Traveling Across 10 Countries, Young Chinese Man and Family Flee to US for Freedom

After traveling across 10 countries—including eight in South America—for nearly three months, a Chinese family finally arrived in the United States seeking freedom.

The trip was full of hardship and danger, among them surviving a Panamanian rainforest and its swift rivers.

For this dream of freedom, Sun Jincai spent the whole summer of 2022 planning for the trip. Having overcome many ordeals, the family has finally arrived in their dreamland.

A Young Man’s Dreamland

Since he was 13, Sun yearned for a free life in the United States.

In 2001, Sun heard a song by Hong Kong rock band Beyond about a free land where there was no prejudice and where all people—regardless of their color, race, and origin—were equal.

The song gave the young boy his lifelong dream of living in such a country. In his mind, there was only one place in the world with freedom and equality: the United States of America.

In an interview with the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times on Jan. 1, 2023, Sun talked about his childhood dream and how he endured hardship and risked his life for his dream to come true.

Chinese top leader Xi Jinping’s backsliding to Mao-era totalitarian rule and the past three years of stringent lockdowns made Sun decide to flee China, according to a phone interview.

“An opportunity seen by everyone is no longer an opportunity, and a crisis seen by everyone is already unavoidable,” he wrote in a tweet in September 2022.

Sun searched for anything he could find about fleeing from China to the United States and made a careful and detailed plan for his family’s escape. Their first stop was especially important because the Chinese regime doesn’t allow commoners to travel freely.

Together with their three children, he and his wife hit the road on Aug. 10, 2022, seeking the freedom they longed for.

They had no idea what awaited them, but the family was determined to run for their freedom at any cost. Sun and his wife quit their jobs and left without saying goodbye to their parents, as they didn’t want their parents involved in their plans or to worry about them.

Narrow Escape at Zhuhai Customs

In August 2022, China was still under strict lockdowns and wasn’t allowing overseas travel.

Sun said that they started the trip as tourists to Macao, China, formerly a Portuguese colony and now back under China’s rule.

Sun was stopped at the customs gate in Zhuhai, a city next to Macao.

To exit, one has to scan one’s fingerprints at customs. The gate will open automatically if the scan verifies the person is clear to go, according to Sun.

But the gate didn’t open for Sun, who had once posted his pro-Ukraine opinions online and was detained by local police for several days.

Frontier police immediately approached and led him into a small room. The police checked his phone and his social media accounts but found nothing.

Sun had deleted all his escape plans and posts that were against the CCP. After interrogating him for half an hour, the police let him and his family leave.

Sun had once worked in Cambodia in 2019. He was able to use Facebook while he was outside China at that time, and he had read on the site about the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

He now knows that what an elderly relative had told him about the massacre was true. But he didn’t believe what the old man had told him when he was in China. He couldn’t read anything on this topic due to strict censorship by the communist regime.

He said in an interview with The Epoch Times, “The political system of China has been rotten to the root, and Chinese police are [gangsters] in a uniform.”

Wife Falls Ill in Ecuador

According to Sun’s plan, they would get valid visas to countries as close to the United States as possible. Then they would follow online human-smuggling routes from South America to the United States.

The family flew from Macao to Thailand and stayed in Bangkok for nine days. Then they flew to Istanbul, Turkey, on Aug. 19, 2022. Only in Istanbul could they buy air tickets to Ecuador’s capital, Quito, according to Sun. The plan was to then head north from Quito.

They lived in Istanbul for half a month until Sun was able to purchase economy air tickets to Quito.

Quito is the first stop in South America, from which the family went all the way north to the United States to enter illegally.

Sun created a Twitter account on Sept. 9, 2022, and used “Northbound All the Way” as the account name.

Sun’s wife became ill in Quito. She went to see a doctor who didn’t charge her for the medical service. Sun was very impressed.

“This small country isn’t wealthy. But its citizens live a carefree life. They have free education and free [medical care]. The government doesn’t create problems for the people,” Sun wrote in a tweet on Sept. 25, 2022.

Trekking Through the Panama Rainforest

While Sun’s family had valid visas to visit Ecuador, from then on, they were traveling illegally.

They traveled across Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico before they climbed the border wall between Mexico and the United States and arrived on U.S. soil.

The most dangerous part of the journey was the five-day trek through the Panama rainforest, which has become a major human-trafficking route for migrants who want to start a new life in the United States. Only the lucky ones survive the trek through the jungle.

This long walk is an ordeal for adults, but Sun also had three children in tow who are aged 6, 9, and 11. Despite the difficulty, the children followed the adults and made it out of the jungle.

On Oct. 3, 2022, Sun said he saw nearly 600 people near the jungle outside Acandi, a beach town in Colombia. The members of Sun’s family were the only Chinese in the group.

It was extremely wet in the jungle. People had to walk in the mud and sometimes cross rivers on foot or via rope. Huge trees filled the rainforest and blocked people’s view of the sky.

“Look, South Americans are trekking with their baby,” Sun said in a video he shot of his fellow trekkers. He uploaded it to his Twitter account, adding, “Nothing can stop your yearning for freedom.”

He recorded the whole trip on his phone and uploaded video footage and pictures to his new Twitter account.

Sun also noted a woman with only one leg, who was also struggling through the forest alongside them.

“We are grassroots people—these people in this jungle, we all are. But in China, grassroots people are bullied; we’re not treated even as humans, we are just slaves and laborers,” Sun said in the interview.

No matter how despised by the communist regime they are in China, grassroots people have the right to pursue freedom and happiness, Sun said.

On the third day of their trekking through the jungle, his wife fell from a rope that hung across a river as a bridge. His wife could not swim, but she was luckily saved by several South American migrants who had been traveling with them through the jungle.

Sun and his wife were grateful to their fellow migrants. He said his wife would have died without them.

At least 853 migrants died over the past year crossing the U.S.–Mexico border, and over a dozen migrants drowned while trying to cross the Rio Grande in September 2022, according to CBS.

Sun didn’t regret his decision to flee China.

“A place that everyone wants to go to may not be a paradise, but a place that everyone runs away from at the cost of their lives must be a hell,” he said in a tweet on Nov. 1, 2022.

Five days later, they emerged from the jungle. Sun’s feet and calves were full of wounds and bruises.

After crossing the jungle, they traveled through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. The latter part of their travels was smoother and safe. His three kids were luckily all healthy and sound throughout the journey.

When they saw an American flag in a refugee camp, his children told him, “The American flag looks nice; much better than the Chinese flag.”

They eventually came to Mexicali, a Mexican city on the U.S.–Mexico border.

At midnight on Nov. 3, 2022, Sun’s family climbed over a border wall. Several human traffickers put up a ladder for them to climb over the 20-foot-high wall.

They were the first to climb over the wall, and more than 20 people followed them. American border police didn’t stop them as they climbed.

The moment they got off the ladder on the U.S. side, Sun cried, “I have made it!” It was early morning on Nov. 4, 2022, almost three months after he and his family fled China in August.

“My dream has come true because I have come to the United States of America,” Sun told The Epoch Times in the interview.

Shi Ping contributed to this report.