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You're listening to TED Talks daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day.
I'm your host, Elise Heu.
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 when the Chinese government jailed her under false accusations and kept her detained for three years.
Lei took the TED stage to share lessons learned from her imprisonment, namely, that only through losing freedom do we learn to truly appreciate it.
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This is Paige DeSorbo, the co -host of Giggly Squad.
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My talk is about what I didn't have for a long time.
I received free accommodation from the Chinese government for over three years for so -called leaking state secrets overseas at the worst time for Australia -China relations.
And the first phase was called RSDL, Chinese spelling for hell, then in detention, the sort that makes jail seem like Ibiza.
And it was through that ordeal, call it the wonder diet, that I realised freedom is wasted on the free.
Let me explain. When you only have a few dollars, you know how to spend it.
When you win the lottery, it's easy to squander and hard to get your priorities right.
Same with freedom. You can be paralysed by choice.
You can't comprehend the vastness or the preciousness.
So how do you make freedom count when you're lucky enough to have it?
To start, what it felt like to be not free.
In RSDL, I had two guards glued to me front and side at all times.
I was made to sit for 13 hours straight each day.
I had to request permission to make the smallest movement and you know what I wanted to do the most?
I wanted to run and usually I hate running.
I couldn't talk, which to me is major torture.
I wanted to talk to anyone, but in real life, I have sometimes one earpods to shut people out and I would have done anything to learn except when I was outside I wasted the chance.
I was too busy. Then I moved to detention.
I had three cellmates, and that already felt like freedom paradise.
Nobody in the cell regrets things like money or assets.
But we were kicking ourselves over the travel we didn't do, the love we didn't show, the risks we didn't take.
Imprisonment is like a mini death.
It's a taste of the real thing.
It hit us that one day we'll lose the chance to do everything, even the stuff we hate now.
So now, I do things I want immediately.
Another way to value freedom is to be super aware of the forms of prison.
My son asked me, if a kid goes to the same nursery, elementary, high school, is that a 13 -year sentence?
It got me thinking about life as a death sentence.
And the prisons we put ourselves in, Property objects can tie us down.
Relationships can be shackles too.
And we sometimes give up our civil liberties in exchange for a neat society.
But the maximum security prison is our mind, our fears and conventions and biases.
And that's why the officers in detention who are so bound by doctrine couldn't understand that we could learn with delight and make fun behind bars.
I talk about imprisonment, but in fact everyone here, we've all had some loss of physical freedom, COVID lockdowns.
We've all been sick in bed.
But when we lose physical freedom, it's an opportunity to find freedom within.
And that's how I could, when I was blindfolded and handcuffed, think myself to infinity through imagination, knowledge, and a BTFI serenity beyond the fuckit.
It means no matter how bad things get, writing out the worst part.
Which for me, had been wanting to bash my head open against the tiles to shut off the mental anguish.
It had been being stripped naked in a cage.
So the ultimate state of being is to be serene.
But you can't get there until you've exhausted the other extreme anxiety, pain, despair.
And now I'm giving a TED Talk.
Thank you. And when we are serene, we can choose kindness.
When those guards watched me at all times, I would still say good morning to them.
I didn't hold it against them when they enforced the strict rules because I saw that they suffered too.
During the shifts, they couldn't talk, drink water, or even go to the toilet.
They had to watch me shit, shower, and sleep.
Later in detention, I would still show courtesy to the officers, even when they were rude, even when they encouraged us to snitch. I still chose to forgive my cellmates and empathize.
If I become vengeful and petty, then they've taken away more from me.
I was in a cell for a while with a terrible bully.
She made my life hell.
But once called for a midnight interrogation.
She was so scared, she asked if she could hold my hand.
I hugged her and comforted her.
Once you realise that pain is the ultimate commonality, it can also give kindness as the universal gift. Some of the most precious gifts I've received were in detention, even though we had close to nothing.
Music. A cell mate wrote a song in her head in solitary and sang it for me on my birthday.
No Spotify or chat GPT or even notepad from her head to our ears.
Poetry, an acrostic poem knocked via the adjacent cell's walls through an alphabetical code.
It took over 400 knocks and precise counting to receive that message.
But you know what, with each knock I could feel the power of friendship transcend those thick walls.
Of course we were punished, but it was worth it.
Crafts that we made in secrecy that were destroyed one scene because it was against the rules.
But the objects were nothing compared to how we felt in making and giving those gifts.
So you see, there can be endless creativity, even within a world of constraints.
And maybe by having so much, we lose the ability to create something out of nothing.
I'm not promoting detention.
But like athletes training at high altitude, setting some constraints may expand our minds.
We can also expand our appreciation of life through some deprivation.
Because that recalibrates your Richter scale for joy.
One summer night in detention, there was a blackout.
The only darkness we'd experienced in all those years, the hateful fluorescent lights were off and nobody could see us on the monitors.
Five minutes of joy that we talked about for months.
Then recently in my hometown of Melbourne, there was a storm blackout, and instead of smiling in the lotus position, guess what I was worried about?
Food in the freezer, charging the electronics.
Some of the first world problems, we complain about.
All the weather, the Vancouver rain.
Well in there, I have been in tears because I could finally smell the rain, the traffic.
Well, in there the only traffic was bumping into my cellmate along the one metre wide corridor along which to walk five metres.
Too many emails. I went for months without a letter.
I had one phone call in all those years.
Annoying kids. I used to have to imagine my kids faces because I couldn't keep a photo of them in a cell.
So, you see when our canvas is so full, we look at that little smudge and we magnify it.
But when our canvas was bare we could celebrate even one drop And that's what I hope I will continue to do.
And I hope you will join me.
Remind ourselves of the blindness so we can see life fully like a newborn.
Thank you. That was Lei Cheng at TED 2025.
If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED .com slash curation guidelines, and that's it for today's show.
TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio collective.
This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar and Tonsika Sarmar -Nivon.
It was mixed by Christopher Fazie Bogen.
Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Ballareso.
I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed.
Thanks for listening.
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That's 1 -800 -Flowers .com slash ACAST. If you love to travel, Capital One has a rewards credit card that's perfect for you.
With the Capital One Venture X card, you earn unlimited double miles on everything you buy.
Plus, you get premium benefits at a collection of luxury hotels when you book on Capital One Travel.
And with Venture X you get access to over 1000 airport lounges worldwide.
Open up a world of travel possibilities with a Capital One Venture X card. What's in your wallet?
Terms apply, lounge access is subject to change.
See Capital One .com for details.
This is Paige DiSorbo, the co -host of Giggly Squad.
I have exciting news, McDonalds has all new McCrispy strips!
It's chicken made for dipping.
Tender juicy white meat chicken with a golden brown peppery breading.
It's chicken so good it deserves its own sauce.
The Creamy Chili McCrispy Strip Dip, a sauce that's creamy, savory, and sweet with a little heat, but it works with any of our sauces.
I'm personally a BBQ sauce girl, even sometimes I like ketchup, I'm just like basic sometimes.
But I also need it in addition to any new sauces I'm trying.
With a new Creamy Chili McCrispy Strip Dip, it's chicken made for dipping, only at McDonald's.
