It is 1988 and a windy July night. In China, two men are about to attempt to swim to Hong Kong. My father and uncle will set off from She Kou (Snake’s Mouth), an industrial zone at the tip of Nantou peninsula in the south-eastern city of Shenzhen, in mainland China.
With a new moon in the sky, my father and his younger brother start to undress at the water’s edge. They stow their clothes, along with money, letters and prison sentences into plastic bags. With a bicycle inner-tube lashed around their possessions for floatation, they begin to wade into the sea at around 9pm. They will be trying to cross over into British-owned Hong Kong, escaping communist China, where my father is a wanted man.
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