What I learned about freedom in a secret Chinese prison | Lei Cheng
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 11.9K Ratings
🗓️ 3 June 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Accused of leaking state secrets, journalist Lei Cheng was imprisoned in China for more than three years, where she was detained in tight quarters and kept under constant supervision. “Freedom is wasted on the free,” she says, recounting how she and fellow inmates found joy in the smallest of moments: the smell of rain, a poem delivered in secrecy, kindness where it seemed undeserved. She distills the unexpected lessons that confinement taught her — and challenges us to rethink what freedom really means.
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Transcript
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| 0:45.6 | You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. |
| 0:47.3 | I'm your host, Elise Hu. |
| 0:55.4 | For more than a decade, journalist Lei Chang built a successful career reporting on China's economic growth for outlets such as CNBC Asia and the China Global Television Network. But in 2020, her career came to a sudden halt |
| 1:01.8 | when the Chinese government jailed her under false accusations and kept her detained for three |
| 1:07.8 | years. Lay took the TED stage to share lessons learned from her imprisonment, namely that only |
| 1:14.1 | through losing freedom do we learn to truly appreciate it. |
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