“The place to go may not be heaven, but the place to escape must be hell.” Chen Weijie, a former Shenzhen fitness coach who followed the popular stowaways route to the United States in May, said that he never intends to return to China unless there is no more Communist Party rule.
Chen Weijie is from Fenyi County, Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province. His mother passed away when he was young. After finishing junior high school, he set up a stall and sold things on trains. Having earned some money, he went to a technical secondary school to finish his studies.
In 1999, just after graduation from technical secondary school, his father died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) persecuted Chen’s elder brother and family for many years because of their religious beliefs. The elder brother and his wife died due to this misfortune, and their two children became orphans. The two daughters of his uncle’s family have also been imprisoned several times, and they are still afraid to go home….