“Run” is an online buzzword that emerged in mainland China amid the grueling lockdowns, mass incarceration in quarantine camps and compulsory testing of Xi Jinping's zero-COVID policy, describing the large numbers of people who are seeking a better life overseas driven by a sense of despair or disappointment in their political system. Many of them are women. They are leaving amid a growing national discussion of gender issues and a string of violent attacks on women, including the abused woman found chained in a rural Jiangsu outbuilding and the vicious beatings of several women by men at a restaurant in the northern city of Tangshan. A legally enforced “cooling off” period for divorce and the ruling Chinese Communist Party's insistence on boosting birthrates under the "three-child policy" have also made women more aware of their rights. At the same time, there is less and less space for the discussion of women's issues on China's tightly controlled internet. Since 2021, a number of feminist accounts have been shut down on social media platforms like Douban and Weibo, which has started deleting feminist content and recently added "incitement to gender antagonism" as a reason to report a user for misusing the platform. Meanwhile, state media have recently linked Chinese feminists with "hostile foreign forces," while a number of anti-feminist accounts and influencers have been appearing on social media. Although data has yet to emerge on the number of Chinese women deciding to "run" to foreign countries, Australian immigration figures show that there are more women than men in the country who were born in China. Meanwhile, on the Xiaohongshu social media platform that is predominantly used by women, there is more and more talk of "running." Some discussions called "Runology for feminists" have also attracted media attention. According to media reports, the discussions within these communities include mentoring women on how to get out of China and find overseas work permits or study abroad opportunities. So, do Chinese women actually have better lives once they have escaped this sexist environment? Are they thriving in more developed countries? What problems and challenges are they facing? In a deep dive into these questions, WHYNOT spoke with three women, all of whom have "run" from China in recent years. Jing Jing, 35, now in the United States Jing Jing decided to "run" for the sake of her daughter. Two years ago, Jing Jing moved from the central Chinese province of Henan to the United States with her husband and daughter. Like many parents who want their kids to study abroad, she wanted her daughter's education to be "free from politics." "I came here with a very clear aim: to raise my kid. I want her to enjoy unlimited possibilities, not just be trained to obey orders," says Jing Jing, a pseudonym to protect the safety and privacy of her and her family. In 2020, the family moved to a city in the United States. Jing Jing's daughter attended the local primary school, and was settling in well. Her husband and mother-in-law had already spent many years overseas, so they were able to adapt well, too. But after Jing Jing became an “accompanying mother” for her child's education, she became depressed – a big change from the cheerful woman she had once been. "The biggest difficulty is the language barrier," Jing Jing says. "Moms like me tend to learn English passively. We can understand what is being said, and we can read it, but as soon as we open our mouths, our brains disconnect. It means we can't work or truly integrate into this society.” “There's also the issue of the circles [I no longer move in], ”she adds. Jing Jing has left behind her job and her social support network, and is now entirely focused on her family. "Life here in the U.S. is very family-oriented, unlike back in China where I had a network of friends, colleagues or relatives," Jing Jing says. "Everyone here in the United States puts their family first, you have to make an appointment a month in advance just to meet up with a friend." Some nights, Jing Jing lies awake thinking about all of this, and has taken to writing about her heartache as an overseas accompanying mom on social media, where she has found sympathy and support from other moms in the same position. But some who comment say it's her fault for not trying hard enough to learn English, or to integrate into American society. Jing Jing feels helpless when she reads such comments. She did sign up for English classes at the local community college soon after arriving, but life as an immigrant accompanying mom is not actually that easy. "Moms like us don't have a good level of English, so we can't help our kids with homework; all we can do is send them to a whole bunch of different tutoring classes," she says. "Our entire day revolves around home, tutor groups, back home. If you live in the western part of the United States, that can mean a half-hour or an hour-long drive between each of these places, so our lives consist either of cooking at home, or ferrying our kids around, which is really no kind of life at all. We can't even take the time out to attend class." Back in China, Jing Jing was self-employed, selling jewelry and bird's nests, a delicacy used to make bird's nest soup. Business was going well. Because the family had money, all of the housework was done by a domestic helper. In the U.S., homes are much bigger, requiring far more time and energy to keep clean, while higher labor costs mean that Jing Jing's family can't afford a cleaner. So she is stuck doing all of the housework herself. The transition from successful businesswoman to housewife has hit hard. "As a mother of an 8-year-old, I