Cheng Lei: Freedom shines light on all that was lost in dark cell

The newly released journalist celebrates the humble ‘luxuries’ of which she was deprived in detention in China.

Journalist Cheng Lei enjoys the sunlight she barely ever saw during three years of detention in China, after her return to Melbourne. Picture: Arsineh Houspian

My friend generously offered us a stay at her parents’ house. It is a lagoon for my beauty parched senses. The street name is a native flower and bottle brushes sway as if a ­welcome arch.

I become a sun-seeking missile, cheeks to the pane, elbows on the sill, the closest I’ve been to a window in years. After one cheek warms, I turn, luxuriating in the light, vision of distance, greenness. I help water their violets and cyclamen in the atrium kitchen, the fluttering imprints of flowers on the white counter are like a pattern of spring that mesmerises me. The surround sound of birdsong in the amphitheatre of a dewy garden is a far cry from the morgue ­silence of the cell.

To be free is frighteningly, maddeningly glorious.

No more squatting, for the ­obvious, and to wash, to store and retrieve everything from snacks to socks. No more subterranean light that leaves a prolonged pressure on the retina. No more counting to get through the day (4000 jogging on the spot, 300 ab crunches, 100 squats, 25 yoga poses, 100 push ups and tricep dips.) No more rationing or hoarding or gorging (in case it was the last time in a long time we have greens) or fretting about lack of nutrition.

Now the wardrobe choice ­appears infinite in comparison. I get to brush my hair, and when the regulation bob grows out, I can consider a Mohawk or mullet should I be so inclined. Showers can be anytime and in private. Softness greets every part of my body: cushions (one of the first body changes upon incarceration was bum callouses because of the prolonged sitting on hard surfaces); a mattress – not long ago I had been sharing a plank bed with others where I had to press the intercom to go to the loo and putting hands inside the doona was a no-no; sneakers are blissful, finally rid of compulsory cloth shoes in which I used sanitary pads to make a tad more comfortable. Mirrors. After so long of not knowing what I looked like, it took time and self-coaching to reconcile with my inner self image.

Pen and paper, whenever and however much I want – back there you could never keep track of thoughts so you had to remember it all. Furniture, flat surfaces to eat on. Standing straight to talk – not bending to be heard through the hatch. Emboldened and softened to smile instinctively again. Being known by my name, not just a number. Birds are seen gliding between trees, not just a flash through the oblong of barred window – no more bars anywhere!

Cheng Lei upon her arrival at Melbourne airport on October 11. Picture: DFAT

In incarceration one uses ­extreme pragmatism and imagination to get through, but once on the other side, when the carefully maintained moat of apathy disappears, the formerly kept back ­marauders – regrets, pain of loss, and incomprehension – trample over walls to riot in my headspace. Emerging from the analgesic of deadness is not entirely what one imagines. Too much reality hurts.

Thankfully I’m not isolated now, affection and joy surround me. I want to hug my kids and put my arm around mum all the time. I finally meet my kids’ teachers and friends, who are even warmer and nicer than they seemed in letters. Friends and relatives who supported my family when I was ­absent, who advised on schools and dropped off groceries during Covid lockdowns, continue to offer help lest I have trouble settling back in. Strangers on the street say hi and wish me good luck. When I see The Cheap Seats TV show poking fun at news of my release, the irreverence makes me chortle and reminds me what I love most about this country.

On the “freedom to do” list, Victoria market was near the top. Once there, the urge to touch and revere all fresh produce was hard to contain. No more having to ­recite Alison Croggon’s poem “To the Elwood Organic Fruit and Vegetable Shop” to remind me how glorious speech of the earth can be. My first blood orange (citrus fruit was verboten as pips were considered dangerous) in three years spatters pink onto my white T-shirt. I crunch Lebanese cucumbers with vindictive satisfaction, rediscovering the merit of teeth. The closing-hour chorus of butchers and fruiterers is even more delicious than I imagined in the sensory-starved years of detention, because here I am in the choir, asking vendors for snake beans and avocados, oysters and bugs, guanciale and parmesan. “Yassou,” sings out the Greek dips lady, at her counter. I choose eggplant, chilli hommus and smoked salmon. To think just recently I was saving vinegar in a used ­plastic bag to mix with milk powder so I could approximate the taste of mayonnaise.

No matter how I remind myself to make each bite count, to pleasure my palate a tad longer, tongue and teeth cannot be reined in. Bugger the calories, I am once again in a world where eating is not an act of joyless rigour or the sole means to stay regular. Here variety was not a fantasy, grovelling for seconds of overcooked bok choy (getting it on the menu took concerted strategic petitioning and even then it was sporadic) was not necessary.

Cheng with Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Australia's ambassador to Beijing Graham Fletcher. Picture: DFAT

I long to share it all with my former cellmates, who would understand the delirious delight at such humble enjoyments, we who would high-five each other whenever there was a “special” dish, such as carrots.

No homecoming is complete without a jaunt or several to Coles and Woolies, the stuff of my homesick fantasies and freedom dreams, aisle after aisle of achingly familiar ingredients of suburban normalcy: Arnott’s Biscuits, Peter’s Ice Cream, Paul’s Milk. From pauper to riches, I was now faced with an astoundingly moan-worthy range of local yoghurts, an obscenely multitudinous array of cheeses. This after having to carefully ration milk powder, the purchase of which was restricted to 375 grams per fortnight. Last Christmas I braved ridicule and asked at the consular visit if I could be allowed to buy a pack of cheese; the detention centre said no. It led me to dream obsessively of cheese toasties, always meltingly close but I never got to eat it. So now havarti and emmental and smoked mozzarella await in the fridge, for their pairing with country grain or sourdough or focaccia.

I heal by cooking as well: mussels with tomatoes, garlic, beer and parsley; barramundi with lime chilli and lemongrass, a salad of white asparagus, baby beetroot and gai lan. Back in detention, to assuage longing for the kitchen, I would mime the steps in cookbooks, make up cooking “cellcasts” for dishes my cellmates fancied (channelling Neil Perry and Nigella Lawson in my prison uniform). On hungry nights I would conjure up elaborate post-freedom meals I would cook. Now I was going through that list, and then some.

One night my partner Nick sears a rosemary and garlic leg of lamb then roasts it with pumpkin, perino tomatoes and fetta. I beg off the addition of onions because stewed onions were one of the abhorred items on the menu, it was something one ate with the grim determination of a survivalist. I ­almost shiver at the feel of cutlery, the cold chink against warm china as I fork another “oh I can’t eat any more” mouthful.

My family tenderly watches my “firsts”, the 48-year-old newborn 10 days into rebirth; they spoil me with a seafood feast and say “go on” as I compulsively buy, cook, eat yet more; they patiently wait as I touch the glossy leaves of creepers, bend down to gaze at a butterfly, try to circle my arms around the girth of trees.

The sharpest contrast comes after I start driving again. The helplessness of being stuck in a colourless soundless odourless box, receding into the background as I steer my own way with new beginnings before me. Next on the freedom list: beach, bush, BBQ?