How I Escaped From China - The Untold Story

I put this off for way too long lot of you guys have been asking me you know since you already know that both my business partner and I Winston and our families have moved to the United States you wondered about why or how we left and I figured what better time to actually tell the story then right now what's just happened in Hong Kong really is the end of Hong Kong the national security law that's just been passed will make it completely illegal to speak out against the Communist Party of China even from within the borders of Hong Kong no dissident no person no democratic organization none of these things will be allowed and it's instilled fear and freedom loving people of Hong Kong now if you speak out against the CCP you can go to jail in mainland China all of the protests all of this movement to retain the freedoms of Hong Kong has pretty much now been lost and now even if I took a connecting flight to Hong Kong or you know got off the plane in Hong Kong I could be arrested just for making videos that are critical of the Chinese government this is horrifying but is the reality so I'll finally tell the story of how I escaped aeneas I mean escaped from mainland China I in fact filmed it a few days after it happened I guess this beautiful park will have to do it's kind of just what I needed but I feel like the flag is following me everywhere a really nice day in Hong Kong today it's by about 75 degrees Fahrenheit and recognized a lot so it's they've been difficult issue because I want to talk about this but I really don't want anyone to hear what I'm talking about however there's a reason I'm here there's a reason that uh I'm out in this lovely lovely Park full of buskers and green grass and the beautiful ocean the ocean is was blue as hell by the way you can't believe it it's definitely not definitely not the same water quality as mainland China is for sure but yeah without revealing too much I mean I can always fix this and edit for sure my worry is that before this is resolved I'm putting myself in a position of giving too much away so I'll give you the abridged version first this is what happened was yesterday about midnight I received a message but I didn't actually open it up until the following morning and in the message it was it was a little bit worrying but I didn't really take too much notice because the messages message was from someone that I know and basically what happened was they're walking home and a Chinese person stopped them in the street and showed the message on his phone and this message had a screenshot of one of my videos that was actually highlighted and circling my face basically this Chinese person asked my friend who has you know has been at my videos don't make any speculation though a lot of people have been in my videos but basically asked him if that was him in that particular video and where where I was if I was in way Jo and he said yes and he said okay I just want to help you guys out a little bit but the traffic department is looking for you they want to have a chance now I'm not too concerned with like the local government departments there in Hawaii Jo the the traffic departments probably a little bit angry that I'm still riding a motorcycle around in the city that has banned motorcycles in fact that almost 100 percent sure that that was the case that being said went quite a bit further than that because a little bit later I say about an hour later I was actually going out to film maybe be trying on the motorcycles with the Winston and about an hour later I received a message from an anonymous Chinese person and I won't say the name that was listed there in case you know it's more than an alias but I highly doubt it anyway long story short I received this message that had a stipulation and he wrote I don't know you very well man but if you promise to delete me and these messages I will tell you something that you need to know immediately and my heart was racing a little bit just because it was just came right after the other thing and basically I agreed to his conditions and he sent me three screenshots of three different departments of government that we're looking for me and it took me a while to read through the jargon in the Chinese basically but each message which was preceded with a sentence that said please do not share this publicly but we were looking for so-and-so my real name also known as so-and-so in Chinese and he is well known for posting videos on the Internet but do not share this information publicly keep it within the allotted circle or whatever they jargon they use to describe their you know the people that were working there and the first Department of government was in fact the traffic department so that was what I had expected but when I did not expect was the collusion with two other departments and the second department which was the very very very very incredibly unbelievably warring one was the was the army was the military and it basically took a couple of my videos and they were screenshots of some drone footage that I had included it actually quite a while ago but this screenshot this message was from about a month ago and this person had saved it but basically they were trying to build some sort of case against me that said that I was taking illegal footage from the sky even though that it wasn't within a no-fly zone so I don't understand how that is I mean my drone has been registered and it's not hacked or anything like that so if it was in a place that I wasn't supposed to be filming it should have given me a no-fly zone since their government mandated but that wasn't the case I mean I received no warning from that so basically they were trying to find me whether whether it was for questioning or or what I didn't know at that time and then the third the third Department is actually the PSB so it was the Public Security Bureau and basically their job is to keep track of US US borders basically in mainland China so everyone's kind of you have to register the PSB so they see when I got my marriage visa I was registered to the the local PSP obviously where my marriage certification was from and so basically they know where you are they know how to find you if anything happens and you know for the most part it's just to keep an eye on on the foreigners but it went further than that because they but also about a month ago were sorry this is like really difficult to talk about publicly and I just I don't know I guess I gotta just tell you guys I mean this is YouTube is my is my job so I should probably just be completely upfront with you but basically saying that it was illegal journalism and I have a feeling that they they had their interest piqued right around the time I was filming a conquering northern China because we ran into some issues up there that you guys would probably find out about later on but as we were filming conquering northern China we had been in touch with the authorities not by choice many times and there were there were times where my information was logged and I was interrogated and after that's somehow the information I mean I can't confirm that I can't confirm that the information from the when though what's are called from the actual inner Mongolian area travelled down to to wage oh but but what did happen was that they were also trying to build a case against me because I was illegally making money from posting videos on YouTube without a journalist license now in China it's actually not illegal to film and post online even if it's like YouTube and