have less and less energy to deal with her, and I keep reprimanding her more and more sharply," Jing Jing says. "I don't tell her as many stories, and I have more and more housework to do. I lose my temper all the time now." “This woman who once wanted to be a role model for her daughter is dying,” she recently wrote on social media. Yet Jing Jing has been lucky compared with some of the other immigrant accompanying moms. "Some accompanying moms are over here putting two or three kids through school alone, while the father is back in China working for the government or doing business," she says. "They may have all they need, but the mothers' mental health is very poor. For couples who are separated over such a distance, this pretty much means family breakdown." “They filmed one of the scenes from ‘Desperate Housewives’ in our neighborhood," Jing Jing says. "It's only now that I understand why a show like that would come out of the U.S.. The desperation is real!"she says. While there are no official statistics on the numbers of Chinese women who emigrate to facilitate their kids' education, it's pretty clear that there are far more mothers doing this than fathers. There are more than 20 Chinese parents from Jing Jing's daughter's primary school in her WeChat group. "Almost all of them are mothers," she says. "Fathers are very rare." Asked why there are so many migrant accompanying moms, Jing Jing replies unthinkingly: "Because there's no substitute for a mother. Mothers take better care of their kids. Fathers just aren't up to the job. At least Chinese men aren't, anyway. How many Chinese men have you seen being stay-at-home dads? The traditional mindset makes it so that there is no such thing as a migrant accompanying dad," she says. Jing Jing can do little about this sexism. She just has to grit her teeth and get on with it. Jing Jing knows that she's the kind of Chinese person who doesn't take easily to a different way of life in another country. "Some of that runs bone-deep, and is never going to change," she says. She misses the food, her friends, her family and the hustle and bustle of life in China. Originally, she had hoped to divide her time between China and the United States, but three years of zero-COVID restrictions put paid to that plan. Even now, with the pandemic restrictions gone, political concerns like the uncertainty around the U.S.-China relationship have made her loath to make frequent trips back and forth between countries. Instead, Jing Jing plans to stay in the U.S. for a few more years until her daughter goes to college, then go back to China with her husband. But her daughter is still only eight, and she doesn't really know how she will get through the next few years. During the past year, more and more friends have been asking her about "running." "How can I describe it? It's as if everyone is under siege. People who haven't made it out try their best to leave, but those who have made it out want to go back," she says. Rougui, 28, now in western Europe When her plane touched down in Europe, 28-year-old Rougui gripped her two suitcases and gazed at the unfamiliar-looking crowd. "Finally," she thought, "I can start a new life." Back in China, Rougui had worked for a foreign company in Shanghai, living what many people would see as a dream life in a big city with a good job and a stable relationship and circle of friends. But in reality, she was "pretty depressed," she says. The socially aware Rougui would often take to Weibo to express her views, as well as organizing regular gatherings with community members. This led to her Weibo account getting shut down and to her being hauled in to "drink tea" with the local state security police. "I'm pretty sure someone tipped them off about my Weibo account," says Rougui, a pseudonym to protect the safety and privacy of her and her family. "So, I had the system itself monitoring me, while all of the people brainwashed by that system were willingly acting as the eyes and ears of that system, and also watching me." As online controls got tighter and tighter, Rougui started to feel more and more uneasy. She became determined to come up with a Plan B, which was to leave the country. She took a similar route as many others: apply to an overseas university, try to find a job after graduating, then obtain permanent residency. She chose a postgraduate course at a western European university, applying just to see what happened. She never thought she would actually wind up going. The offer of a place came through in the middle of the grueling Shanghai lockdown of 2022. Her rainy day plan was starting to look as if it might just save her life. She accepted the offer almost without thinking, and promised her boyfriend she would bring him over to live with her when she got a job after graduation. She landed in her new home in August 2021. “I was oppressed before, weak, miserable and powerless," she says. "I was a bit depressed, because it's hard to believe you have any power at all." "The main change for me since leaving China has been that now I can afford to get angry, and dare to hate [that system]. Back then, I didn't have the luxury of hate, because they controlled everything we had, and could come knocking at any time," she says. "There was a constant sense of fear and helplessness. Every move you made was being monitored, either by the surveillance cameras everywhere, or through the COVID-19 tracker app." "Now, I can let go of all of that, be bolder, and start hating it," she says. Rougui's new life is gradually falling into place. She utilizes the insurance provided by the university for psychological counseling and works with a counselor to discuss past