Horns honking
-That's me with the camera. Those guys are watching me because of the camera. What follows is the story I captured before they took the camera from me.
Indistinct arguing
Today is August 19. This afternoon, I'm gonna meet with the National Security agents,
who will come to see me at 3
00 and investigate on what I've been doing during this summer. I'm a little bit nervous. I really wish I can film the conversation, but, of course, I can't. There's no way to even take out a camera. So what I did is I put on this long dress. You can see, this is an ankle-length dress. And underneath the dress, I put on shorts. And I have my audio recorder in my pocket. Hopefully... I can... get the audio of our conversation. This is the famous photo of Ye Haiyan, or Hooligan Sparrow, as she's often called. Sparrow went to work in a brothel for free to expose the realities of life for sex workers. This was just one example of Sparrow's confrontational style of activism.
Moaning
who will come to see me at 3
-This campaign made Sparrow known across China and the world as a women's rights activist. What I told them was a lie. In reality, I spent all summer with her.
Bird chirping
who will come to see me at 3
-
Chanting in native language
Horn honks
who will come to see me at 3
-It was my first trip back home to China after living in America for two years. I had never met Sparrow, but I knew, like me, she came from a poor farming village and had a hard life. When I landed in China, Sparrow was busy responding to a breaking news story from the island of Hainan, in the south of the country. Even though surveillance cameras show the girls being led into the hotel room by the principal and a government official, the police said that there wasn't enough evidence to convict them of rape. When no charges were filed, the girls' parents released this photo. They claimed she was still bleeding four days after the incident. That's when the story began to change. That first day, Sparrow asked me to help with my camera. -If anything happens, please try to find me. And please...
Engine starts, horn honks
Woman singing in native language
Laughter
Horns honking
Camera shutter clicks
who will come to see me at 3
-See this guy -- taking the picture of me? At the time, I didn't know why. But now I think he might have been secret police. That's how they got my information.
Camera shutter clicks
Horns honking
Chanting in native language
who will come to see me at 3
-One of the men who asked for a pamphlet had been watching me when I first set up my camera. It would take me weeks to realize who was watching us and why.
Sirens wailing
who will come to see me at 3
This was the first time I ever filmed in public in China. I was so afraid of losing my camera that I went back to the van.
Indistinct shouting
Camera shutter clicks
Gull cries
Indistinct conversations
who will come to see me at 3
-The next day, Sparrow went back to her home city -- Bobai -- a few hundred miles away from where the protest was. She was worried about her daughter, who was at home, alone. I followed lawyer Wang back to Wanning City in Hainan. We lost the trail of the father, but the protest was a success. Sparrow once again went viral with a picture. People all over the world made their own versions of the same sign.
Chatter
who will come to see me at 3
With so much attention focused on the case, the government began to react. When it happened, Sparrow was on the phone with a reporter. Everything was recorded.
Horn honking
who will come to see me at 3
The people Sparrow recorded were the owners of the brothels where she had worked during her activism for sex workers.
Gate rattles
who will come to see me at 3
It seemed strange to me that they came knocking at Sparrow's door the day after the Hainan protest, even though she worked in the brothels more than two years ago.
Ominous music plays
who will come to see me at 3
Right after this interview, Sparrow's office was raided and vandalized in the middle of the night. Sparrow never found out who raided her office.
Gate rattles loudly
who will come to see me at 3
And now, after the Hainan protest, the brothel owners were at her door. The police arrested Sparrow and released her images as evidence, accusing her of assaulting the people who broke into her apartment. Over the next few days, I followed lawyer Wang as she gathered and filed documents to sue the police for unlawful detention, and to try to free Sparrow. We found Sparrow's daughter, Yaxin, waiting at the detention center with her mother's boyfriend, Haobo. The police posted a sign on the door -- "No filming." I filmed it using my special glasses -- with a microcamera. I also filmed these guys. They've been following us all day. Lawyer Wang left and I stayed with Yaxin at Sparrow's apartment. She was writing an essay for school entitled "An Unforgettable Encounter."
Thunder rumbles
Horns honk, bells jingle
who will come to see me at 3
Over the next several days, many activists came to visit Sparrow's apartment to show their support. Zeng Guoyang was one of the first. But every day, more and more people came. It was hard for me to ask everyone's intentions. It became clear to me that these activists wanted me to leave. He told me that many people have been arrested and interrogated for trying to visit Sparrow. He said it was too dangerous for me to stay any longer.
Train whistle blows
who will come to see me at 3
I left the next day, and then I started getting messages about more activists being detained. Even my family a thousand miles away called to say they were visited by National Security agents wanting to know where I was. With Sparrow still detained, people all over the world started a campaign to show their support for her. It seemed to work. Sparrow was released after 13 days in jail. That's when I returned to Sparrow's home in Bobai City. Sparrow was with a reporter from "South China Morning Post." Her editor had asked her to do a video, but she had trouble with her camera. -And I remember when I bought this camera, they told me I could take video with it. But I just don't know how to work it. -So I offered to help. As news spread that Sparrow had been released, more reporters came.
Interviewers speaking native language
who will come to see me at 3
-Before they could go to the park, we could hear a crowd gathering downstairs.
Indistinct shouting, horns honking
who will come to see me at 3
I could barely understand the dialect. But they held up signs saying, "Sparrow, you whore. Get out of the city."
