Though only watching from afar, Gong Ping, a music producer from Sichuan who is better known as CaDaddy on YouTube, finds a glimpse of hope in the anti-extradition protests of Hong Kong.

Now speaking from the United States, where he moved to recently, the 43-year-old dissident opens up about the song he wrote for Hong Kong, his escape from China and the start of a new life in a foreign land.

Disillusioned with the system, the former secondary school teacher quit his job in 2003 and turned to music production. Last month, he flew to the U.S. through Cambodia, leaving behind his wife and two-year-old son. “Since I have wings, I will not give up on flying,” he wrote in the lyrics.

Once a “Little Pink” himself, a term that refers to Chinese nationalistic activists, Gong experienced a political awakening after the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei’s documentary “Disturbing the Peace,” which follows activists’ attempts to hold authorities accountable and the subsequent repression they faced, cemented his disappointment in the regime.

Gong began participating in online discussion, naming his accounts after the late Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo and other dissidents. The authorities came knocking on his door and he got away by reassuring them he would stop.

Late last year, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread, he had his Weibo account suspended for suggesting the virus’ potential for human-to-human transmission. He scaled the firewall to follow the news on Twitter and signed a petition supporting the whistleblower Li Wenliang.

The authorities tracked him down again and there was no easy getting away this time. They confronted his wife at her workplace and detained him for questioning. Officers went through over a thousand tweets on his account, among which he called for U.S. military support in Hong Kong and named Taiwan as an independent country. Threatened with investigation, he was forced to sign a confession and delete the tweets.

Chilled to the bone, he decided to flee even if it means leaving behind his family. “My parents threatened severing ties and my wife asked for a divorce, as they felt I would bring trouble with my speech online,” he admits. “This is perhaps one of the reasons why I left.”

Gong does not shy away from his great admiration for the youth in Hong Kong. “They are very open minded and capable. Compared to us in China, we may claim ourselves to be resisters, but there is very little we can do. At most, we only care for political prisoners by bringing them food.”

Deeply moved by the protest chant “we would rather be ashes than dust”, he wrote “The Song of the Braves” in three days to pay tribute to frontline protesters. “Even if we are facing the barrel of the gun, we stand straight and shout. Let the world be our witness,” say his lyrics.

He says Chinese people can only choose between the two destinies – either to flee or to stay in jail.

Though adjusting to life in a new land is tough, especially since he does not speak fluent English, he has been enjoying the new-found freedom. He participated in a protest in support of Hong Kong people in Los Angeles on Human Rights Day and visited an election booth.

“Now that I am out, I will not go back,” he asserts.

Click here for Chinese version

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