stuff like that but it is illegal to interview people so you need a special journalists license to be able to have public interviews of people in mainland China especially Chinese citizens obviously I don't have a journalist license I'm just a youtuber and there are there have been videos which they named in the in the messages that have where I have interviewed people I mean there's one that I did with my friend where we interview people about their opinion of tattoos and things like that even even something so so minimal so so harmless is also considered highly highly illegal but you know most people turn a blind eye most people just don't pay attention to that kind of stuff because everyone's got a cellphone on their camp I remember I was got a camera there cellphone Iran is the ability to be a rope journalist in mainland China so I feel like there was a certain point where they let me go anyway the real kicker was after receiving all this stuff I'm you know I'm panicking I'm thinking like what in the actual hell am I gonna do what am I gonna do in this scenario where do I go how do I get my family out like I I need I need a place away from mainland China to kind of figure out what that and what the actual hell is going on and then I get another message from somebody I know and there was an establishment which I will not name we're the police that night the night before head went to with my photo on a cell phone and asking if anyone knew where I lived that means that night they had already found a reason to have a case I already found a reason to to to come find me basically so i mean i you better rack my brain as fast as I could I racked my brain as quickly as I could and I I just didn't know what I should do from there but what I did know was that I had to I had to talk to my wife so I talked to Divi and she said just get the hell out of here I mean it's super risky to begin with to even try it across the international border with Hong Kong with my predicament totally find the Hong Kong side but like who knows what's gonna happen at the border so I go and Winston drives me to the border and get out of car and I'm waiting in the line and I fill out my paperwork and some dudes seven dudes sketch and help this old man's like sketching out screaming looking around the park by himself he's shouting at people more power to him what the hell is et the way or she wasn't speaking Cantonese anyway so I go into there and then and I'm on my heart's pounding I have my passport over and this is the first time this has ever happened to me but the border guard he asked me he goes do you have a Chinese name and I was like why why would you ask me that like what does have to do with anything I didn't say that obviously but I said I lied I said no and basically said no hold on like what the hell is this old man do it he's just traipsing around yelling at people we're really screwing up my vibe yeah I said no and then he kind of just like shrugged a little bit and then he stamped me out so I was officially out first thing I want to do is like just basically rush to the Hong Kong border but I can't this policewoman steps right in front of me and she asked the the border guard she goes is that ma and that's actually my surname in Chinese and I was like holy [ __ ] like I went clammy I went freaking like goose bumps and in fact I felt weak I felt like I was gonna pass out it's like the scariest moment of my life and they're chatting right so I walk away and I'm walking towards the the next area I'm walking towards the baggage security area so basically it's where you put your you know your luggage and all that kind of stuff through so they can scan it I barely had anything with me I had like my computer and my cameras and I got shirt so I don't have very much stuff on me right now but while they're chatting I walked away and went there and I felt a hand on my shoulder sure enough she was there I turned around and she says to me in English no she says are you go to a Hong Kong and I said yes and she says are you stay in Hong Kong and I said yes she goes no other country and I said no and then she said so you come back wait oh yes and I said yeah and I'm like I'm having a hard time making eye contact with her and she goes she looks at me and she goes good and then she walks away so at that point I had actually I didn't understand that that interaction that we had had but what I did understand was I needed to get into freakin Hong Kong immediately so I crossed into there and Here I am and that explains the mad rush to get here and the horrible hotel that I'm sleeping in and me trying to figure everything out so I am going to contact some people that might have some answers for me I'm going to contact some people that might be able to help me and I need to find a goddamn way to get my family out of here because my wife's passports at the American Embassy meaning that she can't leave China and she also needs it to get my child's exit permit so I'm in a predicament where I could potentially you know if I was in mainland China go to jail for a while either get better get deported and right now I just want to not cast any more light than is necessary on this scenario because of how deaf it is how nervous I am about the whole thing and now for myself at this point I'm safe here for my wife and for my baby like I need to know why this hell crashed down like this I need to know what happened I need to know why I've just been banished from the country and contributed to I mean maybe I'm not maybe maybe this is all like an elaborate joke but I'm pretty sure it's not anyway I just wanted to fill you guys in as this unfolds because I don't know what's gonna happen but every day I find out something else I'll tell you I'll tell you on video so that's that I definitely got out at the right time just look what happened to my friend Michael the guy that helped us a lot on our documentaries he's gone he's in jail he didn't do anything it's gotten much worse although I didn't do anything in particular to get in trouble yeah I had state security after me it's much easier nowadays to be arbitrarily detained whether it's be for political leverage or just xenophobic reasons to bolster Chinese nationalism or just plain paranoia that the government doesn't want outsiders to see the reality of China the next time someone I you tube or wherever tries to tell you that people are misunderstood about China and has freedom of speech and it's improving its quality of life everyday for its citizens realize that they're missing the point I almost got thrown in jail and narrowly escaped China because I made videos there now don't get me wrong I wasn't a dissident not only did I self censor to a great extent but I together with Winston showed the good side of China through our TV shows our videos our interactions much more than anyone out there right now yet I was the target China either saw me as an annoyance or a threat and for whatever reason decided it was time to get rid of me the governments of the country I loved with all my heart the country I bought a house in had a family in the country that I promoted to hundreds of thousands of people chewed me up and spat me out and that's the reality of the Chinese government they continue to threaten me and my family today so next time that you think Chinese people don't matter oh it's just that country on the other side of the world think of the millions of local Chinese people who have maybe a less than savory opinion about the Chinese government like myself but unlike me can't escape [Music] you

