After the coronavirus lockdowns, many people left China to make a fresh start abroad, including many young Chinese. Some were already political idealists and took to the streets to protest against the draconian measures. Others felt the realities of the authoritarian state for the first time and applied for student and work visas to take time out. From the outside, they took a look at their own homeland. „The lockdown period was a political awakening for many young Chinese,“ says Kim (name changed), an exchange student living in Berlin who, together with like-minded people, publishes the diaspora magazine Mang Mang (莽莽), which translates roughly as „vast wilderness“.