“That is a crotch shot!” says Cheng Lei, laughing at my phone’s screensaver. I tell her it’s a picture of my legs but she’s sceptical and laughs even more. You could be forgiven for expecting Cheng, 49, to be serious and sombre: the journalist spent three years and two months in prison in China for an absurd crime. Detained as a spy and kept in isolation for months, she was constantly watched by guards, and did not hear the voices of her two children for years.
But she displays a quick wit, a devilish sense of humour and a relaxed laugh. She switches between analysing the rise of the Ministry of State Security under President Xi Jinping, to laughing about how the ladies in her cell would share a book about male yoga. Let’s just say it was not for the poses.