Channel: laowhy86

Views: 1,128,816

Rating: 4.7901468 out of 5

Keywords: china, hong kong, hong kong news, national security law, carrie lam, chinese government, escape, run away, ran away from china, escaping china, chinese communist party, ccp, laowhy86 leave china, laowhy86, advchina, adv china, leaving china, leave china, advpodcasts, advpodcast, serpentza, winston sterzel, cmilk, canada china, detained in china, mainland china, hong kong law, hong kong security law, prc, hong kong china, china hong kong, hong kong 2020, 中国, china jail, china prison

Id: z7CPqROtanA

Length: 18min 18sec (1098 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/GaynalPleasures]

Typically it's only ADVChina/Worthless Whips videos that I make sure are posted on the sub, but I feel this video from C-Milk is extremely important for everyone to see.

All of us know how dire the situation in China is becoming - we've all seen what's happening in Hong Kong - but I feel it's very grounding to see the effect China's increasingly authoritarian actions are having on individuals, not just the population at large.

If you're reading the comments before watching the video, please make some time to watch it through at some point.

[u/siderealpanic]

Jesus, that’s terrifying. Is the situation still ongoing or are they all safely out now? It seemed like this had just happened but I thought they’d been back in America for a while now.

[u/[deleted]]

Would be worth a try spreading this on a platform like TikTok to show the younger generation how serious the situation is over there. But that's "over there" and "not here" so I'm not sure an 18 yo will listen as they do a version of the macarena. It may be hard making them jump ship from TikTok to a Vine 3.0

[u/dekachin5]

Cmilk: I fled China because I was scared shitless the CCP was coming for me.

Winston: I left China because I conquered China, peaked, and China could no longer offer me any more goals and had nothing to strive for.

It really showcases the differences between Cmilk and Winston. You've got Cmilk being scared and honest that he ran, while Winston is like "fuck all that shit, China didn't break up with me, I broke up with China!!!" To hear it from Winston, he could have taken on the whole CCP all by himself, and resurrected the ghost of Mao to defeat him in single combat. Winston's like, you want to exit ban me CCP? Big mistake. Unfortunately this makes Winston's version of the video just a generic criticism of China. Anyone can get that anywhere. It's not like Winston has anything to say that hasn't been said 100x over by others. The reason people watch isn't to hear generic "CCP bad", it's to hear FACTS, details of what happened. Winston says generic stuff like the cops bugged him a lot, but didn't give anything as to why he specifically left like how Cmilk did.

[u/ScurrilousTruth]

What is the story behind Michael, the guy he said was in jail at the end of the video?