Liberty at Last : U.S. Ordeal for Chinese Stowaway Ends in Freedom

After five months of virtual solitary confinement in a downtown Long Beach Travelodge, a Chinese dissident’s long, strange journey to freedom ended Friday as he was released from detention with the expectation he will soon be granted political asylum.

Me Gya, a lecturer in electrical engineering who fled China after the crushing of the student democracy movement in 1989, had arrived in the United States in October as a stowaway aboard a Hong Kong freighter.

But instead of freedom, he found himself locked in an obscure motel-room purgatory because of a decades-old U.S. law requiring that all stowaways be detained in private facilities at the expense of the shipping company that brought them to this country.

After months of mind-numbing boredom and an escape in which he pleaded with police to put him in jail instead of returning him to the motel, Me walked out of the Federal Building in Los Angeles Friday as a free man.

“I had felt that there was no hope left for me,” he said in Chinese. “I have no money or work, but I am very happy.”

Me’s attorney, Justin Shrenger, said an official decision on Me’s asylum case from the Board of Immigration Appeals is pending. However, officials of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said this week they will drop their opposition to Me’s asylum claim.

Me, whose journey was described in The Times in January, was not a well-known dissident of the student democracy movement. He had been a lecturer at Yuzhou University in Chongqing, a city of 4 million in Central China, far from the hub of the demonstration in Beijing’s Tian An Men Square.

But as the pro-democracy demonstration began spreading through China in 1989, Me became a leader on his campus, organizing marches, giving speeches and representing his school in a meeting with the mayor of Chongqing.

After the military crackdown in Tian An Men Square, Me decided to leave his wife behind and flee the country.

He traveled by train to Canton Province and, after eluding the armed guards at the border, swam the last leg into the British territory of Hong Kong.

A temporary stay in Hong Kong turned into a lengthy ordeal. Finally, after two years, homeless and destitute, Me decided to stow away on a ship bound for the United States.

He arrived in Long Beach aboard the Oriental Faith and was immediately placed in detention.

His initial request for political asylum was rejected, forcing him to face months in motel detention as his appeal continued through the courts.

On Feb. 29, in a fit of desperation, he fled his room while his private guard was in the bathroom.

For two days he roamed the streets of Los Angeles, sleeping in an alley one night and in an unfinished office building the next.

“I was not afraid,” he said. “I figured I had nothing. If someone wanted to rob me, go ahead.”

With no money and no way to reach his attorney, Me surrendered to the police, unsuccessfully pleading with officers to put him jail. He did not want to return to the motel because he worried his bill, which he promised to repay the shipping company, was growing too large.

Finally, Monday morning, Me arrived at his attorney’s office, just hours after the letter from the INS arrived informing him that his asylum appeal would not be contested.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Me, who has found a temporary home with a USC employee who has helped other Chinese students.

Me said he has started English classes and is making plans to attend college to help him hone his skills for work in the United States.

Still hanging over his head is his motel and detention bill--now more than $33,000. “I signed a contract saying I would return the money,” Me said. “How can I return it if I don’t have any work?”

But Paul Chang, operations manager for Oriental Overseas Container Line, said the company recognizes the difficulty of Me returning the money and probably will not pursue the issue.

“We felt sorry that a person had to be locked up in there for so long,” he said. “We’re just happy that this has a happy ending.”