If there is no free speech, every single life has lived in vain

Somehow, we [ Tan Dun and director Chen Kaige] were all privileged at the time; we could be outside of China. But at the moment, we had no sense of what the future was going to be like.

I never had a sense of home.

My childhood was quite extreme. Sometimes I was so weak I could not stand up. But now I am so strong. Life is unpredictable

The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.

China has a rich history that has spanned millennia. It consists of the histories of many nations and regions.

Society becomes very destructive.