KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 — A Malaysian mother has shared on YouTube her struggle to be with her child who was twice abducted by her ex-husband, and the plight of being trapped by a travel ban in China since 2015.
Cheng Chau Yang, 42, and her eight-year-old boy have since been reunited, but remain barred from leaving China possibly for another 10 years, despite being Malaysian citizens who have not breached any laws there. The travel ban is linked to the ex-husband’s visitation rights to the child, who is under Cheng’s legal custody.
After over a year of trying to get Chinese authorities to revoke the travel ban, the “homesick” Cheng is now appealing for help through a video titled Mama on a Mission.
The video is part of an ongoing campaign by Cheng’s family to have the travel ban lifted, complementing their Facebook page and their online petition to China president Xi Jinping and China’s ambassador to Malaysia.
Malay Mail Online reported on Cheng’s ordeal, including how she was not allowed by a China court to leave the country to visit her 94-year-old grandmother when the latter was critically ill. Cheng has not been home for about four years.
Mother and child
Gary Yong, the director who made the video for the Cheng family, described it as a “docu-drama” — or a film that contains dramatised re-enactments of real events that Cheng went through as well as comments from child rights and legal experts.
While the film started off as being about Cheng’s struggle to get her son back and her desire to visit her family in Malaysia with the child, it actually boils down to the “undeniable bond” between mother and child, Yong said.
“But getting into the heart of the story itself — on a level that everybody else can relate to, regardless of whether they have been in a similar situation, with their spouse or ex-spouse, regardless of whether they are a single parent, regardless of whether they are in China or Malaysia; I think I realise it’s a story about a mother’s inseparable bond from the child,” the 33-year-old told Malay Mail Online when met Friday.
“And it’s something that’s innate and you cannot — try as you might — to sever it or manipulate it or bastardise it, there’s something pure about it and those two will always be together.
“And so it’s almost like ‘OK, if it means we have to be banned in order to stay together, we are going to be banned’. She’s not going to risk losing her child again, it’s not going to happen, no mother would do that,” he said, describing Cheng’s resolve to stick with her son.
Yong said the docu-drama is also about Cheng’s “desire to reconnect with her family in Malaysia and provide her son access to her extended family, in contrast to the isolation he was living in during the abduction period, despite being in his father’s home province”.
Yong, who is currently based in Shanghai as a commercial film director, is also Cheng’s cousin; he was approached by the family about three weeks ago to shoot the docu-drama. He said yes without hesitation to the opportunity to help Cheng using his skills.
Keeping to a tight timeline and with only a minimal support team, Yong spent a week preparing, and another week of back-to-back flights and filming in Shanghai, Johor’s Muar where their grandmother lives and Kuala Lumpur, and a week of editing.
Re-living the moments
The mother and child seen in the re-enacted scenes are actually Cheng and her son, Yong said.
Yong said this was the first time that Cheng has ever appeared in a film and that she was chosen to tell the story as she knew best what she went through, adding that her scenes with her son was unrehearsed and showed their “authentic” relationship.
“That was him and it was also very challenging partly because of all these limitations, I had to shoot around him, the mother doesn’t want to identify him, he’s an important character obviously and I have to find a way to show his emotions, show what he’s going through.
“He’s very energetic and optimistic, for a child that’s gone through that, he’s very bright, very inquisitive, very upbeat,” Yong said of the child.
The child was abducted by the ex-husband, with Cheng finally managing to locate the boy after over two years of separation. He was found living alone with the ex-husband’s sister in a weakened state due to lack of exercise; brainwashed into believing his mother had abandoned him; with his education neglected and inadequate attention to his eczema resulting in bleeding and patchy skin.
Cheng’s family’s lawyer Goh Siu Lin confirmed on Friday that the boy has since recovered but that the mother and child continue to be concerned about their safety.
The video Mama on a Mission of just under 15 minutes can be viewed on YouTube.