Shouting continues
who will come to see me at 3
-The police finally showed up an hour later. But they had nothing to do without a cause for help. -When the lawyers handed over their IDs, I knew it was time to switch to my special glasses. The police broke my glasses, but they didn't find the memory card. Since the police didn't do anything about the crowd downstairs, we went to the police station to apply for citizen protection for Sparrow. One of the lawyers photographed the officer's ID photo on the wall. This was posted on social media with a caption explaining that the police refused to accept Sparrow's application for citizen protection. The message was reposted 1,500 times with 550 comments.
Chatter
Chatter continues
who will come to see me at 3
-When we got back to the apartment, we found a note from the landlord. It was an eviction notice. That night, Sparrow had a going-away party.
Mid-tempo music plays
Laughter
Chatter
Cat meows
Horn honks
who will come to see me at 3
-Sparrow traveled 300 miles to Guangong Province to get away from the harassment and to find a new home for herself and Yaxin. This guy in the yellow shirt, an activist named Huang, helped Sparrow find an apartment in Nalong City. During the time that Sparrow was detained, Huang was one of the activists who stayed at Sparrow's apartment. There he is -- in the back, with no shirt on. And here, he's taking the picture of me. I didn't talk to him back then because the first time I met him, he made me nervous. -
Roaring
Indistinct talking
who will come to see me at 3
-Huang took an interest in my camera and was curious about filmmaking.
Chatter
Birds chirping
who will come to see me at 3
With Sparrow and Yaxin safe in their new home, I took the night train to Shanghai to rent my return visa to the United States. I texted a friend I was coming. My friend texted me back. "The police are looking for you everywhere."
Coughing
who will come to see me at 3
I couldn't stay at a hotel, so I hid in a friend's office, sleeping on the floor. I realized anyone I contacted could be at risk. I was also worried about my footage, because the FedEx people told me that all media mail has to be inspected at Customs before it leaves China. I left in a hurry by bus. I couldn't take the train because, in China, you can only buy a train ticket with your ID. That's how they must have tracked me to Shanghai. I wasn't the only one on the run. Sparrow sent me this picture. She and Yaxin and everything they owned were abandoned along the highway. I told them I would meet them in Guangxi City. We all reunited around midnight. A friend of Sparrow's offered her apartment while she was away. Somehow, someone knew we were coming.
Door handle clicking
Pounding on door
Door opens
Panting
Door locks
Indistinct talking in distance
Panting
who will come to see me at 3
Yaxin and I didn't know what was happening below. All we knew was that Sparrow, Haobo, and Huang were taken away. Throughout the night, men kept knocking at the door, and I was so afraid that they would break in that I took my camera apart and hid all the pieces. Yaxin and I couldn't fall asleep, so she started to tell me about the picture. Later that day, Sparrow, Haobo, and Huang were brought back to the apartment. Security saw us off to the train station. They said, "Never, ever come to this city again."
Woman speaking over P.A. in native language
who will come to see me at 3
-Ladies and gentlemen, the next station is Chenzhou station.
Speaking native language
Horn honks
who will come to see me at 3
-By the time we reached the Hubei Province, Sparrow and Yaxin only had a few bags left to their name. Sparrow decided to go back to her home town -- a small village that she hadn't seen for over a decade.
Fireworks exploding
Fireworks continue
Indistinct conversations in native language
who will come to see me at 3
-This is the only footage I have of Sparrow's mother. Later, as we got settled, Sparrow asked me to not film too much in the village. She wasn't sure how much people knew about her. She also wanted to protect her parents from the complexities of her activism.
Rooster crows
Birds chirping
who will come to see me at 3
-Ah!
Laughs
who will come to see me at 3
Ha ha ha ha!
Birds chirping
Sizzling
who will come to see me at 3
-While Sparrow was in the village, breaking news came in about the rape case in Hainan, the story of the principal and six little girls that set us down this road in the first place.
Speaking native language
who will come to see me at 3
-A few days later, lawyer Wang got a phone call from the father of one of the girls -- the man she had tried to contact. I went back to Hainan Island with her to get his story.
Chatter
who will come to see me at 3
-I asked him why he couldn't meet us before. He told us that he knew us from the protest. I went back to the footage and found him.
Horns honking
who will come to see me at 3
And there he was, reading the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child handed out by lawyer Wang.
Fireworks popping
Instrument clanging
who will come to see me at 3
Lawyer Wang and I took a night bus 800 miles back to Bobai City, where she was representing Sparrow in her lawsuit against the police for unlawful detainment.
Horns honking
who will come to see me at 3
We all knew the result before we even got there. I wondered why she even bothered to do this. I couldn't get into the cart, so I decided to film from the street with Sparrow's friend, Huang, who also came for the trial.
Laughs
who will come to see me at 3
I thought it was strange when he started filming me. Then I realized... it wasn't me he was filming.
Horn honks
Birds chirp, wings flutter
who will come to see me at 3
-The police finally got my camera in front of the cart. They erased the footage from that day. Huang helped me escape. And I smuggled the rest of my footage out of the country. -The studio took more then 3,600 photos of the 2,872 items of which 603 carefully selected images make up the wall here. On July 6, 2013, secret police kidnapped Ye Haiyan and her daughter, abandoning them by the side of the road with all of their belongings. Ye Haiyan is a feminist activist with a strong belief in human rights and freedom of expression. -Sparrow's belongings eventually made their way to New York as part of an exhibition. The exact scene along the highway was reconstructed. -...kidnapped by secret police... and then... -Back in China, Huang bought his own camera. He told me, "When you are repressed and defenseless, the only thing you can do is to document the atrocities."
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