traumas. She is also in couples therapy with her boyfriend to deal with the challenges of a long-distance relationship. She took part in a march on International Women's Day, and is engaging politically in new ways. "It used to feel like everything had stopped, with only a few hours you could do nothing in between COVID-19 tests," she says. "Now, it feels as if life is finally moving forward, and that progress can be made." Gender discrimination was one of the main reasons Rougui left China. Even though there are only two children in the family, she and her older sister, she felt that her parents still held biases against their daughters. After her sister graduated from college, she wanted to get a job in the same city as the university, but Rougui's parents put pressure on her, and she moved back in with them instead. The day before Rougui went abroad, a friend of her father came to the house and gave her a red envelope with cash in it, saying, "Why would a daughter want to move so far away? If you'd been a son, I would have given you a bit more." As his harsh words jarred on Rougui's ears, her father stood by and said nothing. “The family is one of the biggest causes of suffering for women in East Asia,” Rougui says. When she started living in Europe, Ruogui found that the Chinese women there were fiercely determined to stay. The men, not so much. Men who enjoy a privileged position back home feel more vulnerable when they leave China because they're suddenly seen as Asian. It's a big shift in what they are used to. In April this year, there was a hot debate on Weibo sparked by a post from an international student on her view of the gender situation overseas. Citing the international students she knew as an example, the woman wrote that Chinese men and women tend to "run" for different reasons, and that Chinese men find it harder to adapt to the greater degree of gender equality and the more women-friendly environment in some foreign countries. They also find it hard to be part of an ethnic minority. Her male friends were much more determined to go back to China, despite knowing all too well how hard life can be there, even if they had been overseas long enough to have gotten a PhD. They enjoyed the admiration of people they'd grown up with, and all the privileges of a patriarchal society. The women, on the other hand, tended to feel that there was no going back, and had higher hopes of making a new life in a foreign land. The post sparked some heated online discussions. Rougui is one of those women. "I feel much more alive now," she says. The only thing she misses is her community. Back in China, Rougui belonged to a political minority, and had expected to make even more foreign friends outside of China. But she has found it much harder than she expected to come out politically to her international friends. "They really find our struggles very hard to understand," she says. Enrolled in business school, Rougui has found herself surrounded by an elite group of white people, who would "mostly talk about where they would go for their next skiing trip." Her closest connection has been with a young Thai woman she met in graduate school, because her country was going through similar upheavals as China. Meanwhile, she continues to explore the local activist community, often getting together with other local Chinese women for solidarity and support. "Life in my Shanghai bubble was stable, but that stability couldn't necessarily withstand various risks," she says. "Those risks [of being taken away, placed under surveillance or locked up for months on end] were always there, even when my bubble was good, and there was nothing I could do about it," Rougui says. "Now I'm in western Europe, I don't have to deal with that any more. My bubble may be lost, but I can still be happy." “There is room for people to be vulnerable, which is so important to me." Ivy, 29, now in Belgium Born into a middle-class family in the Jiangnan region of southeastern China, Ivy envisioned a completely different life when she arrived in Macau for study at the age of 18: moving back to her hometown after graduation, marrying her boyfriend and living the life of "an ordinary only daughter." After graduation, she did return to her hometown to work as an English teacher, but she soon started to feel that something wasn't right. "I'd had a glimpse of a wider world," says Ivy, a pseudonym to protect the safety and privacy of her and her family. She said she went to sign up with a headhunter in Shanghai when she realized she didn't like teaching. But her real aim was to try to find what was really interested in by learning more about different professions. She eventually found that she enjoyed creative work, and spent the next five years in the marketing department of a company engaged in foreign trade, traveling back and forth between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Ivy did well, winning promotion from marketing specialist to supervisor after five years in the job. But that was when things started to unravel. The company she worked for was hit hard by the U.S.