Home away from home

[Randy W]

. An interesting little China story

Home away from home

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/833531.shtml?utm_content=buffer092a8&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=Buffer#.UreYKZ6VNQA

 

Each month, Taonga's* mother goes to an airport in Zimbabwe and waits for hours for a perfect stranger. She is looking for a trustworthy person who is about to fly to Beijing to bring $100 in cash to her son. As for what her son is doing in China, that is a secret she can never tell.

In fact, her 28-year-old son Taonga was registered as a refugee in China in June, right before a new law that gives foreign refugees the right to stay in the country came into force.

Facing discrimination and threats for being homosexual, Taonga fled to China alone in April 2012 and filed an asylum claim with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)'s office in Beijing.

Taonga told the Global Times that Beijing feels like home. But with no permission to work in the country and relying heavily on financial support from his mother, he said he does not know what the future holds.

"I can't plan my future, I can't go home and I can't work, I feel like I don't have a life here," he said.