course, the CCP, with its "nothing to see here" methodology, has managed to convince the world—and especially the Chinese population—through sleight of hand and cunning tricks that everything is just fine. And when it's not, well, it's not their fault; it's the outside world keeping China down. They aggressively silence dissidents or anyone who exposes the truth about what is happening in China. They prevent Chinese society from coming apart at the seams by stitching up and squashing anything that reveals the truth. Anything but positive coverage of China and Chinese society will not be tolerated—aka me, who makes videos about things that don't please me in my life and things that do please me in my life. The fact that I even cover some of the things that are blatantly wrong with Chinese society puts me on that hit list. You are allowed to have a little gripe here or there, but you may not criticize the government or anything that is a result of what the government has done. Power and control are what the CCP cares about above all else, and they maintain this through social harmony, which is another term for stagnation and mediocrity.
Go about your day, you stupid sheep. Eat, breed, study, work, listen to the government, and don't you dare make waves. You step out of line and give anyone else the idea that there's more to life than "Gwar odds," and you'll be dealt with. Remember that to be rich is glorious, so put your head down, be a monotonous robot, and your only ambitions can be to make more money and to make China richer. That's it.
Things started to get very serious when the police visited me more and more often. I remember one time I arrived at my apartment, and waiting for me outside was a local plainclothes police officer just checking up on me. This was because I had been out of town for a couple of days. This was a little concerning; it meant that the building management must have radioed or called the local police station when they saw me coming into the compound. I first went to the shop to buy a bunch of stuff, and by the time I made it up to my apartment, the policeman was already there waiting to check my passport. It was quite annoying when every single time I visited Hong Kong—because, you know, I was very close, just popping over the border—my wife would get a message on WeChat from the local police station asking why I had not yet gone down to the police station to get my new entry stamp scanned into the system. It even got to the point where the local police were annoyed by this, and so we kind of made a deal that I wouldn't have to go in every time; I would just simply have to take a photo of the new entry stamp in my passport and send it to them because they were getting annoyed with their directive to check on me all the time.
So, of course, it was very annoying and kind of creepy that they were keeping such a close eye on me. But it was when China started to disappear people, and it was when my friend Michael was arrested and taken away as part of China's blatantly obvious tit-for-tat hostage game regarding the Huawei CFO's arrest in Canada, that I decided it was time to go. I had been working on getting a visa to the United States for over a year. Michael had already moved back after narrowly escaping being detained; his story is over on his channel (I'll leave a link in the description). We mutually decided that in order for us to continue our adventures around the world and other bigger projects, like our television documentaries, we would have to base ourselves somewhere stable, and China was not that place. At least in the USA, you have a fair chance in the legal system, unlike China, where there's a ninety-nine percent conviction rate, and being a foreigner immediately puts you on the losing team.
And so it was that I left China with sadness in my heart, once again leaving behind familiar faces, familiar places, and a way of life that I had cultivated over fourteen and a half years. But I left with hope and happiness, knowing that I was doing the right thing and could now not only talk about the things I had seen and filmed but had to self-censor in order to avoid being arrested, detained, or deported. I could also pursue the things I dearly wanted to do: have a family, work on cars, and finally find a place where I belong.
Stay awesome.