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Outlook: Finding freedom in solitary confinement

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Eddy Zheng

19/03/2019 GMT

Finding freedom in solitary confinement

BBC World Service - Outlook, Finding freedom in solitary confinement

Aged 16 Eddy Zheng was sentenced to life in prison but had an awakening behind bars

Eddy Zheng moved to the US from China he was 12-years-old. Four years later he was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and robbery.

When Eddy Zheng was 12 years old his family left China and moved to the US. Eddy spoke no English and struggled at school. He fell in with the wrong crowd and at the age of 16 was arrested after a serious incident where he tied up and robbed a local family. Eddy didn't realise at the time but he had been sentenced to life in prison and became the youngest prisoner at San Quentin State Prison. It was in prison and while spending 11 months in solitary confinement that Eddy started the process of turning his life around.

Yamato is a Japanese Taiko drumming troupe who use their entire bodies to create powerful performances which they tour around the world. Their drumming can be so loud, the vibrations so intense, they once dislodged a filling in a listener's tooth, or at least, so we were told. Outlook's Saskia Edwards went to meet the group, have a go and find out how Yamato began.

Tsering Deki is 20 years old and Nima Gurung is 18. They have endured gruelling physical and emotional journeys, born in different villages in Nepal, they attended the same school in the far away capital, Kathmandu. The school's called Snowland Ranag Light of Education and is a non-profit organisation which takes kids from remote parts of the Himalayas who wouldn't otherwise get a chance to learn.  Most of the children at the school have not seen their families for as long as 12 years. When they graduated, Tsering and Nima made an arduous and lengthy journey across mountains - via the highest inhabited place on the planet - to go back home. Their epic journey was filmed for the documentary Children of the Snowland. 


(Photo: Eddy Zheng. Credit: Samaruddin Kassim)

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