-China trade war that started in 2018. The company offered to promote Ivy if she made four of her seven marketing colleagues redundant. "It may have looked like a promotion, but I would have had less control over my work in the context of these layoffs," she says. "The whole point of promoting me was to rely less on agencies, which essentially meant that four people would be expected to do the work of seven." Ivy started to feel that her new job was actually more like a trap, with scant prospects for advancement. The incident made it clear to her how the wider world has an impact on individuals. "Even if you care nothing for politics, politics will still come calling for you one day," she says. If fallout from the trade war was a harbinger of Ivy's decision to “run”, the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong was the trigger. Her marketing job required her to travel to Hong Kong at least once a week during that time, and she was shocked by how different life was on the other side of the border. "I saw that there were two different worlds, and what was going on there made me question everything, including what was true and what wasn't," she says. "I used to think that there were basically no overarching social issues that could stand in a person's way, and that you could just reach out and take what you wanted." "It was a process of awakening, and I realized that I had been able to be headstrong because of my privilege," she says. "These two events made me ask myself who I would be without my good fortune, without my privilege?" The trade war and the Hong Kong protests were "an existential blow" for Ivy, leading her to read up on anthropology and sociology, and to question whether she wanted to work in the corporate sector at all. Ivy decided in favor of changing all that, and enrolled in graduate school in Belgium two years ago. After she graduates, she wants to work for a local nonprofit organization. She describes herself as "running to sort out my values," and has decided that the highest-ranking value is freedom. "You have to be free to be capable of spontaneous happiness," she says. "I want to fall in love and start a family in the normal way. Here in the West, I feel that I can at least enjoy freedoms that are open to ordinary people, which may not be possible in China." After two years overseas, Ivy feels that life is good. Yet she often has the sense that something isn't quite right. She has been trying to figure out what that something is. "In Europe, I am really free to do whatever I want," she says. "But the question is, what do I want to do?” There are a number of practical problems. Not many non-government organizations pay even the minimum salary needed to qualify for a work visa." And she may have figured out why things don't feel quite right — she is missing a sense of community. "It's where I get a lot of my sense of meaning in life," she says, remembering that she took part in a bookstore project during lockdown in Shenzhen, organizing book fairs and movie screenings. Since she left China, that feeling has been hard to replicate. "Relationships in Europe are more distant, and everyone is more individualistic. I think I would be more likely to find my community back home," she says. "Nobody here really has much of a desire or intention to form a community with you," she says. She has also looked for community among the Chinese diaspora. "I make a serious effort to find like-minded people, but often they will just move on after a year," Ivy says. "Everything is very fluid, and it makes me a bit sad. People come and go in China too, but there is still some sense of community cohesion.” “Right now, it seems that even if I try to organize something, nobody wants to know. They've all got their heads down studying," she says. Back in China, Ivy used to form feminist book clubs with her friends, where they would read books like Misogyny by Japanese sociologist Chizuko Ueno together. She has also learned more about gender issues through her relationship. Ivy's boyfriend is Belgian, and she feels as if she is on a more equal footing with him than with men on the dating scene back home, which was rife with machismo. She also feels more respected. "He treats me like an equal," she says. But she still finds it hard to have an in-depth conversation with him. "There are a lot of issues that white guys just don't get," she says. "A lot of my difficulties stem from the fact that I'm a new immigrant, from linguistic and cultural differences, from difficulties making friends, but he doesn't experience any of that. He just thinks, ‘How hard can it be?’" "But if I were to talk about the experience of 'running' with a Chinese guy, or about ‘involution,’[the phenomenon of overwork and intense competition] he would get what I was talking about," she says. There are also barriers when it comes to talking about gender politics. Sometimes, when she's watching videos with her boyfriend, ads pop up featuring sexy cam girls, she says. Her boyfriend seems to think these women are just having a good time by themselves, and doing this work voluntarily. “He has no grasp of the structural oppression faced by these Asian women," she says. As she grapples with work, love and her worries about the future in this new environment, Ivy is also coming up against intersectional issues, where power, race and gender intertwine. If she can't find an employer to sponsor a work visa, she may need to apply for a cohabitation visa with her boyfriend just to stay in the country. This would be a huge blow to her independence. In 2017, a Chinese immigration agency published an article about why Chinese women were more willing to settle overseas than men. It listed more equal work opportunities, a better dating scene and marriage options for heterosexuals without all of the harsh specifications of East Asian marriage markets regarding age, personality and accomplishments, along with a greater degree of tolerance in Western societies, and less complex interpersonal relationships. Now, as the gender debate in China heats up, these possibilities may start to look even more attractive. It remains to be seen just how far Chinese women will be prepared to go, and what kind of gender issues they will face if they do decide to "run."